Aspartame (Crystal Light, and other 'diet drinks')

Oh and truvia is supposed to be the "best" artificial sweetener. The stevia sweeteners are plant extracts with sugar alcohol added to "pad" them. These are the ones that are safe, per my pediatrician, to give to my toddler, and per my midwife, to drink while pregnant. Truvia is essentially dried stevia tea and sugar alcohol. Crystal Light used to have those water bottle flavor packets with stevia but I couldn't find them. I did find an off-brand powdered lemonade sweetened with stevia but it's in pitcher-sized packets.

Personally I avoid the artificial sweeteners, aspartame has been shown to be carcinogenic. Plus I read a report last week showing that people are ending up with MS like symptoms and loss of use etc, and being mis understood by a lot of doctors as MS when the underlying problem is aspartame poisoning, and once the sweeteners had been removed from their diet, normal bodily function returned, but it's your choice...

Also sweeteners of any kind are acidic to the body's PH balance along with other chemicals that we use on a daily basis, and the body needs to naturally retain fat to neutralise them as fat is alkaline. This is in part why people that are dependant on meds really struggle with their weight...

Aspartame consumption has been linked to fibromialgia, certain cancers, diabetes and obesity.

http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/aspartame/

Aspartame gives me headaches. I don't believe it gives you cancer and stuff like that but one glass of Crystal Light is instant headache for me.

This would be classified as a good reason to avoid products containing aspartame

I find water boring & add a diet Snapple packet in a water bottle once or twice a day. I don't feel anymore hungry & I have no idea what it's sweetened with. I don't drink diet soda so that's my treat. Everything in moderation.

Most of the sites out there about artificial sweeteners are either: a) run by the people who make the artificial sweetener, b) run by their competitor, or c) run by "natural health gurus" and have very little real science behind them. Also, these gurus are generally trying to sell a product of their own.

Splenda gives me migraines. So I don't use it.

Aspartame seems to have no effect on me whatsoever. So I use it.

Sugar makes me gain weight. So I try to avoid it where I can.

So that's what I go with. How I know things affect me personally. Let everyone else argue all day about what pumping mice full of artificial sweeteners does to them.

What bothers me is when things aren't clearly labeled. I think any product with an artificial sweetener should be clearly labeled on the box, can, whatever. For me, this is especially important with splenda as even one drink with splenda in it can knock me out for the day. It sucks. And since a lot of products that used to use aspartame have switched to splenda, I've often mistakingly ingested it and had a horrible headache afterward.

LABELLING is essential in my opinion. There is a petition to allow aspartame to be added to milk and not listed as an ingredient - but to be just considered a part of milk. I so much disagree with this. THEY can add it to milk if they want - but put it on the FREAKIN label.

Aspartame gives me headaches. I don't believe it gives you cancer and stuff like that but one glass of Crystal Light is instant headache for me.

This would be classified as a good reason to avoid products containing aspartame

But not to go around all but knocking it out of other people's hands that don't have this problem (not that that's what she said at all, but there are people out there acting this way). By all means, if it's not good *for you*, avoid it. I don't drink alcohol, but I know it's perfectly fine for other people. I'm not going to s*** in other people's cereal about their daily glass of wine or two, so they can kindly do the same for me about my diet drinks! :drinker: