 The third way artificial sweeteners may counter-intuitively lead to weight gain involves maintaining the cravings of and dependency on all things sweet. By continuing to consume any sweeteners, whether without calories, we are unable to train our flavor preferences away from intensely sweet foods. It's like if you go on a low-salt diet for the first few weeks. Everything tastes like cardboard until your taste buds have a chance to adapt to the new norm. After that, naturally low-sodium foods taste perfectly fine, and adding table salt tastes gross because it's way too salty. Same thing with sweeteners. At home, maybe use erythritol. That's great. But then you go on vacation, what if you forget it at home? You still take your preference for intensely sweet food with you, and that may end up translating into the increased consumption of less-than-healthy foods. Those are the caveats, even for something non-toxic like erythritol. It's safe, but only if you don't use it as an excuse to eat more junk food.