Artificial sweeteners between a sugar lump and a hard place

摘要

A whopping one in four women and one in five men in the UK are now obese. It's a huge public health concern and manufacturers are under pressure to produce low calorie options as the government tries to cut five billion calories from the nation's diet. Not only that, many manufacturers want to cut calories from their products as they know this is what consumers want. More often than not, manufacturers are reducing calories by replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin. But what do consumers think about these sweeteners and are they perceived as a healthy alternative?