Originally Posted by andrelam

So far there is no clear indicator that articial "sugar" is bad for everyone. I can definitely have a sweet tooth, however I do try to keep that under control. Personally I try to avoid refined sugar as much as possible. My biggest weekness is for good black liquorice. Growing up in Holland "dropjes" are just a part of life. Since getting good liquorice is expensive to order or else requires a trip to Holland I am limited in what I can consume. Otherwise I am pretty descent about keeping losts of cookies and other sweats out of the house so that I am not tempted.

Since every sugar substitute that I've tried tastes nasty to me I will NOT buy a product if it has artificial sweetners in it. I also have friends (a mother and a daughter) were both have a sensativity to artificial sweetners. Once they stopped using artificial sweetners their migrain headaches dropped by over 90%. Neither one of the friends is willing to go back and try the various artificial sweetners to see which one(s) will triggering the migrains,... they are far to happy to be mostly rid of them.

I still love my Pepsi, but now I only buy cans and strictly limit myself to one can per day. I enjoy eating to much that I am NOT going to consume lots of liquid calories. I don't want to have to starve myself because I drank a bunch of extra sode/pop and therefore consumed all my calories and carbs for the day. Thankfully I realy like water, so drinking a 24 oz bottle in the morning and an other one in the afternoon is no problem. I also drink an other 24 to 36 oz of water after I get home after work. I also enjoy a nice cup of tea. Thanks to my upbringing I was never allowed to tea with sugar and therefore like it very much plain. My Mom did alway serve the tea with a cookie, usually a tradition Dutch "Marietje" so Mom was not against having a little suger in our life, but just figured tea tasts just nice all on its own.

Therefore my big belief is in moderation. My personal avoidance of artificial sweetners is purely because I can't stand the taste. I'll take one nice cookie over 10 that taste nasty.

Happy riding,
André