Sugar has been a part of mankind for centuries. While consumption of sugar was controlled in the last century, the past few decades people have been consuming colossal amounts of sugar. Can’t blame people, sweet stuff tastes great. But too much sugar is not good for health. One can readily see the effects of too much sugar in our society- obesity is rampant in North America and rest of the Globe. So now some people have changed to using artificial sweeteners sometimes called low calories sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners have one big difference compared to sugar- no or very few calories.

Artificial sweeteners are either natural substances or synthetic but are much sweeter than sugar. Since they are very sweeter, only a tiny amount is required to generate the same measure of sweetness.
There are a lot of people who use artificial sweeteners as part of their weight loss plan. Many diabetics also use artificial sweeteners because the substance makes food sweet without raising blood sugar levels. However, this does not apply to sugar-free milk products like yogurt which can increase blood sugars based on the carbohydrate in the food.

There are many foods tagged as sugar free and these often include artificial sweeteners like sorbitol or Mannitol. Both these sweeteners contain a fair number of calories and can rapidly increase blood sugar. One should also be aware that many sugar substitutes contain a lot of calories that may make it difficult to control blood sugars or lose weight.

In the USA, the following artificial sweeteners have been approved for use in a variety of foods and include aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame and sucralose. The FDA has established an acceptable daily intake for each of these sweeteners. The ADI levels are in general many times less than the least amount that may cause health fears.