Are Sweeteners Evil?

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-01-21 08:36pm

I've been drinking a lot of diet soda lately, and I remembered a few fun things I heard about artificial sweeteners.

What I know is this: years ago, sacarine (which tastes like hell, but it's better than nothing) got the cold shoulder when test proved that it was hazardous to health. The test consisted of injecting a test rat with the equivalent of 10 times their body weight in sacarine, and one of them felt kinda sick and puked. From there on, no more sacarine in foods, beverages, etc.

Then it was aspartame. Aspartame is apparently harmless (or so has been stated) but has the funny quirk that it stays in your blood/organs for all eternity - which means that near the end of the lifetime you'll have more aspartame than liver tissue in your body.

That's what I heard over the time, but anyone knows what is their status now? I know for a fact that sacarine made a coming back, when it was shown that the test results were bogus and absurd, and there are people saying that aspartame causes cancer.

Does this belong in Off-Topic or SLAM?

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-01-21 09:36pm

I've heard that aspartame can cause kidney damage in large doses. But hearsay and conspiracy theories do not a fact make.
If you're really worried, drink iced tea. Or water, which is what my diabetes educator told me was a sure-fire safe bet.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-01-21 11:30pm

Frank Hipper wrote:I've heard that aspartame can cause kidney damage in large doses. But hearsay and conspiracy theories do not a fact make.
If you're really worried, drink iced tea. Or water, which is what my diabetes educator told me was a sure-fire safe bet.

I do drink water at home, but I absolutely hate iced tea... I'm not so worried that *I*'ll get cancer or kidney damage (what are the odds), I'm more concerned about what's the truth.

For instance, here we just found out that we've been eating Potassium Bromate by the tons, that's what they do to make bread grow bigger, and someone appears in TV and says it's a cancerogenic, and that it's been banned on all other countries for years.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-01-21 11:31pm

That and the fact that our "Coca-Cola Light" tastes a hell of a lot better than U.S.'s "Diet Coke", it's even pretty close to actual sugar, but I wonder if they're doing some "experimenting" here with chemicals since health regulations aren't as strict.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-22 01:51am

Besides tasting so fuck-awful as to make anything containing it nearly undrinkable, aspartame is a carcinogen. Didn't know about the kidney damage and whether it's true, but I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole. I wish the soda companies would start using more fructose as sweetener, it doesn't taste too different from basic sugar, has no harmful side effects and tastes a hundred times better than aspartame.

Ice tea isn't bad, and cold water is very good, but if you want a sweet drink with no sugar, something with fructose would do the trick very well indeed. I found this out when I tried a new type of soda that came to the market here a few months ago. Didn't notice it was marked 'light' until after I'd bought it, and was totally surprised at the utter lack of aspartame and almost identical taste to sugar, and surprise, the sweetener was fructose.

Edi

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-01-22 05:00am

Edi wrote:Besides tasting so fuck-awful as to make anything containing it nearly undrinkable, aspartame is a carcinogen. Didn't know about the kidney damage and whether it's true, but I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole. I wish the soda companies would start using more fructose as sweetener, it doesn't taste too different from basic sugar, has no harmful side effects and tastes a hundred times better than aspartame.

Ice tea isn't bad, and cold water is very good, but if you want a sweet drink with no sugar, something with fructose would do the trick very well indeed. I found this out when I tried a new type of soda that came to the market here a few months ago. Didn't notice it was marked 'light' until after I'd bought it, and was totally surprised at the utter lack of aspartame and almost identical taste to sugar, and surprise, the sweetener was fructose.

Edi

Did you check to see how many grams of sugar per serving it contained? Fructose is sugar. It's derived from fruits and vegetables, ie. "high fructose corn syrup". Sucrose is the purest sugar, fructose is "fruit sugar", glucose is blood sugar. Seeing as how too much sugar is a quicker and surer way to die, for me at least, than the questionable effects of aspartame, I'll keep drinking nasty diet pop.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-22 05:57am

Yes, I know it's sugar, and there's about the same amount as there's in normal soda, but the difference is that your body cannot utilise fructose as efficiently as it can sucrose. Something about the chemical difference that makes that happen. So quite a bit of the fructose will pass through your system instead of being chopped up by the enzymes and used to fatten you up. I don't know the exact difference, but afaik people with diabetes can safely eat things sweetened with fructose, that tells something. I asked a friend who studies biology about it, and he explained the stuff, but I don't remember it very well. We need one of the resident biochemists to weigh in here...

Edi

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-01-22 06:08am

Frank Hipper wrote:
Edi wrote:Besides tasting so fuck-awful as to make anything containing it nearly undrinkable, aspartame is a carcinogen. Didn't know about the kidney damage and whether it's true, but I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole. I wish the soda companies would start using more fructose as sweetener, it doesn't taste too different from basic sugar, has no harmful side effects and tastes a hundred times better than aspartame.

Ice tea isn't bad, and cold water is very good, but if you want a sweet drink with no sugar, something with fructose would do the trick very well indeed. I found this out when I tried a new type of soda that came to the market here a few months ago. Didn't notice it was marked 'light' until after I'd bought it, and was totally surprised at the utter lack of aspartame and almost identical taste to sugar, and surprise, the sweetener was fructose.

Edi
Did you check to see how many grams of sugar per serving it contained? Fructose is sugar. It's derived from fruits and vegetables, ie. "high fructose corn syrup". Sucrose is the purest sugar, fructose is "fruit sugar", glucose is blood sugar. Seeing as how too much sugar is a quicker and surer way to die, for me at least, than the questionable effects of aspartame, I'll keep drinking nasty diet pop.

And you smoke?!

For me, there's no health concern in the world that could make me switch to diet soda. You might start thinking its acceptable...and then you drink the real stuff and remember that diet is evil.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-22 06:19am

Anything in a decent quantity is bad, caffeine for instance. But these new fangled sweeteners are pretty toxic in any real amount.

I often tell a girl at college she should cut back on Diet Coke due to aspartame even if it isn't that bad, the taste alone has fucked her taste buds up. Ugh, how can you drink that stuff?! No fat, no sugar, maximum in no taste.

Additionally, I can't find any inanimate object to be evil.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2003-01-22 06:35am

The new Lemon flawored(sp?) diet cola is quite good.

Still aspartame in it but...

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-22 07:04am

Faram wrote:The new Lemon flawored(sp?) diet cola is quite good.

Still aspartame in it but...

Better yet, get Pepsi Twist. It has taste AND sugar.