It can be found in restaurants, local grocery stores and even in our homes. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener that is widely used in the products we consume daily and commonly known to be used in diet sodas.
Aspartame quickly gained this popularity through its claims of being a healthier and less caloric alternative to regular added sugar.
Now whether these claims can be trusted or not is where things start to become a bit skewed. On one hand, we have people arguing that aspartame is completely harmless, while others on the flip side, believe that any dose of aspartame is dangerous and has even been linked with cancer, diabetes, and many other diseases.
So who do we believe? Let’s begin with some background information on this sweet controversy. …show more content…
It was the year 1965 when chemist, James Schlatter was conducting tests for an anti-ulcer drug and unknowingly got some substance onto his fingers. Some time later that day, he was reading a book and was pleasantly surprised. when he licked his finger to turn a page, to notice a sweet taste. The substance he was working with was called aspartyl-phenylalanine methyl ester, phew what a mouthful! fortunately it is better known as aspartame!
Each gram of aspartame contains four calories, sounds like a lot right? But since aspartame is roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar, less of it is needed to achieve the same sweet taste. Therefore it adds little to insignificant amounts of calories to food and beverages making it the perfect substitute to many other rival …show more content…
But despite being well-known as a poisonous compound, methanol is actually common within our everyday diet. Aspartame does not generate enough methanol to activate its negative effects. In fact, aspartame contributes a very reasonable amount of methanol compared to other consumable products such as wine, citrus fruit and tomato juice.
Many studies from credible sources including the FDA and the European Safety Authority (EFSA) have undergone countless extensive studies on the controversial sweetener and have disproved many claims. At least with the levels of aspartame consumed by humans, drumroll please, it does not cause problems during pregnancy or cancer or autoimmune diseases or diabetes or blindness.
A ridiculous, idiotic, ungodly amount of aspartame would have to be consumed to trigger the negative effects mentioned above. To put things into perspective, we're talking tens, even hundreds of cans of diet sodas, and even then the effects due to the aspartame taken in will seem insignificant considering the repercussions of other ingredients in