You’re presented with a diet drink and told: “drink this one and lose weight!” – this is brilliant if you’re a diabetic as it does not contain any sugar, but what about the artificial sweetners? How good for you are they?
In studies done on animals, those that were fed artificially sweetened drinks were found to consume three times more calories than those that didn’t have any sweeteners in their drinks. These results suggest that artificial sweeteners may interfere with your body’s natural ability to estimate calorie intake and increase the tendency to overeat. In fact research done by The American Cancer Society showed that persons using artificial sweeteners actually put on more weight than those who don’t. So consuming artificial sweeteners might actually cause an increase in calorie intake rather than the promised opposite! And it is also interesting to note that despite all the low-cal drinks being drunk by the gallon, people are steadily putting weight on in the Western world.
Artificial sweeteners also have many unpleasant side effects, which we don’t even want to go into – but they are there in their abundance on Google if you fancy a horrifying read!
In short, we believe a common sense approach to take with food is to consider how messed around with it is. Our bodies are designed to deal with natural chemical compositions found in nature; it recognises these and can either use or excrete them. So love your body and give it all things natural, untampered with and full-fat! Balance it with some exercise and movement and you will have a very happy tummy and heart.