Are Artificial Sweeteners Dangerous?

Are artificially sweetened products safe? They never tasted quite 'right' to the few times I tried aspartame or sucralose. It was like my food or drink contained something too 'fake'. One day, I came across the website www.aspartamekills.com. I've also read a lot of information on mercola.com that also suggests that artificial sweeteners are dangerous to your health. I won't rehash it all here but have a look at these sites for more information.

If you're suffering from health problems and drink a lot of artificially sweetened diet softdrinks, try going cold turkey for a month. You might be surprised at what you no longer have as symptoms.

If the government has approved it, it's ok. Right? Not necessarily. Last I heard, one popular artificial sweetener is approved in Canada and not in the states and and another is improved in the U.S. but not approved in Canada. Canada and U.S. have similar laws about safety of food and drug products so that's an odd occurence. We also know that many food and other products that were deemed safe many years ago are no longer safe.

I have a relative (in-law) that worked in the lab of a major soft drink corporation when their 'diet' version was just created and didn't go into a lot of detail but told us that anyone who drank that stuff was not doing their bodies any favours.

I know sugar isn't great for you either. In an ideal world, you should avoid sugar as much as possible but in a world where many health problems appear to be arising from the use of artificial sugar substitutes, I'd rather stick to sugar and try to minimize it.

Honey is a great alternative and I've recently read that honey is the only substance that is **completely** used up by your body. Many benefits to honey are readily discussed online.