The truth about sweeteners: are they healthy or harmful?
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Sugar analogs became popular in the 90s. Do you remember the little boxes from which a small sweet pill flew into your tea when you pressed a button? Such products were mainly used by diabetics and people who wanted to lose weight. Nowadays, many sugar substitutes and sweeteners are used in the food industry, pharmaceuticals, and nutrition.
They are used, as a rule, to satisfy the need for sweets by sweetening food and drinks. They are an "outlet" for those who have to limit themselves to sweets or when they cannot consume sugar for medical reasons.
Currently, the stevia plant (honey grass) is widely used as a natural sweetener. Stevia is approved as a sugar substitute by WHO experts.
The plant synthesizes stevioside, a glycoside that gives the leaves and stem a sweet flavor. The dried plant is 20 times sweeter than sugar, and the concentrated stevioside isolated from it is 300 times sweeter. Stevia contains practically no calories. Green leaves contain only 18 kcal, and stevia extract has no calories.
It can be added to ready meals or used in cooking. Stevia is safe and can be used in baby food. It can be a healthy alternative to table sugar, but only if consumed in moderation. Even the most useful substance in excessive amounts can cause trouble to the body.
It should be remembered that it is safe to use stevia in diabetes, but it is not a cure for the disease, it is not a remedy.
It is also important to understand that sweeteners or sugar substitutes will not relieve you of your sugar cravings, and may even increase them. Feeling pleasure but not receiving glucose, the body experiences carbohydrate starvation, and in response, appetite increases markedly. As a result, calories are "picked up" by other foods. Therefore, simply using sweeteners or sugar substitutes cannot solve the problem of losing weight.