Just wondering what thoughts there are on artificial sweeteners, mostly things like sugar free drinks. How many use them sometimes? What do you think of them?

I am getting a real hard time from some family members for even thinking of drinking something so bad! I very rarely have anything like that but would like to be able to occasionally as a treat when others are drinking fizzy etc but been told its extremely bad.

I have the odd drink of diet ginger beer, don't have a problem with it in moderation

Ive been drinking sugar free/artificially sweetened drinks and foods for 20 odd years and really?I dont have much of a choice if I want something more then water or cordial.. everything in moderation!:)

It is debateable as to who is harming themselves more us by drinking diet soft drinks or those drinking sugar choked drinks.

By drinking Sprite Zero for me and DW Coke Zero we are saving the Funeral Director work by pre Formaldehyding ourselves, we may even get a reduced rate who knows.

LOL, love the way you put it!

Thats what I think too, I don't have much just occasionally and I feel with so many so called 'bad' things out there whose to say what I have is worse than what they do.

Thanks, its nice to know I'm not quite so bad as I'm told.

You can make your own fancy spritzers with reduced sugar so you have something a bit different. I made a rhubarb and rosemary one recently, reduced the sugar by half.... will find recipe.

No added sugar blackcurrant syrup with soda water is good.

Plain ole water with lemon or lime in it, fresh not cordial, once you get used to the taste is very refreshing. I drink that all the time now.

Iced teas, diluting cold unsweetened black tea with fruit juice.

I love Soda with a twist, its lower in sugar so needs to be limited in quantity but its better than lemonade.

Once you get used to drinking low sugar drinks regular tastes like syrup, which it pretty much is when you look at the sugar content.

Rosemary Lemon Rhubarb Spritzer Recipe
INGREDIENTS
1 pound rhubarb, cleaned, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch slices
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar - (I reduced to 3/4 cup but could easily reduce to 1/2)
3 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 cup lemon juice
Soda water or carbonated water
METHOD
1 Put rhubarb pieces, water, sugar, and rosemary leaves into a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Rhubarb pieces will disintegrate.
2 Remove from heat. Strain out the solids with a fine mesh strainer. Add lemon juice. If too sweet for taste, add a little more lemon juice. Chill until ready to serve.
3 To serve, fill a quarter to a half of the glass with the lemon, rhubarb, rosemary syrup, and the rest with soda water.
Makes about 3 cups of syrup, and 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of spritzer.



The fact the recipe says if too sweet for taste tells me they have added too much right at the start.

Thanks, that sounds like something my husband would like.

I do use herbal teas and black tea, have cut the fruit juice right out for now though as it is too much for me but that is what I used to drink mostly, I have never been into really sweet drinks but did drink them when my husband brought them for me.

And I definately love my fresh lemon in water, lol, we all do here have 1 lemon tree and waiting for 2 new ones we planted last year to be big enough to produce.

I have found a new favorite yesterday though, someone introduced me to tomato juice, which the brand we had was very low carb/sugar and I quite liked it and it didn't seem to affect my sugar levels either which was good.

Off course any thing labelled "No Added Sugar" is not necessarily low sugar content - it generally means that there is heaps on natural sugar already, so the manufacturer has refrained from shoving another shovelful in.

That's probably a wide overstatement, Bryan, unless you are dinking 4 or 5 litres per day every day. Personally, between DW and myself, our soft drink budget annually I suspect would be somewhere in the $20 range, a 2 litre bottle once per month.

Unless you are one of those paranoid about aspertame, you could probably well exceed what we consume and still be very safe.

If you are worried about too much Formaldehyde in your diet, Stay away from Wonderbread and Dempster's, they NEVER go moldy.

Happy day, Gus

We probably consume on average consume 2.25 litres each per day during Summer, (WHICH HAS YET TO ARRIVE).

I am inclined to agree with you on te preservative issue in some breads.

DW has dropped the Coke Zero from her diet and improved her blood pressure issues dropping from top figure of 130 down to 110.Caffeine withdrawal has been a bit of an issue tho.

I retract my earlier quote..... I don't even drink that much water in summer heat. We will maybe drink a 2 litre Coke Zero and a Diet Orange Crush in a month to six weeks. Once it's opened the carbonation starts to disappear and we lose interest in it from then on.

Gus

Don't complain about the crappy NZ weather. Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain!

At 70 and 72 respectively the sight is not to be hold believe me.

I mainly drink WATER and green tea, I have some diet ginger beer in the fridge, been there since before Christmas so guess I would only have one 300ml bottle every 6 months or so.

Glad to see your glass is half full there Tatts !

You rock Girl!, Gus

LOL about the NZ weather right now, my kids are complaining that its been so wet all holidays they couldn't do much and now it gets really hot and fine when they have to go back to school next week.

I have been buying 1 - 2 1.5 L bottles of sugar free ginger ale a week lately but when the weather is cold in winter probably stick to tea more. Was worried that was far too much but am happy with it.

Hi 7,

I think you redeemed yourself when you say you switch to tea in the winter. Soft drinks can truly be addictive (one of my clients averages 6 cans per day of regular Coke, not diabetic BTW), and I would call him truly addicted as he is consistent in his consumption all year long.

Happy day, Gus

LOL, ok, no have never really been into it mostly had fruit juice or tea but couldn't have fruit juice anymore and wanted something else. Normally would be lucky if I had 1 bottle a month but as its been hot the last 2 weeks or so have brought the 1 - 2 bottles, have to admit though with kids around I haven't got to drink it all myself either! hahaha. I have known people addicted to it though.