If you want to buy sweet beverages, the healthiest are those that are sugar free and sweetened with the newly approved artificial sweetener sucralose. While sucralose has not been on the market very long, it has many advantages over nutrasweet and other artificial sweeteners. To begin with, sucralose tastes the closest to real sugar. This isn’t surprising, as sucralose is manufactured by manipulating the sugar molecule so that it has no calories. In addition, sucralose does not have the bitter after taste of many other artificial sweeteners and does not give people the headaches and sleep troubles that NutraSweet often does.

As mentioned before, fruit juices are generally loaded with sugars and do not have the fiber content of whole fruits. If you are thirsty, it is much more benefit to your diet to eat a fruit—you will be surprised by how quickly your thirst disappears. Most fruits are 80 to 90 percent water and contain valuable fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

You also can make your own beverages by combining an unsweetened powder drink mix, water, and sucralose. Sucralose is now sold at most grocery stores as a powder that can be used in cooking just like sugar. You also can use it to sweeten your coffee.