A hundred years ago, our great grandparents ate foods that were farmed, or grown in the fields. Now, sadly, the majority of the foods available in the supermarket, are produced in factories, highly processed and made using ingredients that would have been unheard of a few generations ago. I would argue that our relatives were far healthier too.

The trend for the last 40 years plus has been for low fat foods. When the fat is removed, so much of the flavour disappears too, so sugar or sweeteners are added to help with the flavour; but this still can be classified as low fat. Which of course is good for us, isn’t it?

The general consensus would say that there is nothing wrong with sweeteners, that they are zero calories, so what is the issue?

Think about what happens to your body when you eat something sweet, this includes sweeteners. Your tongue registers that sweet taste, and then your pancreas is signalled to produce insulin to process that sugar, to try to keep our blood glucose level stable.

But sweeteners aren’t sugar, so they do not put up our blood glucose, this insulin spike is not needed by the body, but it still occurs. This is just one of the ways our body becomes insulin resistant. Insulin insensitivity is one of the many markers of metabolic syndrome. Below is a list of ingredients copied from a supermarket own brand sweetener. Apart from the issues relating to metabolic dysfunction, I now believe that eating anything that was created in a laboratory, and the requirement for a chemistry degree to understand what it is, is not good for my body.

INGREDIENTS: Sweeteners (Sodium Cyclamate, Sodium Saccharin), Acidity Regulators (Sodium Bicarbonate, Trisodium Citrate).

Yes, there are no calories, but how are these ingredients impacting on our bodies? How are they affecting our hormones such as insulin, cortisol, leptin and ghrelin. (Leptin and ghrelin are the satiety and hunger hormones in our body) So many of us now are desensitised to our own hormone signalling. We struggle to understand when we are truly hungry, and to be able to stop eating when we are full. Between this and what I now understand to be my sugar and processed food addiction, it’s not surprising that I have struggled to be a healthy weight for so many years.

I know now that zero calorie doesn’t mean something is good for me, and high fat doesn’t mean it is bad for me. It is the ingredients, and how they will impact on my hormones that is important. As ever, this is not medical advice in any way, just me sharing what has helped me, as it might help you too.

Jen x