Tip #11 Sugar substitutes away!

Today was C-C-CRAZY. So at 2pm when we ended up at Fred Meyer and we still had 2 errands to run, I decided (yet again) that a chocolate milk was in order for a quick snack (this 3rd kid is really messing with my schedule!). I snagged a 4 pack of Nestle's Nesquik bottles- the girls manage bottles better than cartons in their car seats and the 4 pack was cheaper than individual bottles. The label touted "only 100 calories" and I thought "hmmm, must be small bottles" because 100 calories does not seem like much chocolate milk but I did not look closely at them (baby in stroller was threatening to cry). Back in the car: one swig and I suspected something else entirely- fake sweetness. Sure enough, while trying not to veer in to oncoming traffic I read "aspartame" in the ingredients list. Ugggg! The sweetener I hate the MOST because I can taste it the most. I don't like artificial sweeteners. I realize that studies have been done showing you pretty much have to drink the equivalent of 500 diet cokes a day to make them harmful to you, but I still don't trust them. My friend just asked my opinion of an article she had read on artificial sweeteners. I fully agree with the opinions in the article and it was written by an RD- HERE is the link to it. I also realize that Nestle's probably has plenty of chocolate milk without aspartame in it, just watch for "low calorie" or "no added sugar" on products that are sweet- they should have sugar and sugar has calories!
While I was at Fred Meyer I also picked up some soda- Hansen's brand that uses cane sugar as its sweetener. If we drink soda, we try and not drink high fructose corn syrup either. It's structurally a little different than sugar (55% fructose 45% glucose instead of 50/50 that natural sweeteners are), therefore- I don't trust it either. This tip winds down to - if it's not natural, don't trust it. I love that commercial for MiO- they show a perfectly good glass of water and then someone squirting in a plume of bright purple, red or orange- the whole product screams "ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING, COLORING AND SWEETENERS!!" and that's all it is. Yuck.
~Here's to Healthy Eating