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There's the pink, the blue and the yellow. Folks hungry for zero calories sugar substitutes will find a rainbow of choices.

Each of the these brands has its own key ingredient -- saccharin can be found in Sweet 'n Low, aspartame in Equal and sucralose in Splenda.

Those key ingredients are all artificial and have made their way into a variety of food and beverages. While they've been on the market for a number of years, saccharin being the oldest, questions still persist about their safety as well as the safety of other FDA approved artificial sweeteners.

"If you look at the studies they are animal studies, so we don't know of human studies showing that any of these products, that they cause cancer," said NYU Registered Dietician Jennifer Crum. "The simple answer is we just don't know and maybe in 10 to 20 years we might have different data, but the best we can do is give you the information we have today."

But recent studies have raised other concerns.

"Artificial sweetener use overtime may make people more inclined to crave more sweet, higher sweetness and more carbohydrate foods," said Crum.

A natural, zero calorie sweetener is stevia. Once banned in the US, this relatively new sugar substitute is generating a growing fan base.

"It's an extract from a South American plant and things like Pruvia and Truvia those are just brand names of stevia. Stevia is the actual compound -- it is natural, it is much, much sweeter than sugar so manufacturers are actually mixing it with other low calorie or no calorie sweeteners to cut the sweetness out of the product. So while you're getting stevia, you also may be getting another artificial sweetener as well," said Crum.

So be sure to look closely at the ingredients.

If all this is just too much information for your palette, there is always good old sugar, in moderation of course since each teaspoon is about 15 calories.