Is Sugar-Free Pudding Healthy?

If you are following a heart-healthy low-fat diet, watching your sugar content is likely part of your meal plan. Overloading on sugary foods and drinks can put you at a higher risk for certain medical conditions and can also lead to weight gain and obesity. Eliminating as much sugar from your diet as possible will help keep your heart and kidneys healthy.

A healthy benefit to implementing pudding to your diet is taste variety. There are several different flavors from which to choose, including vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, pistachio, banana cream, cheesecake, lemon, chocolate fudge and white chocolate. When you eat a cold serving of pudding it can be a refreshing and tasty dessert alternative to high-calorie and sugar-laden ice cream and custard. If desired, you can add pudding as a supplement to other low-fat recipes including smoothies, milk shakes and desserts that call for pudding as a main ingredient.

One of the main ingredients in sugar-free pudding is artificial sweetener such as neotame, saccharin, sucralose, asprartame or acesulfame potassium. Most puddings and other sugar-free products use artificial sweeteners to mimic or supplement the sweetness of sugar. Most artificial sweeteners have a slight after-taste. Some people report sweeteners as tasting sweeter than sugar.

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of artificial sweeteners, there have been some concerns about long-term, artificial sweetener intake. The American Cancer Society reports that saccharin has been linked to urinary bladder cancer when taken in high doses or consumed in high amounts.

Natural sugar is an ingredient found in many products to make it taste sweet. Because sugar is directly associated with blood glucose levels in humans, if you have diabetes or at risk for diabetes, sugar can be harmful – especially if you consume it regularly. Sugar-free pudding is a healthier option for those watching blood glucose levels as opposed to eating regular instant puddings that contain sugar.

Sugar-free pudding is a low-calorie food. One serving of Jell-O brand sugar-free pudding contains 60 calories. Each serving of sugar-free pudding has only 1.5 g of total fat and 270 mg of sodium -- this allows you to eat pudding as part of your low-fat diet program. You can supplement it in place of your usual mid-morning, afternoon or late-night snack. Pudding comes in individual serving containers or you can purchase dry, ready-to-make packages.