Artificial sweetener junkies and diet soda drinkers read on

dleithaus

Natural and organic. Huh. Those words to used to market tobacco products, among a whole host of food products. Does that make a "natural" plant like tobacco (without additives, preservatives, etc) something you should partake in? Nope. That naturally occurring plant contains chemicals that are harmful. Then, a naturally occurring substance like sucrose, concentrated down to the point of crystallization, has become unnatural and processed.

I am not saying you should or should not consume artificial sweeteners, but much of what is presented here is simply bunk and reactionary.

Chemicals are what food is made of.... you just never get to see the compositional data.
Consider this the next time you eat an orange. "Contains 100% orange juice..." uh huh.

These are the naturally occurring chemicals in an orange....

Water, glucose, fructose, galactose, phenolic glycosides, 6-deoxyaldohexoses (fuctose and rhamnose), saccharose, galacturonans, (1-4) linked D-galactopiranuronic acid, pectin, pectinic acids, polygalacturonic acids, pectinestarase, Citric Acid, L-Malic Acid, D-Isocitric Acid, Oxalic Acid, Succinic Acid, Malonic Acid, Quinic Acid, Tartaric Acid, Adipic Acid, 2-ketogluratic Acid, praline, asparagines, aspartic acid, serine, glutamic acid and arginine. oxidoreductases, transferases, hydrolases and lyases, isomerases and ligases, glucosilglucerides, Carotenoids, tetraterpenes, limonin, aslimonoic acid A-ring lactone, neohesperidosides, flavones (3-hydroxyflavanones, 3-dydroxyflavones, O-glycosyl, aglycones C-glycosylflavones, Anthocyanins, (hesperidin, naringin, poncirin, neoheriocitrin, neohesperidin, rhoifolin, rutin, diosmin, sinensetin, auranetin, tangeritin, hydroxyethylrutinosideres, nobiletin cyanidin-3-glucoside, cyanidina-3.5-diglucoside, peonidin-5-glucoside, delphinidin-3-glucoside, petunidin-3-glucoside, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Pholacine, Vitamin B6, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Biotin, Pantotenic acid, Vitamin A.

Your argument about the orange (which you seem to post everywhere) is a straw man fallacy. Perhaps all those fancily named "chemicals" occur naturally in oranges, but the key words are OCCUR NATURALLY. . . . They are completely different from artificial chemicals, additives, preservatives, etc. created in a laboratory, or carcinogenic pesticides used on non-organic crops.

Nicotine occurs naturally. Arsenic and cyanide occur naturally. Does it mean these are OK to consume? At what concentration and body burden?

Structurally there is no difference between what is made in a lab and what is made by a plant. That is a simple fact that is hard to ignore.

All I am trying to present is that chemicals are all around us, some we need to be careful about, others not so much.
There is no epidemiological evidence that average consumption of artificial sweeteners presents unnecessary risk... whether it is chlorinated sucrose or asparatame made from a naturally occurring amino acid.

portexploit

I believe that the most important factor in human physiology is blood pH levels. If you think of all the foods that aren’t healthy for us they are highly acidic, the more acidic your diet the more your body does whatever to keep it in balance. A healthy range of blood pH is 7.35 - 7.45. To demonstrate how delicate this range is, anything below 7.0 can lead to death. If the acidity is too high your body does whatever it can to maintain your blood pH within a certain range, it can store acid in bodyfat. Supposedly cancer and tumors thrive in a acidic environment. High acidity levels can lead to a ton of health problems.
I don’t know the relationship between higher insulin levels and acid. In the article it stated the study on rats, their insulin increased. My question is did they also gain weight? I know the correlation between weight gain and acid, but insulin and blood pH I don’t know. People may wonder “what does this have to do with the article?” As I stated the body can store acid in bodyfat, diet sodas are highly acidic. This has nothing to do with calories in this case. Another thing, I think it’s common sense it’s bad for us. That feeling you get in your throat, you feel kind of bloated and all weird in the stomach after drinking them. We should know that’s not good for us.

To put things in perspective.
pH of diet sodas
water = 7.0(neutral)
diet coke = 3.39
diet 7-up = 3.67
diet dr.pepper = 3.41
Battery Acid = 1.0

portexploit

I typically have one soda a day (which could be a 12 oz can to a 24 oz bottle), and one packet of Crystal Light type mix per 32 oz. of water three or four times a day.

Since I'm leaner, more fit and healthier now than I was before I switched to artificial sweeteners, I have to say that it's not making me fat.

It's about "health" not fat.

candistyx

Correlation != causation...

change_happens

interesting. thanks for the post!