Personally I cannot STAND the taste of any of the artificial sweeteners, I don’t care how “natural” they may be. They all have a weird metallic sort of aftertaste, and an almost ammonia effect on my sinuses. It’s odd and unpleasant, and I’m not describing it well. Do Not Like is what it boils down to, though.
What say you?
Love the stuff, things taste better with it!
Meh, I can’t really tell the difference from regular sweeteners.
It’s pretty bad, but I consume it anyway to reduce my sugar intake.
It’s beyond awful and I avoid it like the plague.
No bacon or pie for you! (In other words, something else)
You clearly mean non-sugar sweeteners (maybe you allow honey in the hallowed camp of “not artificial”), because there is nothing artificial about stevia extract combined with dextrose, which is what I use. Sugar is addictive, you know, so poisoning the well against any alternative to sugar is not a nice thing to do.
I used to hate the taste of them, but now I don’t mind them in certain things. I actually somewhat like the taste of diet soda and the zero calorie energy drinks. Also, protein powder is fine with artificial sweeteners.
Other than than those things, I don’t particularly like them. I made the mistake of getting things that advertised “no sugar added” a few times, only to find that it meant that it used artificial sweeteners instead. This seemed to happen the most with fruit. Several years ago, I made the mistake of getting artificially-sweetened dried cranberries and making oatmeal with them. It didn’t turn out well. I guess I find artificial sweeteners sickly-sweet and mixing that with other forms of sugar tastes bad to me.
Cutting back on carbs has been tough. But I’ve found that stevia on my (whole grain) breakfast cereal is utterly indistinguishable from sugar. Thank god, I’d have a hard time eating shredded wheat or wheetabix without SOMEthing on it.
The other stuff isn’t as bad for you as large quantities of sugar. I also agree that sugar is addictive, which I know from first hand experience. The problem is all the other stuff tastes nasty, even naturally occurring stuff like stevia and monkfruit. I refer to those derisively as fake sweeteners that just happen to occur naturally.
Agreed.
I would prefer to vote twice, however, including the no bacon or pie for you option. That being for completely unsweetened foods. No sugar and no other sweeteners, artificial or naturally occurring. There should be a lot more products out there like that, and it surprises me that the market is still so underdeveloped.
I picked the third option. As I’ve related before in alcohol threads, my taste buds are naturally not that sensitive, so I don’t find non-sugar sweeteners quite as off-putting as most people might. My main concerns are avoiding obesity, diabetes and tooth decay, so I’ll always substitute them for sugar whenever possible, or pick completely unsweetened options instead.
I don’t use much sugar, thankfully. I’m not a fan of many substitutes and mostly just prefer foods that are unsweetened.
On the rare occasions when sugar is unavoidable, I use Swerve. It’s the closest thing by far I’ve found to tasting like regular sugar. I’m talking about a teaspoon added to a salad dressing, say, or crepe batter.
I do prefer the taste of diet sodas on the very rare occasions when I drink them.
I absolutely hate artificial sweeteners. When it comes to Aspertame, Acesulfame K, or Sucralose (Splenda), I’d rather go without. And I’d choose tap water over diet sodas.
That’s why I was so surprised when I snuck a packet of Stevia out of a coffee place and shook it onto my cereal.
(Now, I would never eat it plain… I’m assuming I would have a visceral “Ugg! Taste not normal! Must be poison!” reaction. But as a ‘background note’ it rings the sugar bell in my brain.)
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ETA: Now you people have got me researching; I’ll be up late tonight… looks like a number of articles like this one have Stevia ranked #2 healthiest sweetener (where #1 is just adding fruit to something).
None of the answers fit me, but I answered " love them." I don’t love them, but I don’t think they’re pretty bad, and I can taste the difference from regular sweeteners. I actually prefer the taste and mouthfeel of certain artificial sweeteners to sugared drinks. Sugared drinks just taste too cloying and sticky to me. I like the flavor of “zero” drinks – usually a mix of aspartame or spenda with ace K. Those I’m not certain I’d be able to pick out consistently vs. sugar.
The only non-sugar sweetener I actively dislike is stevia. That stuff is just god awful tasting to me. I’ve tried the sweetener itself, the plant, as well as different drinks containing it and it just hits my taste buds all wrong, I guess.
If I am knowingly going to sweeten something I will use real sugar or honey, except in the case of Diet Coke. I love the taste of Diet Coke and I can’t drink regular coke unless it’s diluted with rum, otherwise it feels too syrupy to drink
Don’t like them, and avoid them, because (1) they don’t taste like sugar, (2) they don’t have any demonstrated health benefit compared to sugar, and (3) it really pisses me off when I pick up some product labeled “no added sugar”, and find that they’ve made it super sweet.
I went with “Meh, I can’t really tell the difference,” but that isn’t quite true. Splenda (sucralose) is great, and I use it all the time; I honestly cannot detect a difference between sugar and Splenda in my coffee. I can tolerate aspartame if sucralose isn’t available. Saccharin is awful, and it’s purely a last resort for me.
Stevia may be natural, but it tastes as bad and as chemical-processed as the others. Certain studies have also shown that sugar alternatives may create the same addictive side effects, with the added bonus of possible carcinogenic effects, so … pick your poison.
Something will kill me eventually, I might as well enjoy my poison!
I started drinking diet colas decades ago and although I can tell the difference, I don’t care about the difference. Soda sweetened with HFCS tastes no better to me than diet. But diet soft drinks are the only products with artifical sweetener I regularly consume.
I’ll bet you can’t find or show any such study about stevia. In fact, the studies I turned up in a brief Google search trumpeted the health benefits, and they don’t seem to be sponsored by Big Stevia.
You don’t like the taste, fine. Stevia affects the bitter as well as the sweet taste buds, which is why it is usually paired with something like dextrose.
You prefer sugar, fine, enjoy. I have no call to throw stones from my gigantic glass house (it has to be gigantic to hold me).
My only point is to inject a tiny amount of accuracy as people throw mud up against all non-sugar sweeteners, to point out that one of them is not like the others.
I like Splenda in my coffee or tea just fine. I can get used to Splenda sweetened soft drinks, but I haven’t been drinking them lately, so at the moment I don’t like them. Basically, I can generally like Splenda in many but not all things.
And Acesulfame Potassium is OK in combination with Splenda.
But the others are all bad. Stevia is really terrible.
I find it fascinating how people’s tastes vary so much on this. Particularly in the sense of which are the worst or the best.