I'm with Bob here, on all points.

When I learned, decades ago, that all carbohydrates are converted to "sugar" metabolically, I gave up some stuff I loved--potatoes, anyone?--along with the actual sweet stuff, like cookies (whine!) and Wheat Thins (whine!)

I kept the daily Flaxseed mug muffin with 1/2 TBSP of Sucralose--not fatal so far. For sweetness, I eat quite a lot of peanuts--not necessarily a recommendation, because snacking is not a good habit IMHO. But at least peanuts have some nutritional value as well. That's my excuse anyway.

I think artificial sweeteners have been detrimental to healthy habits, just because--as others have pointed out--they make people think they can have more snack foods without penalty. Nope.

It's still a lifelong challenge to keep the Sweet Tooth under control. It's evolutionary.