Healthy Bytes

Artificially sweet

read time: about 5 minutes

There are three main artificial sweeteners:

Saccharin sold as Sweet’n Low
Aspartame sold as Equal and NutraSweet
Sucralose sold as Splenda

According to the Calorie Control Council, 180 million Americans were buying “Sugar free” products by 2004 (up from 109 million in 1991)

One study which applies to all artificial sweeteners was done in 2004 by psychologists at Purdue University. When rats were given artificially sweetened liquids for 10 days, they were no longer able to guage the calorie content of foods containing sugar.

In nature, typically the sweeter the food, the greater the calories. Thus, “sweetness” is used as a signal for how caloric the food is and therefore, how much to eat.

Saccharin is the oldest of the artificial sweeteners. Monsanto began selling it in 1901.

It was originally derived from the root of a plant in China.

There have been allegations that saccharin causes cancer, but to date there hasn’t been any scientific study to prove it.

It doesn’t completely digest in the body.
It also has a distinctive taste that makes it not suitable in many products.

Aspartame (Equal and Nutrasweet) - formerly on the Pentagon list of biowarfare chemicals… hmmm.
Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar and consumed by 200 million Americans. Aspartame was originally brought to the market by G. D. Searle Company

It’s made from two amino acids (L-phenylalanine and L-aspartic acid) and methanol.

If you really want to know the gory details of how that blue packet took it’s place on the tables of America (and around the world), there’s a lot of info out there including partial and full books.
It’s rife with scandal and political drama staring numerous FDA heads and scientists, G. D. Searle Company, Donald Rumsfeld, the soft drink industry lobbyist and more.

The Department of Defense knew aspartame to be a neurotoxic… ya know, a chemical weapon.
In 1984, the Arizona Department of Health showed that soft drinks containing aspartame stored at elevated temperatures produced poisonous methyl alcohol (methanol).
The methanol further breaks down into formaldehyde (a known carcinogen) and a brain tumor agent - diketopiperazine (DKP).
Medical World News had reported six years earlier that the methanol content of aspartame is 1,000 times greater than most foods under the FDA purview.
Also in 1984, CBS Nightly News featured the FDA chief scientist for the task force investigating rather serious allegations of fraud and by Searle. The FDA scientist stated that Searle company officials made “deliberate decisions” to cloak aspartame’s toxic effects.

The FDA approved aspartame as a “food additive”. This removes the legal requirement to report adverse effects or to monitor the safety. Nonetheless, the FDA has received over 6,000 complaints - 80% of all food related complaints registered with the FDA. Nope, nothing to worry yourself over.

Here are most of the known symptoms of aspartame intoxication:
severe headaches, nausea, vertigo, dizziness, insomina, loss of control of limbs, blurred vision, blindness, memory loss, slurred speech, mild to severe depression often reaching suicidal levels, hyperactivity, gastrointestinal disorders, seizures, convulsions, skin lesions, rashes, anxiety attacks, muscle and joint pain, numbness, mood changes, loss of energy, menstrual cramps out of cycle, hearing loss or ringing in the ears, loss or change of taste, and symptoms similar to those in a heart attack. Additionally, aspartic acid chelates (combines) with chromium - used proper functioning of the thyroid gland.

What’s the best use of aspartame?
According to a June 2006 article in the Idaho Observer -
it’s great for killing ants.
I tried it - it works.

Tomorrow will discuss the most popular artificial sweetener - Splenda… more scandal and deceit, more scary side effects.

This entry was posted on Sat, 28.Oct.2006 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Nutrition, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.