Crystal Light- good or bad?

rlboston73

I was a die hard MT Dew drinker for many years. I would drink several a day! I finally broke the habit- yay me! I have been drinking water with crystal light lemonade flavoring. What are your thoughts about Crystal Light, good bad??? I hate plain water unless its 100 degrees outside.

JeromeBarry1

It won't hurt you.

Ready2Rock206

Neither. It is just flavoring. I guess if it helps you drink more water then it is good!

Old_Cat_Lady

Have you ever tried bottled water? For me it tastes much better than my tap water. Some municipalities just have really bad water tastes. Have you ever tried adding lemon?

J72FIT

Neither...

Hypsibius

rlboston73 wrote: »

I was a die hard MT Dew drinker for many years. I would drink several a day! I finally broke the habit- yay me! I have been drinking water with crystal light lemonade flavoring. What are your thoughts about Crystal Light, good bad??? I hate plain water unless its 100 degrees outside.

It's the aspartame question.

Is it a harmless sweetener? Or is it giving EVERYONE CANCER? I think a lot of people believe it's bad for them. But at the end of the day, you'd be hard-pressed to find a legitimate, peer-reviewed source that proves it's causing problems in the doses at which we consume it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/aspartame-isnt-bad-says-chemistry/

"It is unlikely that a person could come close to reaching the aspartame levels deemed unacceptable by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. To do so, you’d have to consume 97 aspartame sugar packets or more than 17 cans of diet soda in less than 24 hours."

But do you trust the Food and Drug Administration? A lot of people don't. And that's not entirely unfair to be skeptical. Powerful industries spent billions convincing generations that there were acceptable blood lead levels:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/an-american-history-of-lead-poisoning/462576/ (there aren't. Powerful lobbies and dangerous lies).

Me? I love Diet Coke. I find it to be a satiating beverage w/ a nice bit of caffeine. It has absolutely never hindered a diet or caused any issues that I know of. I even gave it up for 30 days for "Whole30" and reintroduced it. Felt no different.

I'd need a little more than crazed, click-baity articles to get me to swear off aspartame.

VioletRojo

It's neither good, nor bad, it just is. Use it if you want and it doesn't effect you in a negative way. If it does effect you in a negative way, stop using it.

steveko89

I listened to a really interesting podcast by Stuff You Should Know discussing artificial sweeteners. A little bit of the history, how they're made, and what effects they can have on different people. I was pretty ambivalent about them until I listened to the that, now I'm trying to limit them when practical. I'd suggest educating yourself and making a decision on your own.

ccrdragon

steveko89 wrote: »

I listened to a really interesting podcast by Stuff You Should Know discussing artificial sweeteners. A little bit of the history, how they're made, and what effects they can have on different people. I was pretty ambivalent about them until I listened to the that, now I'm trying to limit them when practical. I'd suggest educating yourself and making a decision on your own.

Some people might have reactions to artificial sweeteners, but the vast majority of the human population does not. Some people have reactions to peanuts, strawberries or a vast array of the foods that we consider normal for human consumption but that doesn't mean that the other 99% of the population should swear off of those foods. If we actually did that, there would be little left on the planet that we could consume.

As to the original question - neither good nor bad.