The TRUTH About Artificial Sweeteners

Hi Joel,

I, like others here, have heard all sorts of stories regarding the pink and blue packets. From the certain death warnings, to it tricking your body into thinking your ingesting a high calorie carb and messing up your weight loss. So more thoughts and help in dispelling the myths would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

I’m with you Joel!!! Every study I ever seen on the evils of any of the artificial sweeteners is completely lopsided. The doses they use on rats equate to a human being consuming bathtub size quantities daily before any negative effects show up. I can show you a study that says the risk of getting cancer is statistically greater from eating peanut butter than living under a power line. On the surface that seems alarmist but when you really read what is says, we’re talking about multiple millions to one chances of either. Not enough of a chance for me to stop eating Peanut butter, I’ll tell you!

Yes, Joel, I choose to use Splenda. So shoot me.

Joel

I think Don Bell above has said more than enough and has provided links.

Aspartame has been known to cause misfiring of the neurons as well, something we do not want to fiddle with that much, the side effects are quite a list in my opinion.

I’d rather skip it, thank you! Sugar although better offer less dangerous side effects either than causing acidic conditions on the metabolism, so none to very little would be my approach!

Some links: [url]http://www.321recipes.com/aspartame.html[/url]

[url]http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html[/url]

Candy said…
Splenda is made from CHLORINE – do you want THAT in your body?? ;)

Gregg says…
So is salt, which is essential to your survival

from Wikipedia…
(Chlorine)…which is part of common salt and other compounds, it is abundant in nature and necessary to most forms of life, including humans.

Personally I stopped drinking soda about 8 years ago and have never liked coffee. I drink water or occassionally unsweetened tea. I try to only use honey or stevia for a sweetener – I find the stevia is bitter, but I keep hoping I will get used to it. I agree with the comments about Aspartame – I have friends who have had severe reactions to small amounts. I just don’t think it is worth the risk to consume these potentially unsafe substances – there is certainly enough evidence that they cause bad effects in many people. I have read the same studies as Don Bell and others have posted and at this point, I would not intentionally eat or drink anything with Aspartame or Sucralose which brings up another issue – these substances are in many products that we consume without looking at the label (like chewing gum – which also contains BHA – preservatives – another topic). I will often not buy a product for me or my animals because one of the ingredients is Aspartame or Sucralose or Acesulfame K (or BHA or BHT).

Yea i will totally disagree with this one. 2 packets a day of maltodextrin + sucralose or aspartame (maltodextrin is the filler, high glycemic index) won’t kill you, but much higher amounts, from diet soda, will kill, brain cells, and other cells. There are way more people out there than poor brian who drink copious amounts of “diet” soda thinking they won’t gain weight. I’ve read about people becoming paralyzed when overdoing the diet soda, when they stopped, they allowed their body to rid itself of the impurities/toxins (aspartame) in it. Just like drugs, toxic chemicals will build up around your cells, and after a threshold is reached, cells commit suicide. I don’t want to be harsh, but the fact that you don’t understand this isn’t your fault, but i’m convinced that the day you understand, and become informed of what you are putting in your body, you will change your mind. Stevia is a better option, if you care for optimal, optimal, health. Willpower, will allow you, and millions of other people to strive towards OPTIMAL health

@Gregg –

If it comes from the ground or has a mother, (or is naturally occurring) it is safe to consume, and should be consumed –

If God made it, enjoy it…if God didn’t make it, we shouldn’t be eating it (or at least we should eat it WAY less than we eat the good stuff)

Not that I practice it all the time, but I do believe it’s true, and if/when I come down with a degenerative disease, at least I’ll KNOW what caused it (poor and chemically filled diet).

Well I’ve read from an expert that all those sodas are bad for you because they contain substances which are artificial and the body can’t use them so they get stored as fat.

Originally Posted By dimitra anderson

Originally Posted By KirstenI always go back and forth on this one… but sugar-free hazelnut in my coffee usually wins! It’s funny how everyone THINKS artificial sweetener is soooo bad, but yet we KNOW how bad sugar really is….

@Kirsten –
hey, in this case the hydrogenated fat in your coffee flavor is probably worse for you than the artificial sweetener.

I don’t use creamers- I was referring to flavors at Starbucks

@mary – Homeopathy is pseudoscience.

So Joel, if you’re against artificial sweeteners, why do you promote a protein powder in your program that is chock full of them?? I realize you most likely make hefty affiliate income from that promotion. But let’s be a little consistent – yes aspartame is awful, but sucralose is not much better. They are all dangerous chemicals with long lasting effects.

Clean up your own program Joel!

I drink at least 1 diet soda everyday , and am not sure what to drink? sweetened soda is very bad and I avoid caffein
I am very interested in the truth about artificial sweeteners

@Gregg – It’s not made FROM Chlorine, it has a “chlorinated” functional group on the end of the molecule that allows it to pass through the body unabsorbed. But I guess it would be true to say that, chemically speaking, a chlorine atom has been added to a sucrose molecole.

Candy, friendly debate here…
in principle, I agree with what you are saying, but the “God created it so it must be good for you” statement can’t be taken literally, because many compounds that are fatal if eaten are also made by God, such as arsenic, cyanide, belladonna, nightshade, etc.

I’d rather say, “If God created it for the purpose of human consumption, then it is probably good for you, unless you happen to be allergic to it or have some sort of enzyme or other deficiency that may cause it to harm you”.

Gregg

@On a limb with Claudia – Have you read any of Joel’s comments? I haven’t seen one iota of evidence where Joel says he’s against artificial sweeteners. In fact it sounds to me like he uses them himself…

Good luck with this article Joel. I’m wondering if you are just trying to “stir the pot” with this for your blog’s sake or if this is something that you support 100%

Why put another “chemical” in your body if you don’t have to? These sweeteners are chemicals like it or not Joel. We are testing our bodies and our livers enough as it is. I understand that you aren’t overindulging with these artificial sweeteners but why risk it. Why not use a natural sweetener that will give you the same desired effect for your morning coffee?

Hi joel,

It really seems that you like artificial sweetners, well if you want get cancer keep using it.

well….i cant wait to hear more about the topic tomoro…because this is contradicting to all of that i heard Dr.s and other nutritionists say…all i know is that if it aint natural and doesnt grow on trees…dont eat it (not that i follow this rule) …but i am willing to listen to what you have to say about the topic…if ur cases are strong enuf..then buddy…u just might be able to change my mind and the minds of lots of other ppl

Joel, you have stirred the pot big time on this one! I am very interested in seeing what your research turns up, as I have researched a little bit on the safety of artificial sweeteners myself. What I decided: I don’t do drugs, I rarely (once a year or less) drink alcohol and when I have I have never drank enough to get drunk, and I don’t smoke. I exercise almost daily, I am trying to eat an overall fairly healthy diet, and I have never had any major health problems. So I figure my one vice is going to be Diet Pepsi. I am trying to limit myself to one a day or less, but I have to say that when I am stressed out it sure hits the spot. I did avoid it when pregnant just to be on the safe side.
Frankly, I think moderation is the key, and I don’t think everyone in the world needs to be a “natural food only” nut in order to be healthy. Yes, natural foods are better, but as with everything in life, a dose of reality makes the world go round better than fanatacism does. Let’s not let our guard down and allow our food to be unsafe; we still need to ensure that horrors like the infant formula poisoning in China and the unsafe conditions at the peanut processor that led to salmonella poisoning in the U.S. are not repeated. But let’s also be reasonable and not condemn people for making one bad nutritional choice when they are trying to make good ones the rest of the time. There are much more productive ways to use our energy.
P.S. Love the Cheat Your Way Thin diet – it’s going very well for me! It would be nice to see some meal suggestions on good ways to put the foods together, however… Anyways, thank you.

First of all aspartame studies have been done on animals where the doses were extremely high, say upwards of half of their daily intake of total food. Second, when they say that aspartame causes brain cancer, they were just correlating what they found in the studies they had done on rats. The study showed that the rats showed an SIGNIFICANT increase in brain cancer rates, and that SIGNIFICANT increase was never given to us in statistical manner (last time i checked anyway), these rates however would be probably be meaningless as these rats were being fed so much aspartame that if you and I were to ever to consume as much as they did, we would have to consume well over 500 packets of aspartame per day for at least one year to even reach the same level of aspartame blood content as the rats.
The only people who cannot have aspartame are he same people who can’t have any phenylalanine, Phenylketonuria patients, and since that is a very rare genetic disorder that leaves a great deal many people who can enjoy the diet soda as aspartame is just aspartate and phenylalanine linked together.
Some people may then say, “well doesn’t aspartame convert into some kinda poisonous alcohol when its in warm temperatures?” and i will say yes it does, to a degree. Aspartame will degrade into small amounts of methanol, but get this… to increase the level of methanol THAT”S ALREADY in your blood to ANY degree would take the consumption of, get this… 200 warm 2 litre bottles of diet pop in one day for at least 4 weeks.

SUCRALOSE is a sucrose like molecule that is chlorinated, this chlorination allows the molecule to not be recognized by receptors in the intestinal epithelium and allows the molecule to be passed through your digestive system without absorption, that is what happens to it.

So whoever is going to come up and say to you diet soda is this and that, tell them to search the SH!T out on pubmed or any other journal site and you won’t have to argue with them anymore.