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Artificial sweeteners may cause weight gain

CARLY WEEKS

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:57 AM EDT 11/02/08

New study finds consuming artificial sweeteners makes it harder to limit food intake and keep weight off ...Read the full article

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  1. Just trying to make sense of it all from Canada writes: Who is surprised?
    You can't fool nature. The body expects calories when that sweet taste come in, and if the calories aren't forthcoming, will drive you to get them.
    Another in a long line of unintended consequences.
  2. Paul Kruger from Vernon, Canada writes: Regarding ... 'Framingham Heart Study found that people who drank one or more cans of pop a day, regardless of whether it was diet, were 48 per cent more likely to suffer from obesity' - might it be that people suffering obesity will gravitate towards Diet-pop, and those that drink High-Fructose corn-suyrup sweetened pop, pack on pounds? I'd say it's very easy to misread the 'tea-leaves' in this article.
  3. Kay Ay from Canada writes: I could never bring myself to use sweeteners.
    Limiting sugar seemed to make more sense than using chemicals for flavor.
  4. Kay Ay from Canada writes: Or Paul, people may think they can have two or three cans of diet pop because it had no calories.
  5. J S from Hamilton, Canada writes: I think they should educate globe writers in how to interpret research findings. The title 'Artificial sweeteners may cause weight gain' is totally misrepresentative of the truth. It is impossible for these sweeteners to cause weight gain because they contain no energy. The sweeteners causes some peoples' bodies to crave more calories, and it's the energy from that food that causes the weight gain. If you drank cola without eating additional food, then your weight would drop.

    There is something I really don't understand about this study. If you drink a diet cola instead of a regular one, you give up about 300 calories, give or take. Why does the diet soda lead the body to seek out with other foods more than the 300 calories that you gave up by drinking the diet soda in the first place? It really doesn't make any sense to me. You'd have to consume way more than the initial 300 calories to be gaining significant weight.

    Medical researchers' understanding of statistics is extremely bad, and anyone taking results like this as fact should seriously consider taking some statistics courses.
  6. Paul Kruger from Vernon, Canada writes: J S from Hamilton writes 'Medical researchers' understanding of statistics is extremely bad, and anyone taking results like this as fact should seriously consider taking some statistics courses.' JS, you forgot to mention they all need a course in LOGIC as well! How they reach the conclusions they do is mind-boggling, and in a mathematical sense, if accepted as the basis for FACT, we could easily build on that base and go on to prove that 1 1=3. Kay Ay from Canada writes: Or Paul, people may think they can have two or three cans of diet pop because it had no calories. Yes Kay, most people do think that, and they are correct. The Diet Pop has no calories, so if you drink diet pop on it's own, and eat the same amount of calories as you would have if you drank sugar-pop, then you are indeed 500 calories per day better off. The problem comes from saying 'I'm not having the extra calories from Sugar pop, so I can super-size my burger and fries' - thus adding back 700 calories for the 500 we gave up.
  7. Knowledge is True Opinion from Canada writes: Who cares about the sweeteners!! I'm amazed rats can count calories. Difficutly or otherwise this is impressive. Ha

    '...rats that consumed sugar substitutes have greater difficulty counting calories. '
  8. J Kay from Canada writes: J S: Perhaps the G&M should first offer a reading comprehension course to it's readers and may I suggest that you should be one of the first to sign up. That article is quite clear that it is not the artificial sweeteners themselves that cause the weight gain literally, but that they precipitate weight gain by perhaps foolowing the body's mechanism for regulating satiation.

    It really is neither here nor there if this study or its results make sense to you. I doubt quantum mechanics or about a dozen other areas of scientific research would make sense to you but that doesn't make them any less valid. There may be a dozen reasons why artificial sweeteners may lead to higher calorie consumption, or weight gain. They may act on the metabolism slowing it (the researchers note body temperature in the rats didn't rise post consumption), they may mess up insulin regulation, which precipitates conversion of excess calories to fat, they may trick the body into thinking the food they ate, alongside the diet pop had a lower calorie content than it did.

    I wonder if your comment about statistcal compentency among medical researchers is in fact backed up by your own competency in statistics, or have you simply taken a course or two and think you know everything. There are to be sure errors that exist in the scientific literature with regard to statistics and some experiments may not be properly designed but instead of someone with first hand experience and knowledge or the errors and an understanding of experimental deisgn, such as when you use a factorial design or what the appropriate statistical test is given the data one is using, you sond like someone regurgiating a meme they've heard elsewhere.
  9. Baux bali from vancouver, Canada writes: It is about time the media published an article about the concern with using artificial sweeteners. They are not good for us. Pop is not good for us either. If we switch the pop for water, then we will start to feel better, and maybe just lose some weight. FYI: water has no calories.
  10. J Kay from Canada writes: Clearly some of the people commenting, while thinking they are emminetly intelligent and knowledgable about logic or mathematics, seem completely incapable of understanding the basic premise of the article and the research.

    Yes, if someone eats the same amount of food in a day, and chooses a diet pop as opposed to a regular pop then they will consume less calories (this is 'absolutely' true) and ceritus paribus lose weight (assuming their previous consumption was a maintenance amount. What those commenting failed to comprehend is that there may be mechanisms in which the diet pop is acting that do NOT make the two situations equal. The researchers noted that body temperature in the rats did not rise in those who consumed artificial sweeteners but did in those who consumed sugar, even though those who consumed the artificially sweetened food consumed more overall. This may suggest that artificial sweeteners have an effect on metabolism, slowing it and therefore decreasing the amount of calories the body requires to consume, yet at the same time, interferring with the body's ability to 'count' the calories it has consumed; that is to properly regulation satiation.

    Such a situation would allow one to consume the fewer calorie option and yet gain weight while someone consuming the higher calorie sugar laden option would not. People herein are making the a priori assumption that one's basel metabolic rate is constant and is in no way effected by what one eats. Without proof of this, one cannot accept this as axiomatic and it appears that this research and a wealth of other research along these lines suggests that it may not be true.

    At the very least this study is confirming other findings related to artificial sweeteners and obesity, that is there may be a causal link, not just a correlation.
  11. Kay Ay from Canada writes: But that's the misconception of diet pop and according to this article if the artifical sweetners encourage you to eat more, well, that's quite the catch 22.
    I don't drink pop myself so this won't impact me. But some family members are big on the stuff.
  12. Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo from Toronto, Canada writes: All they found here is that people who drink regular soda are more likely to be heavy (most likely from the excess empty calories), and that people who are drinking diet soda are also more likely to be heavy (which is why they're drinking diet soda in the first place, to slim down).

    100% of people who go on diets are too heavy - that does NOT mean that dieting makes you fat.
  13. Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo from Toronto, Canada writes: '...rats that consumed sugar substitutes have greater difficulty counting calories.'

    WOW! And they even got rats to count their calories? Training their rats to count is by far the most impressive thing to come out of this study!
  14. A H from Toronto, Canada writes: Interesting scientific curiosity and nothing more. The results do not allow for comparison to a human diet because from what I understand 100% of the food that the rats consumed was laced with artificial sweeteners. In reality only a small portion of the total amount of daily food humans consume contains artificial sweeteners. Moreover, their are so many psychological factors in humans that cannot be properly controlled in an animal study. Similarly the Framingham heart study referred to in the article is of little use because it simply points out that people who do not drink any pop are more healthy than those who drink one ore more pops (diet or otherwise) every single day. I would not be suprised if simply adding diet pop to your diet does not lead to weight loss. Even in the context of a diet, artifical sweeteners may not have an effect on weight loss if you feel more hungry due to the missing calories. Personally I think artifical sweeteners are useful because I think it is better not to waste high calorie foods on those with zero nutritional content... And I guarantee that no study will ever find that in people with stable weight, adding a few packs of sweet in low causes them to slowly gain weight. Will NEVER happen.
  15. A H from Toronto, Canada writes: The media loves articles about the potential 'dangers' of aspartame etc. In reality aspartame has been studies so thoroughly that it would take a miracle to prove otherwise. I use aspartame exclusively in my morning coffee when I do drink pop I drink diet and I guarantee something other than aspartame is going to be the end of me when my time comes...
  16. J Kay from Canada writes: Joey Jo Jo: Please tell us all you didn't actually read the article, because if you did God help us if you're representative of the reading comprehension levels of Canadians. The article talked about reseach from Purdue University that used a rat model to look at the effect of artificial sweeteners had on caloric consumption. Instead of feeding the rats the same quantity of food, they were provided as much food as they liked with some given sugar sweetened food and other saccarin sweetened food. Those who were provided the saccarin sweetened food, consumed more in total calorie intake than did those who consumed the sugar sweetened food. The researchers postulate that the artificial sweetener may somehow interfere with the body's ability to internally count calories; i.e to properly control and assess hunger (satiation).
  17. A H from Toronto, Canada writes: Again Jay Kay it is interesting that artificial sweeteners may have this effect but in reality the information is probably of little practicle significance as humans do not eat diets that are EXCLUSIVE sweetened with artifical sweeteners as in the rat study discussed in the article. Also, did anybody consider that maybe the rats just like the taste of the artifical sweetener better than regular sugar? And the temperature rise might have been explained by the fact that the diet food was low calorie so it was easier to metabolize...

    Too many questions...
  18. Lee Turner from Canada writes: I still don't think any fake 'artificial' food is still good for you, no matter what it is. I try to limit my intake of everything processed or chemical in nature. I don't know what it wrong with North Americans, and the need to make everything 'white' in order to make it palatable: white rice, white bread, white flour, white sugar. It's all bleached!

    And pop, sugar less or not, is still not good for you, at all. Consider that the Coca-Cola plant in Atlanta uses Coke as an engine degreaser. It is highly corrosive, and any trucks carrying Coke syrup must be marked with a hazardous materials sign.
  19. robert F from Toronto, Canada writes: I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have to duplicate that 'Oh god I couldn't eat a bite' feeling after you've had a good but not overboard meal.

    I can usually duplicate it a bit, with a strong cup of cold coffee with a little bit of sugar...and make it OLD coffee, it just destroys your appetite for a few hours. Then I take a sleeping pill to avoid late night eating. :)

    They have to find a way to short circuit the hunger signal, make us slighty off food and you'll have help in the battle.

    Just telling people to not eat, buck up etc., is bullcrap, and doesn't work all together. Sure, if we didn't work, have to raise a kid perhaps, and had all the time and money going for us, we could pursue such 'star trekian' goals, but meanwhile on the stress filled lack-lustre earth, we have real issues to deal with...and denying yourself that last pleasure allowed, after a crappy day, is a hard sell.
  20. robert F from Toronto, Canada writes: Lee Turner - You are very right, but it's not turning it white....

    It's typical of north america in general...they made it cheap.

    The quest for the all mightly buck mean low quality bargain basement garbage...that tastes alright, but is just the cheapest product they can make.

    It's consumer's fault too, they'll buy 5 cheap cakes from a dollar store that are flavour-ess and full of chemicals, rather then buy one nice cake a month to enjoy as a treat.

    The culture sold to us is, Treat Yourself ALL THE TIME! And most people cannot afford quality. Even middle of the road products are cheaply made it seems.

    North America's time is over, thank god...I prefer the quality and specialness of certain products over cheap over-abundance.
  21. Chris Kempan from writes:

    In the end, people make people fat. If you monitor what you eat and realize that just because you feel hungry, that does not mean you need to eat, you will be in fine shape. It's called self-control.
  22. Sam Snead from Canada writes: Personally I stay away from these type products. The study seems to indicate that some functional body change that occurs in response to real sugar is also occurring in response to the artificial "sugar".

    I would expect that a good sugar substitute would necessarily need to do that for people to even consider using it ... the sugar effect is about a lot more than taste.

    If the goal is weight management, you really have to keep your body in an efficient state of utilizing fat stores for energy. The body will only become efficient at that mechanism thru use. You can't beat it.

    The adrenaline kick you get from sugar and mild stimulants is pretty close to the kick you get when adrenaline ramps up create the heat necessary to utilize fat stores. It's kinda like paying for something you already have.
  23. George Hall from Canada writes: I think they also have a detrimental effect on you nervous system. far more serious problem than weight gain ..because they are tricking it.
  24. The Wight from Canada writes: "Personally I stay away from these type products. The study seems to indicate that some functional body change that occurs in response to real sugar is also occurring in response to the artificial "sugar"

    What I would like to see is the same type of study with the other major sweetners.

    For example, Splenda is the result of a minor change to a normal sucrose molecule, adding a Cl where you would normally have an O-H combination. It's still artificial seeing as it doesn't occur in nature this way, but seeing as it is based upon a normal sugar molecule, it might be treated very differently by the body than the saccharine in the article's study.
  25. J Kay from Canada writes: A H: I think your assertion with regard to the typical composition of humans diets relative to what was analysed here is a bit generalised. While his model is certainly simplified, the food source was not entirely zero calorie, it was low calorie as are a large variety food consumed by humans.

    Artificial sweeteners are added to a whole host of foods to increase the sweetness without increasing the calorie count. I can barely find a normal pack of gum anymore that doesn't include artificial sweeteners for example. While the composition of a human diet is certainly not for most 100% sweetened by artificial sweeteners, it's perhaps not necessary that it be so for the mechanism apparent in this study to have an impact. It may be that artificial sweeteners simply have 'long' lasting metabolic effects such that consuming a diet pop by itself may impact the next meal one eats.

    There is of course more studies to be done, but to dismiss this outright is just as foolish as to presume that it's absolutely true either.
  26. George Hall from Canada writes: I think there are so called natural sweetners like the stevia plant that do not have the harmful side effects.
    Our food supply is abysmal.
    Our Conservative government is doing nothing to protect Canadians.
  27. Robin Parker from Canada writes: This is only one of many studies showing a positive correlation between the consumption of artifically sweetened food and weight gain. Just last week a study was reported that showed a 40% greater incidence of metabolic syndrome in adults who consume artificial sweetener. The correlation is fairly indisputable at this point; I believe it is the cause that is still up in the air. It is commonly suggested that animals/ people compensate by eating more food later on -- the "supersize me" effect one reader referred to. Presumably this explanation only holds water in human studies. Another theory is that the sweet taste alone causes the body to react as if calories have been consumed by releasing insulin etc.... In any event, surely the moral is that it is best to stick with real food and avoid eating human produced chemicals that mimic real food...? I know people are very attached to nutrasweet. It is awfully hard to understand why.
  28. Not right or left from Canada writes: I'm currently trying to lose weight but instead of depriving myself of the food I love I just exercise more. As long as you intake less calories than your body needs than you will lose weight.
  29. Stude Ham from Outremont, Canada writes:

    The only thing really proved by this article is that the key element to stable weight control is PORTION control. It appears that PORTION control was not used by any of their rats and other experimental subjects.

    Saccharine??? How cruel!
  30. Hannah McCormick from Canada writes: You know what is a calorie-free, healthy, inexpensive alternative that will NOT make you crave more calories??

    Water.
  31. Diogenes the Cynic from Canada writes: Oh, the light irony!
  32. Brian Lilly from Canada writes: I simply limit the bulk of the little amount of sugars I consume to naturally occurring sugars in fresh fruits. I see the proof positive when I check my blood sugars 2 hours later!!
  33. Susie Q from Canada writes: Good! I'm sure these chemicals are terrible for our bodies anyway. Maybe less people will eat them.
  34. Tim Fromhere from Cd. del Carmen, Mexico writes: These results were so obvious. I mean, everybody I know who drinks diet pop is overweight.

    Actually, I find it difficult to believe that so many posters do not believe that the researchers in these studies are capable of conducting competent research. They are not going to get a grant to do the research if their credentials are not in order. This generally means a PhD from an accredited university.

    A one or two page summary of a research project cannot possibly do it justice. If you find it so interesting, go to the original published source. If you still have some doubts about the methodology and interpretation of the results, most research journals have a contact address so that other experts in the area can contact the researchers directly for more information and clarification.
  35. A H from Toronto, Canada writes: Hi Jay Kay - Don't get me wrong. I am not dismissing the study at all. I simply do not think that it has much practical relevance to humans.
  36. Whoa Stomach from Quiteamouthful, Canada writes: Something my wife pointed out to me and I`ve found true, did you ever see everyone who is quite obese pushing those shopping carts full of diet soda? I myself have lost about 20 lbs., but put most of it on drinking DIET soda. I`ve cut it out completely (and the fries that I would have with that soda), and with exercise am doing quite fine. There is a problem with our consumption of soda, we believe it is just too normal and can`t hurt you. Our kids weren`t allowed to drink it until their early teens ( my wife insisted), and from what I know today, know that she had the right idea there. Btw, I do believe that those artificial sweeteners do make you more hungry.
  37. Digital Taco from Canada writes: The human body is smart. When your taste buds detect sugar, or what it thinks is sugar, it signals the pancreas to release a bit of insulin ahead of time, to prepare itself for a glycemic load.

    With real sugar, no problem, nature works its usual course.
    With artificial sweetner, slight problem. A bit of insulin is released, but there is no actual sugar to process. Now, I'm not talking lots of insulin, otherwise you'd be in a hypoglycemic coma. Given this milleu of slightly elevated insulin levels which will decrease your blood sugars a bit towards the lower limit of normal, you will naturally feel hungry, and actually need to refill yourself with real sugar (which invariably will be in the form of carbs, which your body can easily convert to simple sugars).

    I think the solution to the problem is that if we have artificial sweetners for diet pop, we also need artificial carbs to replace wheat/rice/etc.
  38. Chris C from Canada writes: Always question a study, or a headline, that uses the word "may." Since an equally accurate headline could read maybe not.
  39. Sarah Bee from Canada writes: Moral of the story. Nature knows best. Don't eat crap.
  40. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: I always wake up to read news stories about tests of rodent consumption of yogurt, because I very clearly recall reading in the 1960s (when I first adopted yogurt as a dietary constituent) that scientists had found mice fed unusual amounts of yogurt went blind. As the years passed, I learned that a mouse and even a rat is smaller than a bull, but sh*t all the same.
  41. R. M. from Canada writes: This article gives credence to a previous article/study that indicated that diabetics do NOT get the result they think when drinking diet sodas because as other posters have indicated that body responds to the "sweetness" . The conclusion was don't drink the diet sodas and I for one agree and am going to cut them out completely. I rarely feel "satisfied" as I do with a glass of water, I have diabetes and don't need the insulin problem, and they are costly and full of additives and colouring!!
  42. THX 1138 from Victoria, Canada writes: I don't give a flying fart what Oprah is eating this week.

    Real food for real people! Aspartame is evil. Real sugar or honey, please. Ditch the genetically-modified 'light' margarine for butter and real whipped cream instead of that crappy dream whip. Natural foods don't require huge portions, either.

    Oh, by the way, you need to exercise, too. There is no magical diet-in-bag as endorsed by some overpaid celebrity.
  43. suzanne zappia from sackville, NB, Canada writes: Chris Kempan from writes: "In the end, people make people fat. If you monitor what you eat and realize that just because you feel hungry, that does not mean you need to eat, you will be in fine shape. It's called self-control." ________ Well Chris, if you're eating foods that provide adequate levels vitamins, proteins, etc. (rather than junk foods that are high on sugars and fats) you should be feeling satiated (ie: full) and not have to worry about denying your body by starving yourself when you feel hungry. I think Sam Snead was on the right track when he said: "If the goal is weight management, you really have to keep your body in an efficient state of utilizing fat stores for energy. The body will only become efficient at that mechanism through use." Calorie-counters and dieters often fall into a dangerous pattern by severly altering their body's natural metabolism. Swinging from high to low calorie-intakes month-to-month with every new dietary twist throws your body into fat-storage mode because it doesn't know when the next 'drought' might be. Constant dieters will always find they gain back when they end the 'diet'. Without gradually changing lifestyle patterns and increasing exercise to burn calories as they come in, the body will see-saw back and forth. Personally, a friend of mine gave some very good advice once: "Everything in moderation... sometimes even including moderation." :)
  44. Accounting Student from New West, Canada writes: Hmm, this explains why the former co-worker would down 4-6 litres of diet coke because she was "thirsty" until she started drinking water, then only drank 1 litre a day. She put on well over 50lbs drinking and eating "light and diet" products, but when she ate real food and drink, lost all that weight and more.

    Everything in moderation, and leave the fake stuff alone. Personally, I can't stand the taste of the fake stuff, and splenda is the worst.
  45. jason rohlig from Guelph, Canada writes: its true everything in moderation, I agree man made sweetners are not natural and who really knows the effect of eating such things on a persons metabolic rate. I think its just a good idea to leave the light and diet stuff at the store and shop the outside walls of the store only. You know the good stuff vegtables, lean meats, real foods. Portion size and self control and, excersize go along way in any weight loss plan.
  46. J S from Hamilton, Canada writes: J Kay: You must be an economist, because nobody else on this earth uses the term "ceteris paribus." I know this because I'm an economist, one who is trained well in statistics and who knows the difference between correlation and causation. My beef was with the title of this article, "Aritificial Sweeteners May Cause Weight Gain." In fact, the details of the article do not support this conclusion. They support the alternative conclusion that there are confounding factors related to consumption of diet pop that lead to weight gain, but they have not established the direct link between the weight gain and diet pop. What they have done is laid out a nice pathway through which consumption of artificial sweeteners could change eating habits. The good news is that we're humans, not rats. We are able to control ourselves, and can comprehend that offsetting the diet pop with more food will not help out in terms of weight loss. For this reason, thought the biological effect may be the same, I doubt we'd see the same end weight gain effects in humans. Admittedly, I should read the study itself. I assume I would find a host of statistical problems, including small sample size, and subsequenrly extremely wide confidence bounds. Statistical research in Medicine is bad, I've read papers and I've seen it first hand, and no J Kay with his infinite wisdom will ever be able to convince me otherwise
  47. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: robert F - the caffeine in your coffee elevates your blood sugar by converting fat to sugar. But if you add sucrose to the coffee, then you get a second boost in your blood sugar. In your case (I suspect) where you are added only enough sucrose for taste, the second boost isn't significant and so your elevated blood sugar holds off the feeling of hunger for a while. If you were to load your coffee with sucrose - or eat a doughnut or muffin with it - then the second boost would elevate your blood sugar to the point of an insulin response. The insulin would rapidly convert the blood sugar to fat, lowering your blood sugar levels. That's why people tend get hungry faster if they eat a muffin with their coffee than if they have the coffee alone (and black or with sweetener).
  48. Mrs. T from Canada writes: THX - amen brother/sister. Real over fake any day. We raise our own food and there is simply no comparison to what is available in the supermarkets. In the diet phenomena, it is all about marketing. Who has the best minds to sell the products to the masses. I am amazed at the super genius of some of these people. My husband says that he missed his calling. He can market products to people that do not want to think for themselves. Also, regarding the diets that do not make you fat...we raised wild turkeys a few years ago. If we forgot to supplement their scratching for food with a steady supply of turkey crumble, they would store fat for those times when food was scarce. How did we know this? When time came to butcher, the turkeys in the barn which never got missed at mealtime, were healthy meat with no fatty deposits. The turkeys outside that we left to their own devices and did not get regular supplementary meals had fat stored. This was not during winter time, so it was not fat stored up for cold weather. We concluded that we do the same. Deny yourself food (empty calories) can only fool your body into storing fat for survivial. Regular healthy meals with light healthy snacks is the way to go.
  49. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: J S - the researchers used ANOVA for their stats. The sample sizes were 8-13 mice per group and the significance threshold was 0.05. The test is fine, the sample sizes is small, but we're talking about rats here - it's hard to deal with thousands of rats. I do have problem with p-values being less than 0.05, though. In molecular biology, the standard is less than 0.01 (but 0.001 is better).
  50. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: J S - also any animal that ate less than 70% of the yogurt offered was excluded from the study. That makes me curious as to which group those rats came from.
  51. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: Mrs. T - yeah, but that has nothing to do with sweeteners. Most diets (sensible ones) advocate eating at regular intervals because the body will catabolize muscles with blood sugar drops below a certain point. Some bodybuilders eat 8-9 times a day because of this. But they avoid eating refined sugar. I'm betting that your turkey is a very raw grainy mix - lots of fibre, not easy to digest? The point of sweeteners is not to replace calories. It is to replace the sweet taste of certain foods.
  52. Rick Sieb from Edmonton, Canada writes: Absurd!
  53. Me in Ontario from Canada writes: I don't use sweetners nor sugar. I'm sweet enough!!! :P
  54. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: Me in Ontario - so say the pigs in your backyard, eh?
  55. Me in Ontario from Canada writes: I don't even eat pork either, so no, no pigs in my backyard. lol. I do have the occasional steak though.
  56. Emperor Joshua Norton from Toronto, Canada writes: Me in Ontario - oh, sorry. I thought you were making a reference to Brick Top in the movie Snatch.
  57. Mei-Xing Xu from Canada writes: artificial sweeteners make me feel ill usually ending in a migraine.
  58. L DR from Canada writes: I must have a built-in taste detector; I choke on artificial anything. How can anybody eat that stuff?

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