6 Sweeteners That Are Probably in Your Pantry

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If your schedule is as busy as mine, you probably don’t make time to check the ingredients every time you stop for a quick snack, order a meal to go, or when you grab your morning latte. Recently, though, a friend sent me a post about the added sweeteners that can be found in a lot of the foods and drinks I’d been having.

Honestly, it made me a little worried. I’m usually conscious about what I consume, but I quickly realized I didn’t know much about most common sweeteners that are added to foods and drinks. Sure, a little bit of sweetness is okay in moderation, but some sweeteners can be bad for your health in some pretty serious ways.

The more I researched, the more added sweeteners I found in my foods. Low-fat foods? Extra sugar! Diet foods? Tons of chemical sweeteners! Canned soups and ready-made sauces? Many of them contain added sweeteners, even though they aren’t “sweet” foods. Goodfood says that a single can of pop “on average, contains the equivalent of seven teaspoons of sugar.”

Bottom line, I had no idea how much added sweetener I was really consuming or what it was doing to my health. Yikes.

So you don’t get stuck with the same sinking feeling I did when I realized my favourite drink was full of the worst sweeteners, I’ve put together a list of the most common sweeteners, both the good and the bad, so you can get a better idea of what you’re putting into your body.

No matter how busy your life gets, it’s worth staying on top of how much of any sweetener you’re putting into your system. In some cases, you should probably cut them out altogether.

Without further ado, check out my list of 6 common sweeteners you should know, from the good, to the bad and the ugly.

Table Sugar.  

This is probably the most commonly used sweetener. Most of us have table sugar in our cupboards for baking or for our morning coffee. According to The Recommended Daily, “Table sugar is just sucrose and calories, plus traces of chemicals utilized in the refining process such as lime, sulphur dioxide, and phosphoric acid.” While table sugar isn’t the worst of the sweeteners, it’s still not great.

There are those chemicals mentioned above, plus the bad bacteria in your body thrive on sugar, which can have a negative impact on your immune system. Table sugar can also increase blood glucose levels and is highly addictive.

Switching to raw cane sugar won’t solve those last two problems, but it does have the advantage of being unrefined and chemical-free, so that makes it a good choice.

There is really no advantage to using refined, white table sugar over a raw organic cane sugar; just remember that the number of calories and the impact on your blood sugar will be the same so moderation is still important.

Trying cutting down on how much sugar you put in your coffee and modify your recipes by cutting the sugar in half and substituting with mashed banana or applesauce.

Aspartame. 

Aspartame is way worse for you than table sugar. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in most diet sodas and foods labeled “low calorie” or “diet”. If you see the brands NutraSweet and Equal, those are aspartame brands.According to Dr. Mercola, “aspartame is made up of three chemicals: aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. […] Aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in the brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Too much aspartate or glutamate in the brain kills certain neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into the cells.”

While it’s pretty difficult to overdose on aspartame to that point, as you can drink almost 16 cans of soda without issue, it does have other problems.“

“Research has shown that drinking diet pop can actually increase the likelihood a person will overeat and gain weight, and can increase your risk of developing diabetes,” reports the Globe and Mail. “Sweeteners like aspartame – which is about 200 times sweeter than sugar – can also confuse the body’s responses. When you consume sweets, the body expects calories to follow; but sweeteners don’t deliver the payoff.

That can actually lead to seeking out more sweets. Many big diet-drink consumers describe themselves as having an insatiable sweet tooth and that is borne out in observational studies.”

Raw honey. 

This is one of the ‘good’ sweeteners out there. Not only is it delicious, but it can actually be good for you, unlike most sweeteners. Unfortunately, not many companies use it to sweeten their products so it’s really only an option when you’re sweetening things yourself.

Raw honey is different than most store-bought honey, which is usually pasteurized. The pasteurization (heating at high temperatures) destroys a lof the beneficial nutrition.  According to Huffpost, raw honey “contains oligosaccharides (a prebiotic that feeds gut flora) as well as small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and polyphenols.”

While those nutrients may be good for you, honey is still sugar and to some extent, sugar is sugar. What that means is that, just like raw cane sugar, honey is high in calories and it causes an insulin spike when it hits your bloodstream. Too many big insulin spikes over time can be hard on your pancreas.

Stevia.

What’s great about stevia is that it’s a natural, safe and relatively healthy sweetener. Thrillist says stevia is more than 200 times sweeter than sugar and comes from the stevia rebaudiana plant.

What’s great about stevia, is that it doesn’t cause your insulin levels to spike and it’s also zero-calorie. For the most part, stevia is consumed in extract form or a refined version of the sweet parts of the plant.

Generally, the conversations surrounding whether stevia is good or bad for you are pretty split, mostly because not enough research has been done. Some sources, like Wellness Mama , note that while pure, unrefined stevia is natural, “modern forms of stevia based sweeteners are powdered and processed. In fact, popular powdered stevia sweeteners go through dozens of steps during processing from bleaching to chemical alteration.”

Does that matter? Processed stevia hasn’t been studied enough, in comparison to sweeteners like aspartame, to make any definitive claims one way or another. Most anecdotal evidence points in a more positive direction. Some sources, like Healthline, even credit stevia with the potential ability to lower blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

A word of caution: if you are on blood pressure-reducing drugs you should not use stevia as it can cause low blood pressure.

Sucralose. 

Sucralose is a very common artificial sweetener often used as a substitute for sugar in beverages and baking.

Sucralose is most commonly sold under the brand name Splenda and is on my sweeteners-to-avoid list. According to OrganicLife, “It’s processed using chlorine, and researchers are finding that the artificial sweetener is passing through our bodies and winding up in wastewater treatment plants, where it can’t be broken down.”Sucralose is a zero-calorie sweetener but has been found in some studies to have negative effects on overall health. According to Prevention, a study done on rats at North Carolina State University demonstrated that sucralose may reduce good gut bacteria levels, release toxins into your system and alter insulin responses and blood sugar levels.

If you spot sucralose on an ingredients list, it’s probably best to shy away from it.

Coconut sugar. 

Coconut sugar is a bit newer on the mainstream sweetener scene. If it’s trendy, I’m usually all over it and coconut sugar is definitely the new sweetener trend. How does it stack up, though, to stevia for example?

Coconut sugar actually has quite a bit of good going on. According to an article on Huffpost, coconut sugar, “has impressive amounts of nutrients like zinc and iron as well as antioxidants. Coconut sugar also contains good amounts of inulin, a type of dietary fiber you don’t digest in your upper gastrointestinal tract. Instead, inulin acts as a prebiotic, feeding your intestinal bifidobacteria (a probiotic).”

There are negatives when it comes to coconut sugar as a sweetener, though. Huffpost also says that just like table sugar, coconut sugar has equal amounts of fructose and glucose. “In other words, about 78 percent — over three-fourths — of coconut sugar is actually sugar, compared with 100 percent of table sugar. (Nutrients, inulin, and antioxidants constitute coconut sugar’s other 22 percent.)”

It’s like I said — sugar is sugar. While coconut sugar has more benefits than regular table sugar, it still does impact your blood sugar levels and can impact your liver and pancreas negatively, which stevia doesn’t.

Choosing a sweetener

Trust me when I say, this list is not exhaustive. These are just the most common ones. As far as the sweeteners here, stevia is my pick for the best option. However, it still isn’t my absolute favorite.

My #1? Xylitol.

I first learned about this natural sweetener right here on the Activation blog (from this post). The AP Team has a great bonus that explains it in detail so I have posted that again here.

If you’re interested in learning more about how sugar affects your body and for tips on cutting down, check out AP’s helpful How & Why to Cut Sugar Out of Your Diet blog post.

Guest Blogger: Veronica Taylor

Veronica is a 39-year-old entrepreneur living in New York City. Veronica has a passion for staying fit and healthy despite her busy schedule. She loves to share her quick tips and tricks when it comes to natural beauty, health trends and fitness. Veronica lives by the motto that no matter how busy you are, there’s always time to take care of yourself. Her favorite Activation Products include Amaranth Oil, Black Cumin Oil and EASE Deep Soak.

Related Links

https://draxe.com/nutrition/natural-sweeteners/
http://www.foodandwine.com/desserts/your-guide-to-the-most-popular-artificial-sweeteners
https://smartypantsvitamins.com/organic-cane-sugar-vs-other-sweeteners-how-they-measure-up-part-1/
https://www.mybeeline.co/en/p/raw-honey-vs-regular-honey-difference
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stevia#section5
https://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/health-risks-sucralose
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jj-virgin/coconut-sugar-healthier-s_b_5669084.html

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