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Comment by sfjailbird

Just some anecdata: I have followed a disciplined keto diet for two-and-a-half years. I eat close to no carbs (apart from fiber). I do, however, like sweet stuff, so I use artificial sweeteners. Lots of them, every day. A mix of stevia, aspartame, sugar alcohols like erythritol, and so on.

I have never had an issue with them (that I am able to notice, of course, not saying they can't have some hidden harmful effects). For those saying that they are a slippery slide to eating more real sugar, I don't think so. At this point I recoil at eating anything with real sugar. It is overwhelmingly sweet, it almost burns in the mouth, and later I get bloated and retain water. I believe this is one of the criticisms of artificial sweeteners - that it lowers your ability to clear blood sugar, since you're just not used to having to produce a lot of insulin at one time. Well I don't actually want to eat a lot of sugar ever, so I'm okay with that.

I'm almost certain that artificial sweeteners have some bad effects somehow, but the bad effects of sugar are plentiful and obvious, so for now the trade-off makes sense, to me.

parent sfjailbird 3 years ago

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