If you're into diet-this and diet-that so you can eat and drink while not ingesting as many calories, some new research may be of interest to you regarding what happens to your sense of energy intake.

In Canada, researchers discovered in a study of rats that the ability to assess the amount of energy (calories) were being eaten was thrown into disarray when the diet of these rodents primarily consisted of diet foods and drinks.

What happened apparently was that, over time, these rats somehow learned that sweet foods (sweetened with non-sugar diet products) did not contain that many calories. When exposed to full-calorie sweetened foods later on, these same rats overate since their systems did not know the difference.

Although humans and rats are far separated in cognitive ability, what do you think about this study? Why do we eat so many "diet" products instead of just consuming less "normal" products?

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You have to love when goofy lawsuits are brought on inside the realm of possible "customer confusion" when it comes to the food marketplace. McNeil Nutritionals, LLC (part of Johnson & Johnson) wants Heartland Sweeteners to stop using a "yellow" package for its sucralose product.

Since Splenda comes in a yellow package (or package), I guess yellow is off-limits as a color used for low-calories and fake sweeteners. Although sucralose is derived in a natural way, I still don't consider it a real sweetener. Stevia and agave nectar? You bet.

Oh well, this was another great waste of time and effort by McNeil to stop "customer confusion" over its Splenda product. Yay (yawn).

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As I look at food packages these days, it's amazing to see the large amount of fake sweeteners along with loads of refined sugar in so many foods. After all, everyone has a partial (or whole) "sweet tooth", and manufacturers sell ore products when they make them taste good.

The only downside is that tasting good comes at a price. Generally, refined sugars are really bad for human health (my 2 cents, anyway), and have a load of calories. The solution has been to use artificial sweeteners as a replacement, which then have unnatural chemicals which I consider to be almost as bad (or worse) than refined sugar.

Where is the "sweet" answer then? How about low-calorie, low-glycemic sweeteners like agave nectar and stevia? The food manufacturers probably don't want to use these items due to cost (which can be high) and due to these alternatives being natural products (that can't be protected by patents and such). One thing is for sure -- stevia is a great and sweet alternative that's been used globally for centuries and it beats the pants off table sugar and bleached refined sugar. Try it if you can -- and you decide.

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In many cases -- heck, all of them -- I search out for natural sweetening alternatives like cane sugar, stevia and agave nectar when I need to add a bit of nutritious sweetness to my foods and drinks. I never use artificial sweeteners like aspartame, NutraSweet or Splenda. Why?

Well, I won't go into specifics, but aspartame and NutraSweet (just a brand name) are chemicals, that -- when I used to use them years ago -- gave me headaches. Once I researched what those items were, not only was I shocked, but I stopped using both products permanently.

On the trail of a never-ending quest to find sugarless and calorie-less sweeteners for products, sucralose was invented and given the name Splenda for marketing purposes I still prefer not to ever use fake sweeteners, including this one. Do you?

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