When fighting sugar dependence, avoiding added sugar in the diet is key, which sounds simple — right? It certainly does, but things become a bit more complicated once we introduce alternative sweeteners into the mix.

【小题1】 Many people think that if they replace the sugar in their diet with alternative sweeteners, they’ll be good to go, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

Alternative sweeteners are everywhere. 【小题2】 For example, Stevia is a popular sugar substitute (代替者) because it is up to 200 times sweeter than sugar and provides fewer calories. Mon k fruit is another example that is free from calories, sweeter than table sugar, and gained from the juice of monk fruit. 【小题3】 Sugar alcohols provide fewer calories than regular sugar because they are not fully absorbed by the body.

Now that we know some of the common types of alternative sweeteners, let’s take a deeper dive into the problem with them. Research in animals has shown that removing calories from foods that taste sweet can interrupt the ability to control energy intake. 【小题4】 If we consume high amounts of alternative sweeteners, it may heighten our preference for sweetness, resulting in the overuse of sugar-sweetened foods and drinks.

The other interesting thing about alternative sweeteners is that our brains don’t recognize them as “fake (假的)” sugar. 【小题5】 Whenever a food tastes sweet, a message is sent to the brain that communicates we are tasting a sweet food — which can further feed into the sugar dependence cycle.

So what do I recommend? In order to fully put a definite end to sugar dependence, reducing your intake of alternative sweeteners should be the goal.