I've been complaining about the shortage of sugar at the office, which I use in my coffee and oatmeal in the morning. And I've been forced by this situation to use sugar substitutes.
In my taste tests, I've found the Sweet & Low to be the most awful-tasting of the sugar substitutes. So bad that it gives the other sugar substitutes a bad rap. Above is a photo of the Sweet & Low product, which appears to be composed of irregular gnarly crystals.
I found Equal to be the second worst in my taste tests. Actually, the difference in sweetness and aftertaste between Equal and Sweet & Low is quite dramatic, with Equal being the far better of the two. Its sweetness, however, is still lacking in comparison to real sugar, and it does still leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.
Splenda, one of the newer kids in the artificial sweetener world, is the best of the three fakers I tasted. It leaves the least bitter aftertaste and has the sweetest flavor of the three in this taste test. I believe it would still be very easy, however, to discern the difference between Splenda and real sugar in a blind taste test (which I did not conduct).
Above is some good old raw cane sugar. Yum. The best in my taste test. Sweet and warm and a touch of caramel flavor.
Since I believe a naturally-occurring food product to be better for my health than a manufactured one, I'll be sticking with the classic sugar, thankyouverymuch.
