Oooh, conundrums. *grin*My own experience of sugar in drink was in tea, it had to be strong enough for a mouse to walk across it, hint of milk and one teaspoon of sugar.... until I met my ex, whenever we went over to the in laws his dad made the most disgustingly sugary affair. I gave up drinking sugar in tea whilst over there and quickly enough got used to it enough to give up sugar in all teas(Turned out that his Dad got confused easily with teaspoon and tablespoon measurements.)Whilst my morning coffee is an unadulterated black, I've tried a couple of 'not sugars' in other things like baking, as sugar doesn't play well with my multiple sclerosisThe only one I got on with was stevia, but largely because it grew well in my garden.Whilst there's no real, solid, indisputable scientific link that I'm aware of proving a link between artificial sweetener consumption and bad health stuff, such as a rise in blood sugar or weight gain etc, I'm a personal believer that if there's enough rumor around something then that's enough for me to be wary.No smoke without fire? Well possibly, but rather than running towards it, why not just find another solution?It takes 2 to 10 days to grow new tastebuds. The challenge is that it can take up to five years for your brain to develop new preferences. With that in mind, whenever I trial anything 'new' to my diet such as keffir or kombucha, I treat my brain as an idiot child. I got the idea from some website or other, but making it all a positive