# Artificial Sweeteners **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003 "2005-09-16T17:34:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/1 "2005-09-16T17:34:09Z")
I’m one of those people that can taste artificial sweeteners. I don’t use Splenda, or Equal, or Sugar Twin, or any of them. I don’t drink diet pop or Crystal Lite or eat most foods sweetened with them. Coke Zero tastes like chemicals to me, Diet Coke just tastes nasty to me. In addition, I also get headaches from some sweeteners (aspartame is the worst), so I’ve learned to just avoid them. It’s made dieting suck, lemmetellya. Surely I can’t be the only one. Tell me about your experiences with artificial sweeteners. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/2 "2005-09-16T17:39:58Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > I’m one of those people that can taste artificial sweeteners. I thought everybody could. Thing is, I forced myself to accept the taste as acceptable and now it is. I can tell the difference between real and fake sugars (except for most sugar alcohols, most times), I just trained myself to accept artificial sweeteners through exposure. ---
**Author:** ![pestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e5b9ba/32.png) [@pestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pestie)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/3 "2005-09-16T17:50:27Z")
They all pretty much taste like ass to me. Before I was diabetic, I stuck to the real stuff. Now that I’ve gone a few years without sugary crap like soft drinks and junk food (well, I still sometimes give in to the junk food urges, but not daily) most of that stuff is _way_ too sugary-nasty for me to even think about consuming any more. ---
**Author:** ![Tupug\_Anachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tupug\_Anachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tupug_Anachi)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/4 "2005-09-16T18:04:06Z")
Way back in the day when Tab came out, I tried it. :eek: 😛😛😛 But I made myself drink it cause I wanted cola and didn’t want the calories. After a very short time, I got used to it and didn’t notice the “artificial” taste any longer. I agree with **pestie** , the “real” stuff is way too sweet. FWIW, I drink Diet Coke and use Splenda as a sugar substitute. ---
**Author:** ![psycat90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/5 "2005-09-16T18:13:02Z")
I can taste the differences between all of them, but I’ve become very used to them. The first month or so I made the switch entirely from sugar to sugar substitutes was hard. Everything tasted terrible. My coffee, diet soda, everything. It’s been about 2 years since then and now anything with sugar in it tastes like pure syrup. Crystal Lite I absolutely love. I’m trying to embrace Splenda, but I just can’t get over the bitter/strange aftertaste it leaves. I honestly wouldn’t know if they give me headaches. I get headaches so frequently, I’d never be able to blame any one thing on them. They’re just a fact of life. ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/6 "2005-09-16T18:14:40Z")
As a 15 year old I experienced pounding headaches, felt like my head was floating above my body, had awful panic attacks, couldn’t think straight and was generally a mess. The family doctor thought I was doing drugs! Then my mum happened to read an newspaper article about aspartame and some effects it can have on people. She stopped buying the low sugar drinks I had been drinking everyday and the problems went away. You can find articles about aspartame all over the internet, many of them very scary but they tend to be informational rather than medical, so no cites here, just personal experience. Aspartame is in a huge range of produts. Not just sugar free things, but in effervescent tablets, cold remedies, crisps etc. I have to read the packets of almost everything before I can drink or eat it. The other day I slipped up and had a piece of chewing gum. Boy did I know about it! The day after it occured to me to check the packet and lo and behold there was aspartame in it. A close friend of mine stopped drinking her daily litre of diet coke after we had been talking about this, her depression went away. It was amazing the change not drinking the aspartame made! ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/7 "2005-09-16T18:22:49Z")
> [@Butterscotch](#): > > You can find articles about aspartame all over the internet, many of them very scary but they tend to be informational rather than medical, so no cites here, just personal experience. The last time I looked, which was admittedly quite a while ago, scientists couldn’t find any link between aspartame and any side-effects when they did double-blind studies. That is probably why you couldn’t find many genuine medical cites. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/8 "2005-09-16T18:24:38Z")
They all taste like ass. And most of the stuff about aspartame is crap, although I may be convinced it causes headaches. But it’s the biggest scare-mill ever. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/9 "2005-09-16T18:31:08Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > Coke Zero tastes like chemicals to me That’s because it is. Like everything else you taste. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Vorlon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@The\_Vorlon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Vorlon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/10 "2005-09-16T19:43:51Z")
BJ’s carries 700 pack boxes of Splenda. You sometimes get strange looks going through the checkout with a few of them in your cart. Now anything with real sugar tastes weird, and the high-fructose stuff is worse. ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners/322003/11 "2005-09-16T22:32:16Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > That’s because it is. Like everything else you taste. I mean like cleaning chemicals or engine oil chemicals.