A Week Without Artificial Sweeteners

It’s another food one!  This week, I’m going A Week Without…Artificial Sweeteners.

This one came out of the reaction I was having to drinking pop.  Frappucino doesn’t seem to affect me, so that could rule out caffeine.  Carbonation from our homemade pop machine doesn’t always affect me, either.  I had a bad reaction last night after a very healthy dinner at my parents’ house, so I’m suspicious of the Splenda that my mom put on the fresh strawberries for dessert.  I Googled it, and found several articles like this one.  Could aspartame or Splenda could be the cause??

At home, I’ve got:

-          Honey

-          Sucralose (generic brand Splenda)

-          Simple syrup

-          Agave syrup

-          Stevia drops

-          Brown sugar

-          Truvia

…notice that white, granular sugar is not on that list.  Weird.  In all honesty, I don’t USE a lot of these – unless I’m baking cookies or something.  That’s why they’ve kind of piled up!  Ben & I may have to do an experiment after this week to see if I have a reaction to each of these J

Most of the artificial sweeteners in my diet come from processed foods that I buy (e.g. Coke Zero).  That’s why it was tricky finding a grab-and-go breakfast at Walgreens this morning.  Pop tarts?  No.  Egg McMuffin?  No.  Donut?  No.  Ashamed of my recent breakfast habits?  Yes.

“But Nikki, why didn’t you cook a healthy breakfast at home?”

That’s my plan tonight – to make-ahead a breakfast casserole that I can eat all week.

“Why didn’t you just grab a piece of fruit?”

Why didn’t you….shut up?  (no good excuse here.)

Here’s what I found, which only lists “sugar” and “brown sugar syrup” as sweetening ingredients.

Here’s hoping my week is a sweet one!