Contents:
- Medical Video: Healthy Ways to Sweeten Your Food
- What is a splenda?
- What is stevia?
- Which artificial sweetener is better between Splenda and Stevia?
Medical Video: Healthy Ways to Sweeten Your Food
Limit sugar consumption if you want to be free of diabetes. Diabetes makes you have to eat more carefully. Eating incorrectly can increase your blood sugar and make your diabetes worse. Sometimes, using artificial sweeteners, such as splenda and stevia, can help control blood sugar for diabetic patients. However, between splenda and stevia, which one is better?
What is a splenda?
Splenda or sucralose is one of the artificial sweeteners that has a sweetness level 600 times sweeter than ordinary sugar. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notes that splenda can be a substitute for sugar for high heat combustion, because the heat is stable.
So it doesn't matter if splenda is used to cook baked food, added to hot drinks, and others.
Splenda is also a calorie-free artificial sweetener. This is because most splenda just passes through your body, without being digested. So, splenda has no effect on your blood sugar and calorie intake. This makes you free from weight gain due to consumption of excess sugar, while preventing blood sugar from rising.
What is stevia?
Stevia is an artificial sweetener made from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana plants. Unlike Splenda, stevia has a lower sweetness level, which is only 200-400 times sweeter than ordinary sugar.
However, it turns out that not all types of stevia sweeteners are safe to use. According to the FDA, high purity stevia sweeteners, such as Rebaudioside A, are generally safe to use. However, raw stevia leaf extract does not include stevia products that are safe for consumption.
Just like splenda, stevia is also an artificial sweetener that is free of calories so it can reduce your risk of gaining weight. But unfortunately, stevia can give a bit of bitter taste to food.
Which artificial sweetener is better between Splenda and Stevia?
Splenda and stevia, both of which include artificial sweeteners that have hundreds of sweetness compared to table sugar. Although it gives a sweet taste, both splenda and stevia do not affect your blood sugar level. So, this artificial sweetener is widely used as a substitute for sugar for diabetics.
When compared, splenda might be a better choice than stevia to give sweetness to high-temperature foods, such as added when making cake dough. However, Stevia also gives a sweet taste.
Although very useful and generally safe to consume, do not consume excessive amounts of splenda or stevia. However, splenda and stevia are artificial products that can pose risks in the long run (although this risk is not known with certainty).
A study in the Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapeutics in 2011 has reported that sucralose or splenda can be toxic under certain conditions and increase the risk of cancer because it includes organic chloride. However, another theory says that the splenda digestion process in the body does not provide the right conditions for splenda to release chloride, so the risk of splenda is toxic and increases the risk of cancer is very small.
The most important thing and you have to remember, you should use splenda or stevia if you need it and don't overdo it. In addition, you also still need to limit the consumption of sweet foods or drinks and consumption of additional sugar so that blood sugar is maintained.
