Re: Artificial Sweeteners

Well, I still believe everything in moderation - there's so much rubbish in our food that it's hard to avoid it. I can be neurotic enough now, I refuse to give up artificial sweeteners in my hot drinks.
I don't drink fizzy drinks, never have, don't drink much squash either, I've got this far in good health so I'll take my chances.
I do read all food labelling and if there's too much mumbo jumbo, I don't buy it.

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

Begin here imo

http://www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk/

You can find suppliers for all kinds of good food inc raw milk suppliers.

Then maybe do a search in here for your area:

http://www.localfoods.org.uk

GL

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

I used to have sugar in tea/coffee and decided to switch to sweeteners when I came to believe refined sugar was essentially poison to your body. I later came to realise that sweeteners are even more harmful. Always had a sweet tooth so what to do?

Ultimately I kicked the habit of sweetening my hot drinks completely but it came accidentally.

What I did was switch from normal tea to other types of tea. Not fruit teas, as I've never liked those. But I tried Green teas, Chai Tea (very nice), Japanese rice tea and so on. I managed this for about 3-4 weeks. Because these were new flavours to my body I had no need to add sugar or sweeteners. However I began to crave my usual cuppas with caffeine. So I made myself a normal cup of tea with milk but with no sugar or sweeteners and was flabaghasted that it tasted great. The restoration of my long awaited cup of tea taste was what my body craved, not the sugar/sweeteners. After that point I never put sugar or sweeteners in my drinks again. That was many years ago.

I would never have thought I could drink tea/coffee without sugars. I was wrong. It's really very easy. The craving we have that tells our mind that we really do need sugars or sweeteners . . . is a lie ! I was being duped. That illusion is now dispelled and I've never looked back.

I will add that I lost a stone in weight very shortly afterward without any effort whatsoever. Sugar really screws with your mind and body.

I recommend you give sugar and sweeteners up for good, but the choice must be yours.

ATB

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

Manufacturers tend not to incur cost unnecessarily, so would not include expensive additives without reason. Our modern shopping habits have encouraged the situation we now have, probably.

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

Realist, I gave up smoking years ago and count calories to keep trim, I also now have given up wheat, barley, most other cereals with gluten, my 3 halves of lager a week and my nightly bedtime malted drink!! - I feel sweetened tea and coffee are my only indulgence so am very reluctant to lose them.
Perhaps I should go back to sugar..

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

Unless anyone has a life threatening allergy to Gluten I can see absolutely no reason to stop eating it in serials or anything else.

The human body extracts useful vitamins, minerals and energy requirements from the food we eat, therefore, the greater the variety of foods that we eat, the better our bodies will develop, thrive and fight infection.

Eating a bad diet is not nearly as harmful as eating a limited diet.
Give your body the tools it needs to survive in this world by not limiting your variety of food.

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

That's a shame, imo you needn't have done that. Barley in particular is very nutritious. What is important here is not the ingredient, but how you prepare it !
Grains used as they are, ground dry into flour and then made into bread that is proofed too quickly, is not good for us. It contains phytic acids which our stomachs find hard to digest and that leads to various ailments/problems for many people.

There are 2 ways to eat grains "properly".

One is to pre-soak them overnight. The soaking breaks down the phytic acid and makes them digestible.

The other is to long ferment them. So when ground into flour and used to make bread, you use small amounts of yeast and bulk ferment the dough for many hours (5-8hrs) or even overnight or over a 24hr period in the fridge. The fermentation again breaks down the phytic acid.

Supermarket bread is bad, fast proofed, and loaded with additives. A good loaf of "artisan" bread is made with only flour, water, yeast and salt and is fermented many hours.

imo, make your own bread and give up the sugars/sweeteners.

Re: Artificial Sweeteners

I have little doubt that Realist is correct in most of his assertions (on this topic anyway - lol).
He has obviously done a great deal of research and presents his case well.

But then ...
My mother is 96 and goes fishing twice a week. Her siblings died at 100, 98 and 97.
During the early part of their lives they, of necessity, ate mostly natural stuff.
But, for the last 50 years or so, they have all been into shop-bought lollies, cakes, biscuits, chips and such - by the ton and
heavily processed canned and packaged stuff loaded to the gunwhales with salt, sugar, additives and whatever.
They've never read a label in their lives and mother totally ignores 'use by' and 'best before' dates.
They all consumed prodigious quantities of booze and a couple of them smoked for most of their lives.


Despite all of this, they've all done pretty well, I'd say.
Which makes me wonder if, just maybe, we are over-reacting ?