The Big Sugar Tax/Sweetener Scandal.

Did you know that most "regular" soft drinks not only have sugar in them, but that the sugar content is increasingly being reduced in favour of (I assume cheaper to buy) sweeteners. So you may think you are drinking a soft drink sweetened "just" by sugar, but you're actually drinking a drink with some sugar and then sweeteners and in some cases the "sugar" version doesn't even have any sugar in it and instead has a sweetener like Sucralose.

Read on..

I have a big issue with sweeteners. Not a mental issue, but a real, physical issue in that if I have a drink with sweeteners, all sorts of bad things happen with my body's glucose response. Basically I taste a sweet product and my body releases insulin to combat it, but there is no sugar for the insulin to process. 

And that's just on the "good" sweeteners, like sucralose and Stevia. The bad ones like Aspartamine are a big no-no.

Obviously during this long hot spell, I've been turning to my usual summer drink: Lager Shandy. 

I always ask for the full-fat version of lemonade when ordering in a pub, although that option seems to be increasingly impossible to get.

But now at home, I can't avoid the damn sweeteners.

If you look at any full -fat includes sugar soft drink, you'll find that someone has surreptitiously included sweeteners in the mix. 

So why am I paying sugar tax (because I have to) on a product where the sugar is being cut with sweeteners? Either I pay sugar tax (because it contains sugar and by contains sugar, I mean NO SWEETENERS), or if I'm being forced to take sweeteners, I shouldn't be paying sugar tax.

This led me down a huge rabbit hole last night, whilst trying to find a non-sweetener soft drink in Tesco.

Those of us that are sensitive to sweeteners have found out ALL the soft drinks in the supermarket (apart from the organic ones) have been adulterated with sweeteners. 

Call me a cynic, but it seems like a surefire way to make your body insulin resistant, by ramping up the amount in your body with nothing for it to do. Because your body tastes the sweetener and releases insulin to combat it. Do that several times over a lifetime....

Luckily for now, I've found a supplier of sweetener-free lemonade, albeit limited to 1 litre bottles. At least I should get a couple of pints of Shandy out of each bottle. 

I've yet to go back and do a thorough deep-dive. For instance are supermarkets charging more, or including sugar tax on non-diet soft drinks? Because of the sugar tax is required on products that supposedly contain no sugar. 

As an example, last night I found at least one lemonade that was non-diet or non-sweetener, that just had sucralose in it and no sugar. It was dearer then the diet option. So is this another case of supermarkets charging more for something that is basically the same product?

It bears some further scrutiny. Especially for parents of kids that are susceptible to issues caused by sweeteners. 

I'm not even going to go into the conspiracy that there's a like between artificial sweeteners and cancer.