This thread is close to my heart - I have read a lot about it over the years and I do believe that it is a chemical we can do without. We have no idea of the long term effects. We test some chemicals on animals for a period of time, then humans are the guinea pigs for the next 20 years and then we find out that perhaps that chemical wasn't such a great invention.

Mother Nature has spent years getting the food right, I'm sticking with her.

But here is something that I have watched over the years and this is just a logical flow that happens in the body.

When you eat somethig sweet, the tongue says sugar, sends a message to the brain to tell the pancreas to release some insulin - get the sugar out of the blood because more in on the way. The pancreas releases insulin in response tot he sweet taste. It doesn't wait until the stuff gets form your stomach and into your intestines - you know how quick a sugar rush can be. Watch the kids on coke and cake at a party!!

So, the insuling runs through the blood, shepherding the sugar in the cells so that when the new sugar comes through, your body won't suffer sugar overload.....except no sugar comes through. Artificial Sweetner comes through but we have no enzyme to unlock this chemical so it passes out of the body.

Meanwhile, you have no sugar in your blood and your sugar level starts to fall......and suddenly the body is sending messages to the brain to start telling you to eat something with real sugar.......

And you do. The number of people I see with diet coke and then going to buy a mars bar!!!

If you eat more diet product, the cycle gets worse. Which is why people often end up eating more calories in diet food than they would if they ate the real deal.

It is pure logic. This is how your body works. Your brain can't tell sweet sugar from sweet artificial ad this is the same for stevia or xylitol or any of the others.

I worked this out 20 years ago when I studied anatomy as a Radiographer for the first time. It was like a light going on in my brain. I thought that if that is how digestion works, then logically the artificial sweetners must have an impact of sugar levles. Recently I heard on ABC radio a small newsclip about investigations into artificial sweetners upsetting sugar levels and that there was a rethink about whether diabetics should cut back on their consumption.