a month of posts - day twentyfour

This morning I had to grab some shrapnel for the parking ticket, so I ducked into the shops and bought a tub of mixed fruit. I started chomping into the tub whilst checking my emails etc, then half way through the tub I suddenly made a discovery... the fruit juice tasted funny! It had a bitter tang laced through it. I read the ingredients on the side of the tub and it contained the words 'artificial sweetener' not once, but twice. I was a little shocked but more saddened by the fact that what would have been deliciously lush chunks of fruit was masked by a dull tasting sweetener which attempted to taste like fruit juice. I understand that there are people who are trying to lose weight or can not intake straight doses of sucrose or fructose... But still... It makes me wonder though, through advertising sugar-free products and using artificial sweeteners have been widely promoted and often related to weight loss and teeth-friendly, but are there any side effects? Surely if food is processed and refined, it makes the body work much harder... and how does your liver, kidneys etc handle it all? Anyway it's just a thought. I'm definitely still a huge fan of the full cream, full sugar products like coca-cola, butter, creamy yoghurt, canned fruit in real fruit juice, and the list goes on and on...