Mom’s Soap Box

We’ve covered stevia and sugar this week but what about the other sweeteners saccharin and aspartame?

Saccharin has long been a traditional alternative for those on diets, but it has been dogged from the outset with its own health concerns. Saccharin is a synthetic, white crystalline powder, benzoic sulfinide, has effectively no food energy and is much sweeter than sucrose,350 times as sweet, but has an unpleasant bitter or metallic aftertaste. It is not easily digested by the body. Saccharin officially assumed the ‘carcinogen’ title in March 1977, when a rodent study in Canada produced an excess of bladder tumors in the male animal. The US National Toxicology Program elected to put saccharin on its ‘cancer causing’ list - formally declaring it an ‘anticipated human carcinogen.’ Cyclamate, an earlier version, had been banned in 1970 for similar reasons. The American Food and Drug Administration, relented in the face of public pressure, but mandated that saccharin should carry a warning label. In 1991, after fourteen years, the FDA formally withdrew its 1977 proposal to ban the use of saccharin, and in 2000, the U.S. Congress repealed the law requiring saccharin products to carry health warning labels.

Aspartame is the methyl ester of a phenylalanine/aspartic acid dipeptide. It has been the subject of controversy since its initial approval in 1974. It can be found the world over under the brand names Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful and Equal-Measure and is an ingredient of approximately 6,000 consumer foods and beverages sold worldwide, including (but not limited to) diet sodas and other soft drinks, instant breakfasts, breath mints, cereals, sugar-free chewing gum, cocoa mixes, frozen desserts, gelatin desserts, juices, laxatives, chewable vitamins supplements, milk drinks, pharmaceutical drugs and supplements, shake mixes, tabletop sweeteners, teas, instant coffees, topping mixes, wine coolers and yogurt. Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965, by a chemist working for the GD Serle Company. The original approval as a sweetener for public consumption was blocked over concerns about both aspartame’s safety and GD Serle’s research practices. Aspartame received approval for dry goods in 1981 and as a sweetener for carbonated beverages was granted in 1983, despite growing concerns over its neurological effects. In 1985, GD Serle was purchased by pharmaceutical giant Monsanto. Since then, Serle Pharmaceuticals and The NutraSweet Company were created as separate corporate identities.

According to researcher Alex Constantine in his essay entitled “Sweet Poison”, aspartame may account for up to 75% of the adverse food reactions reported to the US FDA, due primarily to its reported ability to affect neurological processes in humans. Dr Olney, a prominent neuroscientist, found that an excess of aspartate and glutamate, two chemicals used by the body as neurotransmitters to transmit information between brain neurons, could kill neurons in the brain by allowing too much calcium to collect in the neuron cells to neutralize acid. This neurological damage led Dr Olney to label aspartate and glutamate ‘excitotoxins‘, in that they ‘excite’ or stimulate the neural cells to death.　

Symptoms

Side-effects laid at the door of aspartame poisoning include fits, convulsions, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, memory loss, hormonal problems, hearing loss, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS dementia, brain lesions and neuro-endocrine disorders. Aspartame comprises two chief trouble-makers:  

Phenylalanine  is an amino acid used by the brain, that comprises 50% of aspartame. People suffering from the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolise phenylalanine and an excess of this amino acid builds up in the brain, leading to a decrease of serotonin levels, bringing on emotional disorders and depression. 

Menthanol, also known as wood alcohol. The poison methanol is a 10%ingredient of aspartame, which is created when aspartame is heated above 30′C, for example in the preparation of processed foods. Methanol oxidizes in the body to produce formic acid and the deadly neurotoxin, formaldehyde. Methanol is considered by America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as “.a cumulative poison, due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic.”A one liter carbonated beverage, sweetened with aspartame, contains around 56mg of methanol. Heavy consumers of soft drinks sweetened with aspartame can ingest up to 250 mg of methanol daily, especially in the summer, amounting to 32 times the EPA warning limit.  

In the end, your bodyhas only one question about what you feed it, “Can I use this material to build cells to replenish my systems?” Sucrose, saccharin and aspartame are incompatible with this process and have been shown to work against the body. They are the opposite of nutrition, they are indeed “sweet poisons”.