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Artificial sweeteners, spice, and everything nice.

2007-11-08 - 2:07 p.m.

I know there are a lot of diet Coke drinkers out there in my blogosphere, so I hope you guys don�t take today�s entry personally, but today�s entry is about artificial sweetners, the evil of.

I had J pick me up a Happy Meal for lunch the other day. Hey, I was sick and the bland, greasy, salty combo that is a Mickey D�s fries and burger is one of my preferred comfort foods. This particular meal�s theme was centered around the Bee Movie coming out. Fine. We got the �under 3� toy for Grommet, and a nifty box which she happily demolished. In said box, however, was a honey-flavoured �Sipahh� straw. Hunh, I thought to myself, kinda neat I suppose. Then I noticed it was sweetened with sucralose.

That�s right, a product aimed at children, put right into a children�s meal, that has artificial sweetener in it.

Now, I myself don�t even believe in artificial sweeteners for adults who are not diabetic. If I want less sugar I�ll drink more water and eat less sweet food. If I want my kids to consume less sugar I�ll have them do the same. To take what essentially makes food food out, and substitute artificial chemicals instead seems just plain wrong to me. And over the years I�ve stuck with �real food� instead of substitutes (for example, I�ve never gone with margarine over butter) and I�ve never regretted it and the science has usually come along eventually that backed me up.

I don�t want my kids to become used to the taste of highly-sweet foods or drinks. I don�t want them to think that�s how things should taste. We�ve all heard of the studies that show that use of artificial sweeteners do not help people lose weight because the body starts to lose its ability to judge the calories in an item based on its sweetness, so they end up taking in more calories from other sources � that�s not a trend I want to start in my kids. But it�s not just that that gives me pause�

When I became pregnant with Grommet, my doctor told me not to take Advil � Tylenol was the only pain medication allowed � because it hadn�t been around long enough to know what the long-term effects might be on a developing fetus. Seems to me that artificial sweeteners � some of which come from coal-tar, believe it or not � fit that same bill. I don�t even chew gum with artificial sweeteners when I�m pregnant.

And there�s something a lot of people seem to forget: children need calories. They need fat for healthy brain development and they need carbohydrates to fuel all the running around they do. The calories should be consumed via foods that also provide other nutritional benefits � empty calories are good for no one � but you can�t put them on a low-fat, low-calorie diet and expect them to thrive.

I know that obesity in both adults and children is becoming a global problem. I cannot, however, support using artificial sweeteners as a tool to try to combat this, particularly in children. My job as a parent is to do what�s best for my kid: not what they like, not what would make me �fun� or �popular�, but what�s actually best for them. To me this includes giving them healthy food and teaching them to actually enjoy food that is good for them.

Granted, Grommet does not eat enough vegetables, but we�re working on that. She�s not two yet and doesn�t have the reasoning power to think �I might not like this much, but I�m going to eat it because it�s good for me.� So, what I can do as a parent is continue to present her with healthy options and try to teach her to make good nutritional choices. She still doesn�t get cookies or candy or chocolate, but even when the day comes that I allow her to have this stuff, I will never give her artificial sweeteners (barring, of course, her becoming diabetic). I don�t think it�s right and I really believe it is immoral to market these products with children as the target consumer.

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