Aspartame…what is it?
I’ve seen things that say “aspartame free” or have asterisks by the word “aspartame” which indicat it “includes phenylaline”.
Can anyone please tell me what’s up with aspartame?
Thanks
Check www.mercole.com do a search there for both aspartame and sucralose. It will have quite few articles on both. Hope it helps you out.
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener. It is the sweetener used in Equal and NutraSweet.
Also, check out these sites for more information.
http://www.aspartame.org/
It depends on who you think is telling the truth. Some people swear it is safe, while others swear it is dangerous. I don’t remember ever seeing anything about it on this site.
I choose not to use it. It seems to give me a headache.
Hope this helps. Also, no offense, but try google next time instead of asking for information that is readily available to the public on the Internet.
A similar thread has touched on this in the past. Aspartame has been investigated for many years and has not been shown to pose a danger to humans.
Here is the thread where people were talking smack about aspartame, etc, but when asked to provide scientific references the board got quiet real quick.
Dammit. My bad. I thought I was reading something about the “dangers” of aspartame. I guess I should read the question first next time. 
Aspartame is a combination of the two amino acids (protein building blocks) aspartic acid and phenylalanine. There are people with a disorder called Phenylketonuria (PKU) who can’t utilize phenylalanine and can get very sick from consuming it. This is why there are warnings on the package.
[quote]strive wrote:
Check www.mercole.com do a search there for both aspartame and sucralose. It will have quite few articles on both. Hope it helps you out.[/quote]
I am sure that it was just a typing error, but the website is www.mercola.com He is pretty much against artifical sweetners. The thing with Sucralose is that there have not been many studies compared to aspartame so it is considered safer. Who knows? Sucralose is pretty much chlorinated sugar.
-Matt
I use stevia instead of those artifical crap. I don’t care what anyone says but I refuse to be guinea pig for them to find out if they’re safe in the long run, much like tobacco products. Ironically, sacharrine might be the safest of all. FDA tried to ban them in the past but all the rigorous studies never panned out and have the least numbers of compliants compared to others esp aspartame. For me, I’ll just stick with stevia…
[quote]Tungsten wrote:
I use stevia instead of those artifical crap. I don’t care what anyone says but I refuse to be guinea pig for them to find out if they’re safe in the long run, much like tobacco products. Ironically, sacharrine might be the safest of all. FDA tried to ban them in the past but all the rigorous studies never panned out and have the least numbers of compliants compared to others esp aspartame. For me, I’ll just stick with stevia…[/quote]
How do you know that stevia doesn’t have negative long-term effects? The stuff makes me nauseous and it doesn’t taste very good. Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean that it’s good.
Definitely avoid aspartame if you suffer from headaches…
You may want to consider giving aspartame a wide berth if you suffer from depression…
Also, recently anecdotal reports of adverse effects with aspartame…
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15061638
[quote]ChrisKing wrote:
Tungsten wrote:
I use stevia instead of those artifical crap. I don’t care what anyone says but I refuse to be guinea pig for them to find out if they’re safe in the long run, much like tobacco products. Ironically, sacharrine might be the safest of all. FDA tried to ban them in the past but all the rigorous studies never panned out and have the least numbers of compliants compared to others esp aspartame. For me, I’ll just stick with stevia…
How do you know that stevia doesn’t have negative long-term effects? The stuff makes me nauseous and it doesn’t taste very good. Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean that it’s good.
[/quote]
I’m with Tungsten on this one, but you’re still right in being skeptical, just because something is natural it doesn’t always follow that it is indeed entirely safe.
However, stevia has been used for centuries by natives of the areas it is grown, ex. Paraguay w/ no ill effects, and in Japan it has been used for quite some time as a sweetener in a plethora of consumer food products rather than artifical sweeteners w/ no adverse reactions.
I’ve personally tried a couple of stevia products that werent altogether pleasant tasting and had a sharp after taste, but I finally found a couple which I very much enjoy: the Sweet Leaf available at Vitamin Shoppe and Body Ecology’s: https://www9.mailordercentral.com/bodyecologydiet/prodinfo.asp?number=BE009&variation=&aitem=3&mitem=6
To learn more about aspartame and sucrolose the correct website is http://www.mercola.com/