Aspartame & other artificial sweeteners

Mink

I have heard bad things on and off re aspartame. It seems to be in absolutely every kind of "diet" product going.

Does anyone know if there is anything definitive about it being bad for you?

Is there any alternative other than straight sugar?

EileenG

There's nothing definitive, just as there is nothing definitive about almost any food. You name it, you can find someone who swears it is the best thing ever, and someone else who has a reason why it's the work of the devil.

However, when it comes to aspartame, there seem to be more people who don't like it than people who do. I'm told (haven't checked it myself) that there are more complaints to the FDA in America about aspartame than any other food additive. I do know people who find they get headaches after any significant amounts of it, and I also know diabetics who have been told by their doctors not to touch it.

I personally find that when I eat more than one serving a day of it, I tend to feel slightly out of control and am much more likely to binge. I try to avoid it.

A lot of people use Spelnda (sucrolose) as an alternative. It seems to have fewer side-efects but as it is newer, time will tell. It also tends to be bulked out with maltadextrin, so not ideal if you are counting carbs.

I personally like stevia. You can actually grow this yourself, and just pull off a leaf when you need to sweeten something. Or you can buy it in powder form.

Agave syrup is sometimes recommended because it is low gi, but it is high in fructose, so again, not low carb.

Xylitol is a sugar alcohol and does have calories and carbs, though much less than regular sugar, but it is very low gi, and is good for your teeth. Bad for dogs, though.

A sweetener I've found in Spain is sodium cyclamate, it doesn't have any weird aftertaste and I haven't noticed any side effects.

Gummy Panda

OP diet club drink use sucrose instead, though drink in moderation

CathyMoran

Gummy Panda wrote: »

OP diet club drink use sucrose instead, though drink in moderation

Sorry, not trying to offend but maybe it might be sucralose -sucrose is regular sugar.

Gummy Panda

CathyMoran wrote: »

Sorry, not trying to offend but maybe it might be sucralose -sucrose is regular sugar.

nope you are right. I wrote it on my iphone and it changed it to the word that was in the dictionary. Need to turn that off.

So club light/diet is the only diet drinks that I've seen on most shop shelves that doesn't contain Aspartame (though most of the others are made by coca cola)

CathyMoran

Gummy Panda wrote: »

nope you are right. I wrote it on my iphone and it changed it to the word that was in the dictionary. Need to turn that off.

So club light/diet is the only diet drinks that I've seen on most shop shelves that doesn't contain Aspartame (though most of the others are made by coca cola)

Another one is Marks and Spencers American Diet Ginger Ale - it also has sucralose, though it is not that easy to get. I am a type 1 diabetic and studied food science in college so I tend to watch these things.

EileenG

Some H&B have a Ginger beer with sucrolose which are pretty good.

CathyMoran

EileenG wrote: »

Some H&B have a Ginger beer with sucrolose which are pretty good.

But I grab them all Sorry I did not mention it, I have found it very hard to source it - is unbelievably good if you like ginger though (as she sips one at the moment).

Being a type 1 diabetic aspartame is an occupational hazard but I personally try and avoid it when I can, the same with sacharine but remember that I would be exposed to it more than most...have tried to do without sweetner but it does not always work...

Mink

Thanks for the tips all.
Question, why would aspartame affect a diabetic if it's not sugar?

I remember seeing splenda on sale in little packets in the states all the time. Anyone see it on sale here?

EileenG

Splenda is on sale here, look out for bright yellow cartons in the supermarket. You can also (if you are really cheap like me) pinch a few sachets when you have a cup of coffee out.

Not sure about the mechanism with aspartame, but a friend of mine measured his diabetic brothers blood glucose, gave him an aspartame sweetened drink, then measured again. It had gone up significantly, although the entire drink had less than 1 calorie. I've spoken to other diabetics who say they just can't tolerate it, it makes them feel dizzy or ill.

EileenG

CathyMoran wrote: »

But I grab them all Sorry I did not mention it, I have found it very hard to source it - is unbelievably good if you like ginger though (as she sips one at the moment).

I made jelly with it. Dissolve a packet of gelatin in some hot water, let it cool a bit, then pour in a can of the ginger beer, and allow to set. If you do it right, you not only get ginger jelly, you get fizzy ginger jelly.

The_Conductor

EileenG wrote: »

I made jelly with it. Dissolve a packet of gelatin in some hot water, let it cool a bit, then pour in a can of the ginger beer, and allow to set. If you do it right, you not only get ginger jelly, you get fizzy ginger jelly.

Sprinkle ascorbate on top- not only do you get vitamin c- but its fizzy too..... Be careful about how much you use. Any of the asian food shops sell it in the desert section.

rubadub

Tesco have a premium diet cola now, it has sucralose, €1.20 per 2L. Interestingly on the ingredients it had barley malt extract, and extracts of apples, carrots, and some other thing I have never heard of before (which was a fruit or vegetable, not a chemical).

smccarrick wrote: »

Sprinkle ascorbate on top- not only do you get vitamin c- but its fizzy too..... Be careful about how much you use. Any of the asian food shops sell it in the desert section.

I usually only see citric acid in asian shops I go to (think it is different). It is the same stuff as on sour sweets like jelly cola bottles, used for sweet & sour dishes. You could also use it to make your own dilutable drinks, which are usually made of sugar, sweetner, fruit juice & citric acid.

The_Conductor

rubadub wrote: »

I usually only see citric acid in asian shops I go to (think it is different). It is the same stuff as on sour sweets like jelly cola bottles, used for sweet & sour dishes. You could also use it to make your own dilutable drinks, which are usually made of sugar, sweetner, fruit juice & citric acid.

Its in the Texturas range- its the 'Fizzy' one

The_Conductor

smccarrick wrote: »

Its in the Texturas range- its the 'Fizzy' one

What you can do is a DIY jobbie if you can't get the Texturas range. So- get citric acid or ascorbic acid (you'll get either of them in any Asian food shop) and create your desert.

You need to have an acid and a base to create the 'fizz' in the desert- which is where a naturally base compound gets added into the mix (e.g. make a mousse but include the likes of bicarbonate of soda or another base).

Your next problem- is taste- the bicarb (and indeed the citric or ascorbic acid) are very bitter- so you need lots of sugar to counteract this (and it also makes it convenient to layer between the acid and base).

The fizz is the acid and the base interacting with each other and producing carbon dioxide on your tongue (and is very similar to sherbert etc)

Fizzy Jelly (obviously layered) is a really interesting one!

S.

Dude111

I try to be very careful about what i eat... I do not like to eat anything with artificial sweetners (ESPECIALLY ASPERTAME WHICH IS BAD AND TASTES LIKE CRAP)

Its hard to get this point across to people who drink thie stuff OFTEN,they just dont believe its bad for them!! (Even if you try to show them documentation on it)

Darkginger

Any chance of posting a link to that documentation? I'd be interested in reading it.

Dude111

Well here is an article i posted on another VBB site,explains things totally i think!

http://www.bevnet.com/bevboard/showthread.php?t=32821

Darkginger

Thanks! Interesting reading!

Khannie

EileenG wrote: »

A sweetener I've found in Spain is sodium cyclamate, it doesn't have any weird aftertaste and I haven't noticed any side effects.

You can get this in lidls. Their sweetener tablets are a blend of cyclamate and saccharin.

No real problem with aspartame myself. I find candarel the best sweetener for coffee and it is based on aspartame, though I use the lidl gear (because it's cheap as chips).

Khannie

Dude111 wrote: »

Well here is an article i posted on another VBB site,explains things totally i think!

http://www.bevnet.com/bevboard/showthread.php?t=32821

Everything in moderation. Oxygen can kill.

antoniosicily

I would refrain from parsley, in the middle ages it was used to do abortions.

It's obvious that anything can kill if the dosage is not right, this is the reason why you cannot just sell whatever you like as food to people.

Mink

Can anyone explain why aspartame is bad for you? When I google it I get pages that basically hold it responsible for every single body problem & side effect possible.

But if anyone's got some basic hard cold facts (I'm too lazy to research myself )

EileenG

Your Milage May Vary.

I personally find that more than a small amount of aspartame makes me feel slightly drunk and out of control, and more likely to binge.

A doctor friend warns all his diabetic patients against it, because he's found they become more prone to falls afterwards.

Three elderly people have told me they are more likely to wet themselves if they use it. For obvious reasons, they avoid it like the plague.

El_Dangeroso

There's very little solid research on aspartame, mostly rat studies feeding large amounts, and then the scientists do some statistical jiggerypokery to try and extrapolate this to human models, not the most accurate thing in the world as you can imagine, but the cost of a human study would be prohibitively expensive and probably inethical!

Based on what we do have, there is a higher cancer risk in rats at high dosages. Saccharine was banned in the US based on less evidence than we have on Aspartame. Saccharine is arguably safer than aspartame.

The thing that concerns me most about aspartame in particular, as opposed to other chemical sweeteners is that it is what's called an Excitotoxin. It can gain access to the brain due to it's unique chemical stucture. The brain is generally very picky as to what it lets in, but aspartame has the structure of a protein fragment so can sail on through. It's when it gets into the brain that it can trigger the stimulation of certain nerve cells so much to actually induce the cells death. The long term consequences of this? No idea, but I need to hang on to every brain cell I can.

I guess the main thing for all chemical sweeteners is to use sparingly and seldom, but I know a lot of people that will have their daily diet coke or three pried from their cold-dead hands.

Mink

Fair enough. I was drinking loads of those High-Juice squash drinks from Tesco but the no-added sugar ones. So I switched to the non-aspartame one. That's really the only place I was getting it. I'd only have a diet fizzy drink about once a month.

So "in moderation" ftw

MissMotivated

Khannie wrote: »

You can get this in lidls. Their sweetener tablets are a blend of cyclamate and saccharin.

No real problem with aspartame myself. I find candarel the best sweetener for coffee and it is based on aspartame, though I use the lidl gear (because it's cheap as chips).

What's the name of this sweetener in Lidl Khannie?

--Kaiser--

Here's the Snopes page on Aspartame

Snopes

Most of the stuff you can find about it on the net is bollox basically

Khannie

MissMotivated wrote: »

What's the name of this sweetener in Lidl Khannie?

It's the cologran tablets. They have a powdered version too. That's just the tablets bulked up with maltodextrin I think. In the two lidls that I'm familiar with (Thomas street and Balbriggan) they're near the entrance (just past the bread section).

Treora

Aspartame - I was all for it until the most healthy looking organo-crusty dietician said that it would be safer, healthier and more fat loosing to eat a teaspoon of refined white sugar than the prescribed amount of aspartame necessary for the same effect.

Two other little things got me worried. I picked up an imported (made in America) chocolate bar and it had an * beside aspartame which referenced: "MDA (maximum daily allowance)". I have never seen the word maximum used on packaging before.

The second, and by far the most scary thing, was that it required a executive push by Donald Rumsfeld, when he was a younger man, to get past the FDA.

Khannie

Treora wrote: »

Two other little things got me worried. I picked up an imported (made in America) chocolate bar and it had an * beside aspartame which referenced: "MDA (maximum daily allowance)". I have never seen the word maximum used on packaging before.

There's a maximum recommended daily allowance here too. I think it works out at around 300 canderel per day.

Dude111

--Kaiser-- wrote:

Here's the Snopes page on Aspartame

Snopes

I wouldnt believe anything i found on Snopes,its just a group of ppls opinions that dont mean dittle!

--Kaiser--

Dude111 wrote: »

I wouldnt believe anything i found on Snopes,its just a group of ppls opinions that dont mean dittle!

LOL, well this Snopes page contains links to multiple scientific studies so not just a bunch of peoples opinions

Khannie

Dude111 wrote: »

I wouldnt believe anything i found on Snopes,its just a group of ppls opinions that dont mean dittle!

But this other link you supplied isn't somehow?

Dude111 wrote: »

Well here is an article i posted on another VBB site,explains things totally i think!

http://www.bevnet.com/bevboard/showthread.php?t=32821

Dude111

Well thats from a doctor but i see the point your making