I think that sometimes to achieve balance you have to weigh the scales one way or the other. For me, I was overweight and unhealthy. Now my weight is getting under control, thanks to IP, and when I am finished with that then I will attempt to get the rest under control. This is Joeshotwife is saying. We know that if we were at a normal weight and in good health IP would not be the best diet. But that is not where we are in life, it is where we are heading.

Just another note, I raise chickens so I eat farm fresh eggs, I raise my own lamb and I milk my dairy sheep. (sheep milk is by far the healthiest, look it up) So I am not a stranger to local food, or the health issues of the day. IP works for me right now.

I don't think anyone here has attacked anyone. Some of the disagreements have been passionate, but certainly not disrespectful. I certainly didn't mean any of my posts as disrespectful or hurtful in any way (humorous and cautionary counterpoint, but not hurtful or disrespectful).

[QUOTE=JoesHotWife;4334293] sometimes people lie to us for profit.

I think it's also important to remenber that people lie and pass on inaccurate information for other reasons too - some well-intended some not. Just because there's no obvious profit-motive, doesn't mean the "information" is accurate.

And it's the inaccuracies I was wanting to point out, not argue that there aren't some good reasons for avoiding artificial sweeteners (and stevia). I just think it's very important that our decisions need to be made based on information, not propoganda.

I choose aspartame and splenda over stevia (even though the former two are less natural), because I've read the research (taking into account profit motive and the academic reputation of both the researchers and the journal in which the research is published).

I will use stevia in very small quantities (because I believe that the history of use does indicate that it's probably safe in small to moderate doses), but don't use it indescriminately because of the research I could find (only a couple studies so far) that links of birth defects (of the reproductive tract) in the offspring of lab rodents (rats and hamsters I believe) fed large amounts of stevia.

I'm not too worried about the stevia, because I'm not going to be having any children, but if I were pregnant, I would avoid stevia (and aspartame for different reasons I'm not going into, except that the reasons are in the research and not difficult to find or verify). With Splenda, I'm not so sure.

Trusting ingredients that have been in the human food supply for the longest amounts of time (in as close to the natural state as possible), is a great strategy, but it's not an entirely foolproof one - especially when the claim of "natural" is rather spurious (such as in truvia and agave syrup - which are highly processed foods that really have never historically been used in the quantities that Americans tend to use them).

People don't want to take the time to dig through the research or to carefully verify and evaluate the sources of the information, and that's WHY so much of the mythinformation abounds (and gets exagerated even further like a game of telephone).