Those sweeteners are basically sugars that our bodies don't digest. That's why they seem to run straight through you, so to speak. What would be desired instead?
Natural sugars that can be metabolized? Pros: Good for the tummy. Should make a hard candy with similar texture and mouth feel. Cons: not so good for diabetics and diet-conscious consumers.
Non-sugar sweeteners, like stevia, ace-k, aspartame, or saccharin? Pros: zero calorie, tummy friendly. Cons: won't produce a hard candy that holds together, not popular with consumers because "artificial" (except stevia).
Well theres a lot of worry and debate in the nutritional world over these things. And sorbital can affect blood sugar, so its not so simple as it just doesnt affect you at all.
Theres been research on sucralose as well, "Pepino commented: "When study participants drank
sucralose, their
blood sugarpeaked at a higher level than when they drank only water before consuming glucose.
Insulin levels also rose about 20 percent higher. So the artificial sweetener was related to an enhanced blood
insulin and glucose
response."May 30, 2013"
Then there was the concern with the saccharin cuasing cancer in those lab rats which some believe isnt a worry to humans because, "Because the bladder
tumors seen in rats are due to a mechanism not relevant to humans and because there is no clear evidence that
saccharin causes cancer in humans,
saccharin was delisted in 2000 from the U.S. National Toxicology Program's Report on Carcinogens" Still, that stuff makes one pause.
For every postive you can dig up a potential negative. Its far from a forgone conclusion that these are simply harmless, particularly when you are dedicated at taking them BOTH every single day for potentially years. One may be able largely confident that these are fairly harmless, in large frequent quantities, or they may not. At any rate, Im nowhere near comfortable saying "forget it."
At any rate, as I had stated in my original post, I was wondering if they would consider a plain bad tasting product with no sweeteners. This wouldnt have pleasant taste obviously, and I might be the only one interested in such a product,