The Artificial Sweeteners

Four participants (18%) marked obesity as the sole reason affecting their sweetener preference. Two of the four have no AS preference, one selected Splenda, one Stevia. Three of the 22 people (15%) reported being hyperglycemic, two without a preference on AS and the third person preferring Truvia. Three individuals also wrote in the ‘other’ blank indicating their need for low sugar, low-calories, and diet as their factor, and were split between Truvia, Stevia, and Sweet N’ Low. General health concerned two participants who filled this into the ‘other’ blank, responding with Truvia and Stevia being their AS of choice. We did assume there would be health concerns that we did not provide on our list hence the ‘other’ blank. Since people chose to fill in these blanks, we were forced to interpret their data differently. The concerns that were written into the survey were not available options for everyone else taking the survey to select yes or no. The other participants may have selected those concerns additionally if they were presented in the survey as well. For this reason, those numbers cannot be quantitated into our results in the same manner as the checkable options of health concerns.

Diabetes was a concern of two people whose preferences were Truvia and a non-specified other. Of the remaining health concerns, PMS and a non specified other concern were only selected once; their preferences were Stevia and Splenda respectively. No AS preference was selected by the top two health concerns, totaling over 45% of the sample. Again, the written in other and PMS responses are not factored into the results in the same way.

A separate question asked preference between real sugar (including sugar in the raw) and AS. Of the twenty-two p...

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