I am LCing (and like most parents) would like to break that sugar/carb addiction cycle for my two year old. We don't have cookies or any sugary snacks, juice is only for special occasions. She's a big fruit and veggie eater but the meat portion is tough to get down her. My really big concern is over artificial sweeteners. She always wants to share my protein drinks, bars ect. and while the nutritional content usually is pretty good I'm concerned about her ingesting sucralose at such a young age. Anyone else out there worried about this?

Thanks, fleadogs

I feel comfortable using splenda or stevia, but not saccarine or Equal. I let my kids drink some of my diet rite, and they like it. I just gave them a bit at first to make sure they won't react to it. I send a packet of Splenda with my oldest daughter to school to stir into her plain apple sauce. No problems at all! I also put it on the kids cereal.

Nellie

Hi,

I feel the same way about my son (he is 16 months old now) he & I have some of the same food allergies (casein - milk protein) being the biggest, and I always share my food with him. I tried a couple of the low-carb bars, and I made the no-bake cheesecake dessert with splenda, but now that I've done some research and talked with my Naturopathic Physician about these sweeteners, I think I'll just go back to making most things myself, or buying prepared foods from Natures (that contain concentrated fruit sweetener, honey, molasses or brown rice syrup.)

Before starting LCing - I was using several sweeteners that I listed above, but these sweeteners contain more carbs than I need right now (I'm on induction) but when I lose the weight and get back to eating a few carbs, I'll use these sweeteners. For now I'm limiting my "malitol, sucralose, splenda, etc." intake to a few treats (in small portions) that I get from the low-carb store . . . and I just eat them in the evening as my dessert, when my son is already in bed. To the best of my knowledge, stevia is really the safest bet . . . I might use some of this in baking for my family - I loved it when I made strawberry shortcake (when I wasn't LCing!) and it flavored everything, including the whip cream really nicely.

Take care,

You might try Stevia because it's all natural. It's a plant that's been used in South America for a very very long time to sweeten things. You can even grow the plant in a pot at home to use as you need it. It's 200 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia is a perennial herb growing up to 1m tall, Stevia is a member of the daisy family. The leaves are mid green and intensely sweet.

I found some stevia seeds at Walmart near the flower and veggy seeds. You can also order the plant itself, at some places online.

It's also been used in Japan for about 20 years now with no problems. Unlike the headaches that NutraSweet causes.

NutraSweet turns to formaldehyde in the blood stream.
http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/mon...aspartame.shtml

Bad News about products with Aspartame... has been seen in persons who have been chemically poisoned by formaldehyde. ... about aspartame's toxicity is far different than what the NutraSweet Company would ...
http://www.dorway.com/badnews.html

Splenda I did some searching on Google, and turns out there are some bad things posted about Splenda as well. Sucralose is produced by chlorinating sugar (sucrose). This involves chemically changing the structure of the sugar molecules by substituting three chlorine atoms for three hydroxyl groups. (hey, isn't chlorine dangerous to the human body?)

http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/s...se_dangers.htm#

THE DANGERS OF EATING SPLENDA
... Over three years ago I posted an article describing the dangers of Splenda (sucralose). ... Splenda's
Dangers: One Man's Personal Story That You Should Know. ...
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bi....cgi?read=42764