I have been trying to reduce the amount of sugar I ingest by switching over to the alternatives because I don’t want to have to give up the things I love just to lose a few pounds. Early on I tried NutraSweet products, which have aspartame in them, and like most of my family, if I eat or drink too many things with aspartame, I begin to get really bad headaches, sometimes to the point of migraines, and so I couldn’t really continue to punish myself that way, so I went back to the regular juices that didn’t have any additional sugar added. It was my happy medium. Then I heard about Nestea’s Splenda drinks that didn’t use aspartame, but instead sweetened using real sugar that was changed so that it had the sweetening effect, without the bad side effects of real sugar.

I couldn’t buy the Splenda drinks fast enough, and what happened? I started getting head aches again, and oddly enough, I started feeling a little more negative and lethargic, at first I thought it was the weather, but after a while, it didn’t make sense.

I looked up what Splenda actually is, and really it is sucralose. Sucralose is a chlorinated sucrose derivative used as an artificial sweetener. I looked up sucralose side effects, and what did I find? A whole list of sites, blogs, medical journals, news paper articles all saying the same thing: sucralose may have side effects!

Those side effects include:

  • bloating
  • abdominal pain
  • gas, sometimes painful
  • nausea
  • heartburn
  • diarrhea
  • headaches
  • migraines (severe headaches)
  • heart palpitations (fluttering, irregular heartbeats)
  • shortness of breath
  • depression
  • anxiety and panic attacks
  • spaced-out or drugged sensation
  • dizziness

So we live in a world where the real sugar makes you fat, and the fake sugar, if you are sensitive to it, can cause you a whole world of pain and issues.

What is someone like me, with nearly no will power, supposed to do? I am addicted to the sweet flavours of Barq’s Root Beer and other drinks, but the low calorie, no sugar products give me head aches and cause mild depression.

And before you say, just drink more water, I have tried that in the past. My cravings get to the point where I binge drink on Coke Cola or Barq’s Root Beer, and that is never good. Are there low sugar juices that don’t make use of all this chemical crap, that are still good to drink? Are the natural sugars in regular juice so bad that I should be avoiding them?

If you have experience in any of these issues, please let me know.