Mmm, artificial sweetener…
I’d bet a 2 liter of diet pop with artificial sweetener would be healthier for me than a 2 liter full of sugar. Nothing is good if you overdo it.
In an ideal world we’d all eat organic vegetables and meats alone, this isn’t an ideal world.
I personally think that if there was a serious risk then reputable researchers would have found significant proof of it by now. After all it has been around for ages and tested numerous times.
If there had been strong proof it was harmful it would have been pulled off the shelves by now.
At the end of the day despite the overwhelming body of proof I think there will always be those screaming “poison” or “neurotoxic”.
Why is it that only the EU labels their food as genetically altered, and we don’t?
Absolutely agree with you. But I need to cut back.
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I’m diabetic + I consume aspartame all day. It doesn’t seem to affect my blood sugar level. I test it twice a day + it’s consistent with what else I eat.
I can’t say about the other things My instinct says to steer clear of it. .
Neither…both are bad, LOL… Refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup are also not good for you.
personally if I drink something with aspartame in it I can feel it in my nerves, my body reacts to a foreign non food substance… and I’ve never even had much of it at one time…I have none now…
I occasionally get a ginger ale at the health food store that’s got good sugars in it and 32 grams of raw ginger…
My coffee or tea gets sweetened with molasses and honey…much better for you… it’s natural sugars plus all kind of minerals…
There is proof, but do you realize what it takes to pull something from the shelves? It practically has to kill you outright or make you violently sick immediately. people do not realize how much the corporations push their poisons and use their financial leverage to get stuff past the FDA & USDA…
Again, it’s the influence of GMO corporate giants like Monsanto and others who produce growth hormones and antibiotics and all kinds of crap that goes in foods. they have massive political influence and the money to play the game pushing whatever they invent…they find something that makes food grow bigger or maybe resistant to some particular disease and don’t bother with the side effects of the engineering.
That, and we need more people to stand up and speak the truth and be just as active presenting the other side of the coin regarding the dangers.
@SzAdmin - can we get a lock on this conversation? It seems to be steering away from being productive. I think all those who have wanted to share their opinion, have, and now it’s going in circles.
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I was simply answering Skims question, and it is true that those big corporations use their money to influence the politics of what gets approved…even has a hand in tweaking the research sometimes. this certainly relates to the topic, especially since Monsanto was the main producer of aspartame for 15 years…
The findings and historical and scientific information in Qing Yang’s work are Very Informative.
Gain weight by “going diet?” Artificial sweeteners and the neurobiology of sugar cravings
"Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain. The San Antonio Heart Study examined 3,682 adults over a seven- to eight-year period in the 1980s [18]. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption. Average BMI gain was +1.01 kg/m2 for control and 1.78 kg/m2 for people in the third quartile for artificially sweetened beverage consumption. The American Cancer Society study conducted in early 1980s included 78,694 women who were highly homogenous with regard to age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and lack of preexisting conditions [19]. At one-year follow-up, 2.7 percent to 7.1 percent more regular artificial sweetener users gained weight compared to non-users matched by initial weight. The difference in the amount gained between the two groups was less than two pounds, albeit statistically significant. Saccharin use was also associated with eight-year weight gain in 31,940 women from the Nurses’ Health Study conducted in the 1970s [20].
Similar observations have been reported in children. However, childhood studies often were complicated by the more dynamic growth-associated diet changes. Consumption of both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soda increased and milk consumption decreased with age [21]. A strict differentiation between artificial sweetener users and non-users was not possible. A two-year prospective study involving 166 school children found that increased diet soda consumption was associated with higher BMI Z-scores at follow-up, indicating weight gain [22]. The Growing Up Today Study, involving 11,654 children aged 9 to 14 also reported positive association between diet soda and weight gain for boys [23]. For each daily serving of diet beverage, BMI increased by 0.16 kg/m2. The correlation was not significant for girls. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study followed 2,371 girls from age 9 to 19 for 10 years [24]. Both diet and regular soda drinking was associated with increase in total daily energy intake. Soda intake also predicted the greatest increase in BMI, although the correlation between diet soda and BMI was not significant. A cross-sectional study looking at 3,111 children and youth found diet soda drinkers had significantly elevated BMI [21].
In addition, consensus from interventional studies suggests that artificial sweeteners do not help reduce weight when used alone [2,25]. BMI did not decrease after 25 weeks of substituting diet beverages for sugar-sweetened beverages in 103 adolescents in a randomized controlled trial, except among the heaviest participants [26]."
Firemonkey playing devils advocate! It took me a while to find the author of that blog. He’s a doc in Canada, Assoc Prof too, so moderate credentials there. And he says low calorie sweeteners are the way to go because they are the lesser evil.
Key word there is evil! lesser or not, why not eat only good sugars, the kind the body actually needs ? Refined sugar and HFCS are evil as are artificial sweeteners…
Unrefined cane sugar, unrefined brown sugar, real maple syrup, molasses, barley malt and rice syrups, honey, agave nectar, the sugar in berries and fresh squeezed juices… These are good for you !
NOT refined stuff which has all its nutrients removed, just like bleached stuff like white flour…
We’ve already seen the evils of the poison aspartame, so here’s a look at refined sugar
"Dr. Martin classified refined sugar as a poison because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals. “What is left consists of pure, refined carbohydrates. The body cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and minerals are present. Nature supplies these elements in each plant in quantities sufficient to metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant. There is no excess for other added carbohydrates. Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of ‘toxic metabolite’ such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five carbon atoms. Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the abnormal sugars in the red blood cells.”
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/sugar-problem/refined-sugar-the-sweetest-poison-of-all
Well, avoiding fake sugar is a bust. I am going to continue using my dextrose/cyclamate sweetener and keep drinking my green tea. Not having my tea is making me too agitated. I will just have to keep working on being more active and doing what I can to clean my diet up. If I have a bad day with diet and exercise, I will just try to do better the next day and not beat myself up.
AND… I am going to have my tea with sweetener. No one is perfect.
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Gmo foods are really not that bad I remember reading about the effects of a billion livestock animals being fed Gmo grains and they were fine. Plus Gmo foods us really a lifesaver for the poor countries that need nutrition.
Likely from blood sugar rise and crash
No, the livestock didn’t die but that doesn’t mean they were ‘fine…’…moreso, the meat that was eaten by people has all the GMO byproducts…
need to do a serious study on all this, and find out where you are getting your research from because as its been said, the big corporations pay for altered research findings…
GMO = genetically modified
GE = genetically engineered…
Messing with the genetics of plants, and introducing unnatural things into plants. designing plants that cannot reproduce their own seed, terminator seeds, so the farmer must go back to the company to buy their seed…
The whole business interfering with organic farmers, their sprays and franken-crops invading natural territory…
Organic farming could feed the world…no need for GMO/GE crops that have numerous problems…
And this kind of stuff isn’t good at all…just pump the chemicals more and more because of the GMO crops…This is downright disgusting
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMcropsIncreasedHerbicide.php
"The rapid rise in herbicide tolerant (HT) crops is increasing the application of toxic herbicides to alarming levels in the US, according to a comprehensive report [1] by the Organic Food Center, USA. Research based on statistics from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) revealed that from 1996 to 2008 pesticide use increased by 318 million pounds; a decrease of 64 million pounds in insecticide use [1] was overwhelmed by an increase of 383 million pounds in herbicide use [2]. Especially worrying is that most of this increase (46 percent) took place between 2007 and 2008. This has led to major environmental concerns regarding the safety of HT crops as they continue to dominate the corn, soybean and cotton markets in the US. Ecological risks, such as herbicide resistant “super weeds,” and economic impacts on farmers, were especially highlighted in the report released jointly with the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Center for Food Safety, both also in the US. "
This of course buys into the myth that the conspiracy theorists are always right and use legitimate information and that the primary agenda of the corporations is to deceive with bad information.
To put it bluntly it’s a load of simplistic bunkum.
I don’t really buy into the whole big corporations are trying to deceive always either
There’s pro’s and cons to having to feed over 7 billion population that is continually growing.
The organic wheat producers in our area get 25-35 bushels per acre. The ones using ‘evil’ GMO tech are getting 85-105 bushels per acre. Actual numbers from where I live. I’ve obtained grain from both and ground them in my own wheat mill. You can’t tell the difference in the flours produced. Don’t know about a nutritional analysis, but the taste and texture is identical. Those using new cropping tech are producing a LOT more food than trad farmers.
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Everyday folks like myself give credit to ethical corporations and thumb down corporations similar to Monsanto. Global Citizens raise their voices against Monsanto’s tactics. A smaller group of GCs praise Monsanto. Praising Monsanto or not has nothing to do with its own altered research methods.
Some folks blog that Artificial Sweeteners are as benign as water. Some folks will aways be pleased with them.
Others prefer honey and other natural sugars that the body can use right away, opposing false reporting.
The information presented by Arthur M. Evangelista, Ph.D., a former FDA Investigator, can be studied more. This information is in the quoted material in the first link.
OPEN STATEMENT CONCERNING THE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER, ASPARTAME
Prior to the approval of aspartame, the FDA sent two specialized teams to G.D. Searle and found a ghastly 95% level of misdirected testing; concealed tests, collusion between corporate and their company-funded research; inappropriate antemortum issues; withholding of material facts; alterations of records: lying to investigators, lost records, no records; falsification of reports, bribery, poor test methodology or design…et al.
What I can tell you, regarding toxicology, histology and biochemistry, is that aspartame is neurotoxic. Its components easily transcend the blood-brain barrier, interfering with normal nerve cell function. This affects the glutathione and calcium mechanisms in place, destroying nerve call integrity. The methanol then breaks down into formaldehyde-formic acid components, which denaturizes/mutates the DNA: a known scientific fact. The subsequent result from this interaction and from isolates of genetically modified amino acids, the methanol, is nerve cell necrosis and subsequent organ system degradation.
Seven infant monkeys were given aspartame with milk. One died after 300 days. Five others (out of seven total) had grand mal seizures. The actual results were hidden from the FDA when G.D. Searle submitted its initial applications (Stoddard 1995a, page 6; Merrill 1977; Graves 1984, page S5506 of Congressional Record 1985a; Gross 1976b, page 333 of US Senate 1976b).