Have any of you ever had any problems with Splenda?

Because I LOVE sweet tea, I decided to take those 100+calories and spend it on something useful, like, not a beverage. I purchased it Saturday and began using it Sunday. Within a couple of hours, I began to experience major bloating and gas.

I used it again on Monday and yesterday, and both days the same thing happened. This morning I decided to use real sugar in my coffee and for the first half of the day, I was fine. Then, instead of my regular chocolate skim milk for lunch, I had tea with splenda to save on the calories. It started up again. All signs are pointing to the Splenda, so I am either going to have to use regular sugar or some other substitute. I don't really like the thought of Aspartame though. If nothing else, I can make up a batch of regular unsweetened tea and manually add my regular sugar to that so I know exactly how many calories I am taking in.

I looked it up on the internet and there are loads of websites with consumers having the same thing. Kind of reminded me of that Oleo potato chip they came out with several years ago. I am not really a potato chip person, but I ate them at Subway and they never bothered me.

Anyway, it could be that my body doesn't like the sucralose in the Splenda. I can't remember if equal has any in it, but I used to use that a lot many years ago in my coffee and it never bothered me.

Just wondered if anyone else had this problem.

Splenda = SERIOUS GI distress for me. As does aspartame in certain amounts. And Sorbital...

Check out this 3FC thread on the "joys" of Sorbital:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=172938

Maybe stick to the regular sugar. Or try a substitute called Stevia -- it is a plant byproduct and is a natural sweetener so you won't have the same effects. It is sold as a food supplement in health food stores.

http://www.stevia.com/

And NO I don't work for any stevia company!!!!

Let us know how you do!

Kira

I bought it at my grocery store under the name Truvia.

Yep - all of us interact differently with foods. I'm good with Splenda, but aspartame makes me throw up and get hives (no good!). Everyone has to experiment to see what works for them!

I need to avoid artificial sweeteners of all kinds. I use agave nectar sometimes and have recently been using Whey Low. It is a natural product and comes in different forms (granulated, powdered, brown, etc.). The regular whey low contains fruit sugar, table sugar, and milk sugar & the whey low D that I use has fruit sugar & milk sugar (developed for diabetics & has a lower glycemic index than the regular version).

Whey Low Stats:

• 100% Natural
• Tastes/measures exactly like sugar & you can bake/cook with it
• 75% fewer calories than sugar
• 70-80% lower Glycemic Index than sugar

I don't use much sweetener in my foods but sometimes you need something and this is working well for me.

I agree with the posters above, go with regular sugar or stevia.

I can't handle artificial sweeteners at all. I have a very delicate hormonal balance which gets thrown way off by aspertame (took me awhile to figure that one out,) splenda and sugar alcohols cause me to urgently run to the loo (TMI--Sorry.) So, no, it's not just you.

Stevia kind of scares me because I took a nutrition class last semester in university and we learned about sweeteners and stevia was one of the ones with the most serious side effects in studies (birth defects in mice, etc). I know you can't always extrapolate those results but it kind of stuck in my head that it was bad!!
I would like to try Splenda though..
Has anyone researched the risks of these sweeteners?

Thank you ALL, each and every one of you for your feedback and experience.

For right now, and I KNOW I should be working on NO sugar at all, haha, but one thing at a time, right? For right now, I think I will go back to what was working and deal with the calorie issue of regular sugar. My tummy has been in knots the last two days.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will check into Stevia and Truvia. I saw a Stevia plant at my local Lowe's store, so that would be neat to add to my garden if it works as well as regular sugar and is safe.

Thanks again

If you do get a stevia plant, it is not exactly easy to extract to sweetness from it. I don't know much about plants though. After you harvest the leaves, you have to dry them (in the sun, dehydrater if you have it, counter, what works for you). After they are dry you crush the leaves, and they should finally be ready to be used. Its really not that hard, but it's not the same as picking it off the plant and into your tea.

So far Truvia is the only sweetener I can handle without massive head aches and anxiety...problem is though, if you are sensitive to MSG, (mono-sodium glutamate) beware. MSG is the hidden ingredient listed as "natural flavor".

I am not sure if I have any issues with MSG. From what I can remember, and I may be wrong on this, it was or maybe still is a really prominent ingredient in Asian foods.

Other than the Splenda and the initial change in diet, I can't think of much else that has ever bothered me except really greasy food.