After reading "Primal Blueprint" and "Paleo Answer", I am now not sure about sweeteners.

I think the greatest issue for me is losing weight. As long as I have this extra 20lbs, I will probably have to stay on bp meds. So I have been using 2-3 packets of splenda a day as sugar replacement.

I not sure whether to move to small amt of sugar, honey. I haven't learned to love stevia yet.

I have already given up all grains, and use limited dairy just a bit of cheese for some veggies sometimes, and 2 percent fage yogurt occasionally when I am craving ice cream. I still need my splenda!

I'm not really certain what your specific question is, but I'll just touch on some of the issues you've brought up.

I used to be the aspartame queen. A while ago, though, my palate adjusted and I just don't want sweeteners anymore, so the only time I am exposed to them is the occasional can of diet coke. You may find that the same happens to you with patience. I know other members have reported similar things.

I also found that, right along the time I lost the taste for sweet, when I had something artificially sweetened, it would cause sugar cravings. I don't know if that is related or just a coincidence.

I don't think you should choose anything like sugar or honey over an artificial sweetener. AS's are not great for you, but IMO, sucrose/fructose is far worse. Your better off either using the AS or going without sweet tastes(which IS EASIER than it sounds) altogether. You don't use a problematically high amount of AS anyway, so I would say just relax unless you're having a specific issue with AS.

And just as an aside, I'm on a different plan from you, but, it's good that you're having the cheese with the vegs, you need fat with some vitamins in order to get the benefit of eating the vegs in the first place. I drown mine in butter, but if you have specific issues with dairy like cheese and butter, oils will do the job.

I use erythritol which is a natural sweetner it tastes like regular sugar but is only about 70% as sweet so you may need a little more.

There's other stuff out there, erythritol, xylitol, lo han and mixtures of stevia and Ery like Truvia.

All those things occur naturally in fruits, herbs or are the product of fermentation of natural stuff.

NuNaturals stevia is the best of the stevias that I've tried. It seems to work well with fruity flavors.

Thanks, I will try the ones recommend. I guess I wasn't clear in my question. Sorry! I want to try to move more primal and off anything processed or artifical, and more natural but not at the price of losing weight.

At this point in my weight loss, I am more interested in weight loss then whether the sweeteners are artifical or not. I don't eat any processed foods any more except for the occasional lc bar when nothing else is available so I guess the 2-3 packets are okay.

I will try some of these other sweeteners and move to not using any at all.

My take is a bit different. The longer I eat the way I now eat, I find I taste sweet in even my veggies..it's as if I found a sensitivity to flavors I didn't pick up before. A cherry tomato is like a spoonful of sugar to me now (no exaggeration).

I use only real sugar or maple syrup (very tiny amounts), as I believe the research cited by the Hellers (authors of calp) that if something tastes sweet, be it an artificial sweetner or not, your body responds the same - with an insulin release. So..I eat the real stuff, properly balanced and per the guideliness of calp.

I find primal/paleo very intereting...best wishes to you.

I recently started using "sweet leaf" brand of Stevia. It's really sweet and I usually only need 1 packet over the two of the other stuff, so I am ingesting much less. Plus stevia is also used to treat high blood pressure so that is a bonus!

If you move to honey and sugar that would derail your weight loss, potentially. Sugar is probably just as processed as many of the sweeteners we listed for you. Honey too, unless you buy it raw. Plus, honey is high fructose bee poop and has been highly processed by the bee's digestion.

Yes, any sweetener can derail your weight loss. Surely didn't mean to imply otherwise, just giving some of my reasons for not using artificial - especially not at any time of day. My eating program calls for carbs (other than what is in the allowed at anytime veggie list) only at one meal per day. So...drinking artificially sweetened drinks or using them in other foods, would for sure, derail my program.

I have no problem with where honey comes from - no more than eating chicken eggs

Thanks, guys! Very helpful.

I have never heard about stevia as a treatment for high blood pressure. I could learn to like it just for that reason alone. I only tried truvia so far not that impressed I will try a couple of other ones.

I do have raw local honey that we get down the street though I don't use it much mainly trying to get my DH to use it for allergies.

I am struggling to get off my bp meds right now. I'm on a very low dose right now that my doctor has told me I can get off it at any point that I feel I can. I tend to get headaches when the bottom number reaches the 90's and she knows I take regularly and chart it on my phone. I was able to totally get off a higher dose bp med a couple of years ago after losing 50 lbs and only had to get back on one a few months ago when the weight creep back. I have quite the family history of high bp.

Whoa, I did see one concern about stevia it's in the ragweed family and I am definitely allergic to ragweed. Hmm, may have to test and see if it doesn't set off any reactions and it lowers my blood pressure it might work though doubtful on the blood pressure, I will be ingesting very little daily.

A tiny bit of local honey and/or sugar is starting to look pretty good! I only need just a bit in my coffee in the morning and the occasional fage yogurt or ice tea.

Watch the David Getoff interview,


Real Food Summit

I have a different take on sweetners; I have found that the less sweeteners I take in my body, the better my body responds to Primal/Paleo way of eating/life. I have become sensitive to the fruit sugars in the way of I can actually taste how sweet they are with out any additives.
I began to lose weight at a steady pace the month I gave up ALL processed sweeteners and foods. Sweeteners are not natural. I don't care if it came from the farm on your street. If it's in a package, box, or can - if that plant is not shoved in that container = NOT NATURAL. it's processed and your body has to sort through the processed form of ANY sweetener - after having an insulin spike to deal with because of it.

So do yourself a favor - if you NEED that sweetness of something, have the real thing. REAL sugar can be processed by the body easier than any processed form of a plant or man-made derivative of such. Anything you take in your body and the brain recognizes it as sweet it will send a signal to your pancreas telling it - you have just eaten something sweet, release insulin...then 20 minutes later your body is programmed to release even more to combat the actual amount of carbs you just ingested. Which is why diabetics are told to check their insulin twice once before their meal and then 30 minutes into it. So when you ingest something thing that isn't sugar, and the insulin doesn't have glucose to hold onto and process you have a bunch of insulin in your system then your system turns around and says ..... we are hungry all this because the insulin spike, however slight it may be, depletes your bodies blood glucose levels because that's the only "sugar" available.
You can't turn this off, but you can control it by what you ingest.

Give it 30 days. It's not going to be easy. I had to actually sit down and ponder drinking my black coffee.....but I'm really glad I did. (don't get me started on the effects of caffeine and possible insulin response, there are some things in life a girl's gotta have)

I had to go through Anatomy and Physiology and College BIO before I realized that these things were just bombarding my system with absolutley no nutritional value what so ever.
Good Luck to you

Here is some interesting facts on Stevia =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia

take a look at the extraction technique and what is used... awe hell I'll name them:

Rebaudioside A has the least bitterness of all the steviol glycosides in the stevia plant. To produce rebaudioside A commercially, stevia plants are dried and subjected to a water extraction process. This crude extract contains about 50% rebaudioside A; its various glycoside molecules are separated via crystallization techniques, typically using ethanol or methanol as solvent. This allows the manufacturer to isolate pure rebaudioside A.[45]

The National Research Council of Canada has patented a process for extracting sweet compounds from stevia by column extraction at temperatures from 0–25 °C, followed by purification by nanofiltration. A microfiltration pretreatment step is used to clarify the extract. Purification is by ultrafiltration followed by nanofiltration
= NATURAL? I think not.