It's not easy cutting down on calories, especially if you have a sweet tooth. There are so many products available that either compromise flavour for calories, and by that I mean low fat salad dressings and zero sugar soft drinks. It's normally fairly obvious when a sweetener has been substituted for real sugar, but at least you can feel some satisfaction in cutting out a few calories without having to try and drink your morning tea or coffee without any sugar at all. I received a Splenda sweetener dispenser as a BzzAgent, and gave it a try instead of my usual brown sugar. For my 3/4 cups a day, it provides 16 calories instead of 160, so that's enough reason for me to continue using it for a while.
The taste of sweetener is detectable in Splenda's sweetener tablets in my morning cup of tea, unfortunately, but it wouldn't stop me using it. It seems less detectable in my instant coffee drinks (I love cappuccino and latte as a mid afternoon caffeine boost) and I do enjoy the fact that it's not as bad for my teeth as regular sugar, so in the long term it may well benefit both my waistline and my dental health! It is slightly less satisfying dropping a pill into a drink rather than a spoon of granulated sugar, but luckily Splenda has also come up with a granulated sweetener which can also be used for baking and cooking.
I like that the sweetener dispenser is so small and compact, I can just pop it into my handbag and have it with me when I'm in the office or having a cup of tea when visiting friends. I'm not worried that the dispenser button will get pressed inside my handbag leaving tablets everywhere; it seems fairly foolproof! One thing that you have to be careful of is to make sure that the tablet has fully dissolved and been stirred through properly; concentrated sweetener taste at the bottom of the mug isn't very nice!
All in all,it's not a noticeable improvement on the sweeteners that have been around for years, but it's a handy way to drop a few calories out of your diet and care for your teeth without it feeling too punishing.