Sugar Substitutes

Summary: What if you could drink all the soda you wanted and never get fat? To some people-computer programmers, harried editors, every ten year old in the world-this sounds like heaven, while others shudder at the proposition. We can't hear enough about how harmful Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and the like are to our bodies (and, thanks to all the excess caffeine, our minds) these days, and every month it seems like a new diet soda arrives to alleviate those worries while still treating our col...

What if you could drink all the soda you wanted and never get fat? To some people-computer programmers, harried editors, every ten year old in the world-this sounds like heaven, while others shudder at the proposition. We can't hear enough about how harmful Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and the like are to our bodies (and, thanks to all the excess caffeine, our minds) these days, and every month it seems like a new diet soda arrives to alleviate those worries while still treating our collective sweet tooth. Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, those pink Tab cans, Pepsi One, C2, Pepsi Max-it goes on. But even these sodas, designed to appeal to the healthy-minded who can't give up that sweet taste, may have a dark side. A recent study noted a correlation between heavy diet soda consumption and obesity; and while correlation is not causation, there may be some legitimacy to the study's main thrust. People who drink diet soda, the study maintains, are more likely to consume other unhealthy sweet snacks. In essence, you can't "fool" your body by drinking something sweet but light; the body will demand real sweet stuff all the more until its desires are sated. Under Fire This isn't the first time people have taken shots at the Diet market. Saccharin, the first artificial sweetener (famous for its pink packets and presence in soft drink Tab), was dogged by cancer rumors from 1907 until the year 2000, when the U.S. government officially retracted a "flawed" 1970s study which suggested the sweetener caused cancerous tumors in lab rats. Its replacement on the market, Aspartame, fared little better; though legal from 1983 onwards, it has suffered constant criticism as a potential toxin. Even Sucralose, the latest and "safest" pseudo-sugar, is not immune-sure, it doesn't have any negative effects now, but give it a few years