To those tempted to post how they don't use sweeteners, good on ya! But that's not really what I'm asking about.

I've stopped using aspartame, Splenda, erythritol, and now xylitol. Bad health studies associated with all of them. Allulose might be a migraine trigger for me. Any of the -ol ending sweeteners, I avoid due to the fact they're crap.
That leaves stevia and monk fruit for now. Anyone have any recommendations?

Stevia is good for a lot of stuff, but tastes awful in some things. I just ordered a monk fruit extract, so not sure how that will work out. I realized my migraines were more frequent (suddenly so) right about when I started using allulose. They went from 1 every year or two to almost 1 every month. I've stopped the allulose and the frequency has subsided somewhat. Other things might be contributing as well.

There are three occasions I use sweeteners, and now realize I don’t pay much attention to which type, have not noticed a reaction…use many kinds in:

1. Coffee Syrups, e.g. DaVinci, Jordan's, whatever is at Home Goods. main AS is Sucralose. Jordan's new recipe is stevia, some bottles have more than one type. Sorry, select them by flavor available not the sweetener.
2. Diet Tonic and Ginger Ale, in place of a cocktail. Their sweeteners vary, AceK, Aspartame, and even saccharin in the tonic.
3. And a dash of Mio in my Optimized Electrolyte Mix. I make a liter of electrolyte water and give it a squeeze of lemonade to sweeten the salt minerals.

Given up all "low carb" baking. If I want a dessert it is a treat with the real thing.

- I'm one of those water-haters and I drink an ungodly amount of diet sodas and Mio-type enhancers. That's mostly aspartame, acesulfame-K, and some of the enhancers are stevia. I don't like the weird mouth feel and aftertaste of the stevia ones, so I usually cut it with half Diet 7Up. I still buy them because they're a cheaper store brand.

- For packets, I have yellow ones and blue ones. (sucralose and aspartame/ace-K.) I also have a bag of brown sugar Sugar Twin for baking, which is cyclamate. I have no idea what I bought it for, but it's open and I used some. I'm not a coffee or tea drinker, and pretty much just use the packets for yogurt and other protein mush, the rare hot drink, the rare iced coffee or tea, and savoury recipes like a curry or my pizza sauce that needs a bit of a sweet kick to taste right.

- The pandemic cured me of my half-pack-a-day Excel gum habit, so I don't think there's any xylitol in anything I buy anymore.

- Maltitol and other "candy bar" sugar alcohols always gave me horrible gas and bloating, so I quit those a long time ago. Erythritol was supposedly better, but prohibitively expensive for me and I hate baking. I'm too lazy.

- I wanted to try allulose for Maria Emmeritch's protein bread, but likewise too expensive. It's not approved in Canada.

I have a bunch of the sugar free flavored syrups (Home Goods, TJ Maxx and Marshalls are good places to find them - but we also have an outlet here that carries a limited variety of SF Torani syrups). I found some small travel size/sample size bottles of SF syrups at Dollar Tree one time years ago too. I have a bunch of the Torani syrups but rarely ever use them because I only bought them to make the one recipe for a LC protein bar that calls for some SF vanilla syrup (main ingredients are almond butter, whey powder, unsweetened baking chocolate, and cream. I eventually modified the recipe by switching out coconut butter for the baking chocolate so that I could use different flavors of syrup. I haven't made those in a long time though, since I generally only make them for emergency travel food when there's no LC friendly food available along the highway)

I also use a lot of the flavored water enhancing drops. I don't care much for flavored waters so I rarely use them like that, but I do make fake jello by blooming unflavored gelatin in cold water, nuke to dissolve gelatin, then add the water flavoring drops, and stir in a bunch of ice cubes until the ice is mostly melted and the mixture has gelled, then eat immediately. I'll use Mio, Crystal Light, and some store brands. Those drops all have Ace-K and/or sucralose in them.

The only store brand water enhancer I don't care for at all is one that has Stevia in it. I think the problem is that this particular store brand only uses natural flavors and colors, and it doesn't have preservatives in it. The natural flavors just don't hold up very well - the flavor seems very weak to begin with, and once the bottle has been open for more than a few days, everything about that brand tastes and smells just plain bad.

For the most part though Stevia is my go-to SF sweetener when I make bake Oopsies, and on the rare occasions when I bake a treat of some kind. I use it regularly in Greek yogurt to make chocolate yogurt (gently whisk in cocoa powder and some vanilla). I only use the KAL stevia that's pure stevia with no fillers at all, so it doesn't measures like sugar - 1/32 of a tsp is equivalent to 2 tsp sugar.

I also still have some liquid saccharin on hand too. I used to be able to get it in a bottle that a drop of it was a 1 tsp serving - now, the only kind I have seen in stores is watered down so that 1/4 tsp = 1 tsp.

Once in a great long while I'll use a little splenda - that's mostly here for DH though since splenda is the only SF sweetener that he likes the taste of in his coffee.

I still use sweeteners and sweetened products, although greatly reduced. I think occasional use of an artificial sweetener or sugar alcohol is less harmful to my health than refined sugar or products loaded with sugar and corn syrup. It's a trade-off .. instead of which is better, more like which is less bad.


Here's what I've used in the last year ...

- Now Better Stevia glycerite liquid drops (alcohol-free stevia extract, vegetable glycerin, water). Surprisingly no bitter aftertaste .. but .. it's messy to use, and imprecise to measure, I just add a drop at a time until it's "sweet enough"

- Swerve "brown sugar" .. erythritol .. because some recipes need that caramel flavour. I've used barely half since opened a year ago, and use a terracotta teddy bear from the dollar store to keep it soft and clump-free.

- I had a 10 oz pouch of monkfruit & erythritol blend, used maybe half over a year but had to toss in the garbage. It does have a "best before" shelf life, became less sweet over time, developed an unpleasant sour aftertaste and the colour darkened a bit, despite the foil pouch being sealed airtight. Haven't tried the liquid monkfruit extract .. yet.

- Occasionally use sucralose-sweetened condiments like sugar free ketchup or bbq sauce.

- also have some Canadian SugarTwin packets (cyclamate), used barely half the box in over a year. IMO, after decades of use, I think it has the cleanest sweet taste, no bitterness, and doesn't lose sweetness over time like Splenda does (ever notice when you cook with Splenda, the leftovers taste less sweet next day?). Unfortunately, SugarTwin in Canada is shifting toward sucralose and stevia products, and now only offer the packets of white cyclamate sweetener. They stopped making brown sugar and the water-based liquid sweetener several years ago, before covid.

I've used an allulose/monk fruit blend I found on Amazon and I thought it tasted great, but that's on the shelf until I'm ready to test my migraine theory again.

I will have to try the Now stevia drops. It took some getting used to, but the TJ's ones seem to work well, especially with tart things, like berries. I just ordered some monk fruit drops.

Good timing, Nancy. I just posted about tests on xylitol in another thread, but a couple months ago, decided to try allulose due to it being the current darling of sweeteners supposedly having many health properties. This is unusual for me in that I hardly ever use sweeteners, and on the rare occasion up to now, use only pure liquid stevia which doesn't cause issues.

To your observation about migraines: I stopped using aspartame a long time ago due to it causing me to have ocular migraines every time I consumed it. When I tried pure, granulated allulose recently, I experienced the same type of migraine after using it a second time. When I stop allulose, the migraines stop. Thanks for your feedback on this, as I was wondering whether anyone else experienced this reaction from allulose. Good information.

I completely forgot about sugar alcohols!

Sugar alcohols were generally only available in ready-made products like chewing gum and sugar-free candies and cookies back in the 70's, although back then they had some sugar alcohols in some brand of sugar substitute packets that I used in baking. (I keep thinking it was sweet'n'low, but can't find confirmation that brand ever included sugar alcohols)

It took me quite a while to figure out that the sugar alcohols were what was causing my random bouts of diarrhea. (if it had only been gas, it would have still been a problem, just not quite as bad of a problem)

If you do decide to go for it, make sure you get the alcohol-free glycerite formula. I mistakenly bought the Now brand "original" stevia drops with 11% alcohol and .. HELLO! very bitter, who actually uses this stuff? Blecchh

Other than the sweeteners in my diet sodas and water enhancers, I pretty much only use liquid Sucralose. But, I have yellow packets in the cupboard and some Allulose, Swerve, and, I think Monkfruit in the fridge in case I decide to bake something that requires a powder or granular sweetener.

I don't have a preference beyond liquid Sucralose.

Oh, and I guess the stevia in the LMNT I use.

I order some monk fruit drops on Amazon (Now foods). They're pretty good! Not as powerful as stevia drops, but I think the taste is better.

At one time, I wasn't a water hater, but I was used to drinking something with a lot of flavor.

How can you hate water? It has minimal taste, and it's essential.

But I decided to quit diet drinks, because of negative aspartame tests, so I switched to water, and nothing but water (and morning coffee). For the first month or so it was difficult, but I got used to it. If I were to drink a diet soda now, it would be way too strong tasting to me.

Of course, what works for me isn't going to work for everyone.

But I figured, that most animals drink mostly water, humans and their evolutional ancestors drank mostly water, so I drink water.

I had my well tested, and other than a lot of iron, it's better than bottled water (and the water they use in soft drinks). A softener takes out the iron, I replace essential minerals in it which improves the taste to me and also gives me the minerals I need.

I'm saving money, and being healthier. To me, that's a win-win.

So it's mostly Stevia for me, because coffee and tee are too bitter for my taste buds, and Stevia is so far not bad for us.

Today on Twitter, Dr Bikman announced positive results for Allulose in a Rat model. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/12/1821 Some commenters indicated they had digestive issues but others agreed that BG improved. No mention of migraines yet, but human trials are planned and adverse side effects should be noted in that.