Stevia
Stevia is a natural substance derived from the leaves of the plant species Stevia Rebaudiana, which grows in Paraguay and Brazil. The genus was named for the Spanish botanist and physician Pedro Jaime Esteve (1500–1556) a professor of botany at the University of Valencia. The plant has been used for more than 1500 years to sweeten local teas and medicines, by the Guaraní peoples of South America, who called it ka'a he'ê ("sweet herb").
During the 1990s, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received two petitions requesting that stevia be classified as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), but the FDA refused the petitions on the basis that not enough research had been conducted.
When the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act was introduced in 1994, the FDA revised its stance and permitted stevia to be used as a dietary supplement, although still not as a food additive.
It wasn’t until December 2008 that the FDA granted GRAS status to Truvia and PureVia, both of which use rebaudioside, derived from the Stevia Rebaudiana plant. However, the FDA said that these products are not stevia, but a highly purified Stevia Rebaudiana extract.
Splenda, one of the most popular sweetener brands in the US, uses stevia and even produces a stevia-only product.
In 2015, the FDA still regarded stevia as "not an approved food additive," and stated that it "has not been affirmed as GRAS in the United States due to inadequate toxicological information."
Currently, only the purified form of stevia, called stevioside, is approved by the FDA as safe to use. Products considered safe contain words in their ingredient list such as “stevia extract” or “Stevia Rebaudiana.”
If you see whole stevia leaves or crude stevia extracts at your local natural foods store, or in ingredients lists, you shouldn’t buy them. The FDA still says that it doesn’t have enough information about stevia’s potential impact on health to approve these forms as safe for consumption.
Aspartame
Aspartame, we’ve all heard of it by now. From diet sodas, Equal packets, chewing gum, gelatin, and even gummy vitamins, aspartame seems to be present in most sweet low or no calorie foods.
Aspartame is a substance that tastes sweet but doesn't contain natural sugars or any calories if used in small amounts, which it usually is, as aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. It is made of two building blocks of proteins (essential amino acids) used in producing neurotransmitters tyrosine, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine: aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Therefore, it is considered a “safe sweetener” by the FDA, in small quantities.
On paper, aspartame looks like a good low calorie, low sugar alternative to sucrose, which interests many who are calorie counting or attempting to lose weight. But if consumed in large amounts or regularly, it could pose major risks to your health.
It has been said that aspartame can boost your metabolism, offering results towards weight loss. However, some studies have found that consuming aspartame can slow down your metabolism, thus leading to weight gain even if fewer calories were consumed. This seesaw of information had been swaying until a study, conducted by Yale in 2020, found that consuming a low-calorie sweetener was not, by itself, responsible for slowing metabolism. However, when combined with other carbohydrates, or fats, the consumption of the non-sucrose sweetener did lead to a significant drop in metabolic rate.
Your own brain could also be tricking you into choosing aspartame as a “healthy” option. Harvard Health Publishing theorizes that use of artificial sweeteners may make you feel as though you can indulge in other treats since you're saving calories elsewhere, leading to overconsumption of calories. Additionally, artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, provide sweetness without providing the body with energy, which stimulates appetite. Sweet tastes typically signal to the body that food is entering. The body then expects to receive calories and signals when eating should stop by making a person feel full or satiated. A person experiences the same sweet taste when they consume sweeteners, but the body receives fewer calories than it might otherwise expect. If this happens regularly, according to the theory, the body unlearns the association between sweet tastes and calories. This reversal means that high calorie foods will no longer trigger feelings of fullness leading to frequent binging and overeating.
So as a weight loss quick fix, aspartame will probably not provide desired results. Along with weight loss myths, Aspartame has been linked to multiple health issues.
A group of Italian researchers studied aspartame’s effect on rats, which suggested it might increase the risk of some blood-related cancers like leukemias and lymphomas. However, the results of these group studies of possible links between aspartame and cancer have not been consistent, sometimes confirming or denying the link between cancer and aspartame. As of right now, the FDA and EFSA agree that studies done so far have not found such a link for the majority of people. But, there are always exceptions, especially if the consumption of aspartame is consistent and frequent.
As mentioned before, aspartame is made of amino acids, one being phenylalanine, which plays an integral role in the structure and function of proteins and enzymes and the production of other amino acids. However, it can also cause anxiety, restlessness, and hyperactivity, especially in children. Although phenylalanine is mostly well-tolerated, it can also cause nausea, headaches, and heartburn in high doses.
Using aspartame as a meal replacement or even consistently could have extremely negative impacts on your body and health. Now, you don’t have to cut it out completely, we all enjoy a good diet coke with our burger, or some ice creams that contain it, but in most cases you are better opting for sugar or a different low calorie sweetener like stevia rather than aspartame.
Erythritol is a zero-calorie sweetener commonly found in items like sugar-free ice cream, candy, gum, cookies, cakes, protein bars and fruit spreads. It can also be bought as a powder to add to drinks or use in baking.
Erythritol was discovered in 1848 by Scottish chemist John Stenhouse and first isolated in 1852. In 1950 it was found in blackstrap molasses that was fermented by yeast, and Japanese companies pioneered the commercial development of erythritol as a sweetener in the 1990s.
Truvia, Pepsi’s stevia product, also contains erythritol
Erythritol is an organic compound that actually occurs naturally in some fruit and fermented foods, as well as in human bodily fluids, such as eye lens tissue, serum, plasma, fetal fluid, and urine. Because of this, it is often marketed as a “natural” sweetener. It has no effect on blood sugar or blood insulin levels and does not cause tooth decay. However, when used as a sweetener in processed foods, it’s usually added in quantities more than one thousand times higher than any amount that would ever occur naturally in either foods or the human body.
As with anything being out of balance in this way, raised levels of erythritol can impact human health. A NIH-funded study published in 2023 and led by Dr. Stanley Hazen at the Cleveland Clinic found that raised erythritol led to blood clots, which in turn increased risk of heart attacks. The study also showed that drinking one erythritol-sweetened beverage led erythritol levels in the blood to increase to more than 1000 times their usual, and to remain increased for several days afterwards. Erythritol levels in the blood remained high enough to trigger clots for up to two days.
Vitamin Water Zero, made by the Coca-Cola Company, contains erythritol
So how do you avoid erythritol? Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.
The FDA categorizes erythritol as “GRAS” (Generally Recognized as Safe) because it’s a naturally occurring compound. This means that long-term safety studies have not been required, and food companies don’t even have to list it on their nutrition labels. The safest approach is to avoid anything that claims to be “sugar free,” “low sugar” or artificially sweetened.
Stevia, which claims to be the “number one brand recommended by doctors and dietitians” contains erythritol