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[Pooki]

Meanie have you ever thought of taking cinnamon pills to help with your sugar level?  I have PCOS also and take Avandia, and cinnamon supplements to help.  PM me if you want to exchange info.

[Paden]

Formaldehyde? Way to go, chemists, let's do the work of the embalmers while we're still alive and save them a bit of the work, shall we? Jeeesh, you'd think they'd do a bit more research before shit hits the local supermarket shelves, huh? No wonder that stuff makes me deathly ill. Thanks for the warning, Meanie! Note to self: feed mother-in-law stuff with aspartame.

[autumnrose]

Aspartme actually breaks down into formaldehyde in the body, which is incredibly dangerous.

I have a friend that is actually allergic to aspartme. She also has PCOS, so... who knows. I actually had to stop her from drinking another friend's soda once, cause it was a diet soda (with, you guessed it, aspartame)

I actually don't like any artifical sweeteners. Well, I tolerate Splenda. All the others... Blergh. One of my other friends refers to Sweet-n-low as "Cancer in a packet"

If it's not real sugar or honey, I don't want it near me.

[Paden]

Aspartame info Found that while Googling on the subject.

[ChaosInAMinor]

I would love to read the info on that site, Paden..

but it's a graphic designer's nightmare. They used the default font Papyrus, for God's sake! Am I the only one who refuses to go to sites if they're ugly, no matter what good they may hold?

Aspartame also makes me incredibly nauseous. A friend put some Sweet n Low in my coffee once, not realising I couldn't have aspartame, and I was down for the count for the next 24 hours.

[Immortelle]

What gets me about aspartme is that its in all the your diet foods, and in large quantities in diet soft drink.  Meaning that we are all getting slowly poisoned.  Because of that, I tend to avoid foods with artifical sweeteners.  I mean, yeah, sure less sugar.  No way, moar poison instead.

[Skadi]

I'd rather have high amounts of natural sugars, than to consume fake chemical sugar that can have some potentially serious side effects. So what if its a few more minutes on the treadmill/a smaller serving size? Fake foods scare me.

[SoggyFox]

Also, since many people don't lose weight and often gain it while on diet sweetners, they keep buying more and more diet foods.  Seriously, the FDA is getting kickbacks and has been for a long time.  Maybe it will eventually get taken care of.

As for the stevia thing - there is a loophole in Federal laws.  If it is -patently- obvious that its safe, it can still be used/sold as food and not herbal supplement.  So, I can buy stevia mixes much cheaper now, and any day now, Coke and Pepsi both are supposed to start using it for their US products.

White sugar is bad for you too - its full of chemicals from the process to make it all shimmery white.  So, when I do use sugar I try and get the raw stuff.

[Paden]

Stevia Cafe Because I like to help.

[mando]

I think most of you posting here are buying in waaay too easily to the belief that artificial sweeteners are poisonous and bad for you. While I admit that are many hysterical websites up with (fairly unsupported) claims that artificial sweeteners like aspartame are dangerous, most of the claims on these websites rely on logical fallacies, poorly reported studies, fear mongering and/or have their own products they hope to push forward (including the websites you've linked to Paden, I'm sorry).

Even if the claim sounds like it could be true (or is true, as in the case of formaldehyde being produced by digesting aspartame; of course, if you're worried about that, you had better give up eating tomatoes or oranges as they produce much higher levels of formaldehyde in digestion! ), you should never, ever accept something as fact without reading both sides, finding unbiased websites (and please try to avoid assuming that the government must be lying to you e.g. the FDA), and looking up the actual studies on the topic yourself (Google scholar is a marvel for that kids ). And since I feel like the current discussion has gotten a bit paranoid and unbalanced, I wanted to post up a few links about the topic on my own. These are for the most part about aspartame, but if you force me (please don't force me ) I can find stuff for other food additives as well. So here you go:

A Skeptoid podcast about aspartame from a couple of weeks ago
An article from Health Canada that addresses several aspartame claims and a short report on its safety from them as well
The Wiki entry on aspartame and their link to some info about the "aspartame controversy" (and so Calalily doesn't kill me, please check the external links! There are some good links within to actual studies by actual scientists )
The Urban Legend Zeitgeist report on a fear mongering email about aspartame
Snopes report on a fear mongering email about aspartame
The FDA's report on aspartame
The European Food Safety Authority's report on aspartame
The Food Additive Approval Process for Aspartame by the FDA
Scoop - Independent News story about the NZFSA's comments on aspartame fear mongering

If you want more I can find you more (phew!), but I was trying to link to some easier to read (or listen) bits of info for everybody. Have fun with the reading, everyone!

[SoggyFox]

Mando, my information comes directly from Prevention Magazine and multiple diabetic nutritionists.  Whatever else, artificial sweeteners are bad for you.  There is also a case that artificial fats are also bad for you.  Artificial sweeteners basically mess up your metabolism.

[CJane]

I agree with Mando. For those of us here who are in the sciences irl (and I know there are a few) there are too many studies one would need to read before believing some of those scary "artificial sweeteners will kill you" sites. I believe in everything (well, most things) in moderation anyway.

Thanks Mando, for those links.

I've never had a problem with any artificial sweetener stalling my weight loss or messing up my metabolism, and I'd have to estimate that at age 44 I've consumed probably more than my fair share. Everyone is different though, so your own mileage may vary.

And I only eat real fats, even saturated fats, and my cholesterol and BP are phenomenal. Wasn't always like that for me, so I'm pretty psyched about being in the pink of health.

[mando]

Mando, my information comes directly from Prevention Magazine and multiple diabetic nutritionists.  Whatever else, artificial sweeteners are bad for you.  There is also a case that artificial fats are also bad for you.  Artificial sweeteners basically mess up your metabolism.

Sorry, I'm not going to be convinced by arguments from authority or anecdotal evidence. While Prevention magazine may have many helpful, healthful bits of advice for the reader, it is also very obviously a business with its own products to push forward (as a matter of fact many of the links on its webpage go directly to advertisments and pushes for the reader to spend money to get healthy). As for the diabetic nutrionists, this basically tells me nothing; I don't know who these nutrionists are, I don't know what they've said and I don't know what they're basing their opinions on. Not exactly a great standard for evidence.

If you can find for me several good, large scale, blinded studies I'll give these claims a little more weight, but without that, this is nothing more than opinion.

[SoggyFox]

But I never said it was lethal, just it was bad for you.  Thing is, I've reached the conclusion in 40-something...I mean 36 years that artificial foods are bad for me, in general.  Stevia has been told to me by many nutritionists to either lower blood sugar, or at least not raise it - its also more environmentally friendly and -tastes- better.

[CJane]

But I never said it was lethal, just it was bad for you.  Thing is, I've reached the conclusion in 40-something...I mean 36 years that artificial foods are bad for me, in general.  Stevia has been told to me by many nutritionists to either lower blood sugar, or at least not raise it - its also more environmentally friendly and -tastes- better.

I don't think stevia tastes better, but to each their own. I always try to eat whole, unprocessed foods as much as possible. Frankly, sugar is poison to me because I'm hypoglycemic...it makes me pass out. Hypoglycemia is a precursor to Diabetes. If I eat anything that contains sugar or too many carbohydrates (which metabolize as sugar in the body) I'm setting up my system to crash and burn. Most of what I eat isn't sweet, artificially or naturally, so the scant amount of sweetener I ingest now I'm not too worried about.

I think we as a society here in the U.S. (where I am) eat way too much sugar and artificial junk all the time. Have you checked out the amounts of corn syrup in packaged foods on the grocery shelves? I'm more worried about that crap than most other food additives, myself.