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Comment by Evgeny | Hacker News Reader

What I personally found out was that if you stay away from sugar and sweeteners completely, eventually you get used to the new taste and no longer suffer from lack of sweetness. I didn't think I'll ever be able to drink unsweetened coffee, but now I'm doing exactly that. More than that, things that had "normal" taste before (such as soft drinks) will now seem overly sweet, to the point of not being able to drink them at all.

So maybe instead of asking "what is the best sugar replacement" one should ask "how do I best get used to not sweetening everything I eat".

(I understand that the article casts doubts on sugar being evil. I still think that reducing sugar and / or sweeteners as much as possible at the very least will not hurt you, and most likely will be a bit of a benefit).

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> More than that, things that had "normal" taste before (such as soft drinks) will now seem overly sweet, to the point of not being able to drink them at all.

This I can confirm. Apples for example taste as sweet as candybars taste to "normal" people. And candybars are un-eatable. They are so sweet that the sweetness starts to turn into bitterness. (I'm from Europe though so we don't have much high fructose sirup in our food - so I can't imagine how sweet US food is).

It's really interesting how much sugar and sweeteners our foods contain nowadays. And because people get used to sweetness the manufacturers have to add even more sugar to make things taste sweet again.

> I understand that the article casts doubts on sugar being evil. I still think that reducing sugar and / or sweeteners as much as possible at the very least will not hurt you, and most likely will be a bit of a benefit

Yeah, I don't really know how 'evil' sugar is - but I know that I feel much better when I eat less of it (less bloated, not so sleepy after eating). And that's enough for me. I think interested people should try a sugar-less diet for some weeks and then decide if it's for them. If not for health reasons it could make you just feel better.

I eat a lot of sweeteners, but no sugar (sucrose, I still enjoy fructose). The great thing about artificial sweeteners is that they are mostly not as sweet as real sugar and what's most important to me, don't leave the horrible sour after taste that simple carbs do.

These days most things people consider normal are too sweet for me.

As for sugar being evil. It is, for varying definitions of evil. Its biggest problem is that it's just a lot of calories packed into a small volume, so you don't realise how much you've eaten. Surprisingly, once you abolish sugar, it becomes difficult to fulfill your daily calorie needs. When strenuous exercise is involved it becomes downright impossible.

If you don't care about calories, then surely you care about energy fluctuations. Foods high in sugar will give you an instant rush of energy that abates quickly. This leaves you hungry and sleepy, leading to a cycle of being hungry all the time even though you've eaten enough calories.

For instance, I read a study (that I can't find a link to right now) showing that eating oatmeal for breakfast leaves you feeling full hours longer than eating regular cereal even when controlled for calorie intake.

PS: especially for the reasons of those energy spikes, I aim for a low glycemic index diet rather than just a no sugar diet. It tends to describe the desired result better.

I was on no-carb/keto for 6 months. For a while I almost couldn't walk past the sweets section in the supermarket, but after a couple of weeks, I completely lost interest in it. I still had a piece of chocolate here and there, but I could just stop when I wanted to!

I'm still a little sensitive to sweet things. As a child I liked it but after keto it's not as appealing anymore.

Also, eating sugar makes my teeth feel really nasty.

When I started to fix my diet I had to purge myself of Caffeinated sodas first. I found the combination of HFCS and caffeine would make me crave junk food like an addict. I purged myself of the caffeine and ate junk food then after a few weeks purged the junk food and now I can turn away from the bag of potato chips without too much willpower.

Having gotten off of physically addictive drugs before I recognized the feelings and realized how much I had to slowly ween myself off of that stuff.

> What I personally found out was that if you stay away from sugar and sweeteners completely, eventually you get used to the new taste and no longer suffer from lack of sweetness.

I tried this a few years ago. It took about a month to acclimate.

Sadly, the adjustment goes more quickly in the other direction; eat the usual sweetened stuff every day for a week, and it's all over.

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