Why Aspartame Isn't Scary

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

I loved this debate thread when it was ongoing. Aaron provided so much information.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

May not be active anymore but I am not dead...havent succumbed to the aspartame, yet. Fear over it seems to come culturally in waves and I havent seen a lot of fearmongering about it lately so assume its probably not coming up that often here either.

Glad to see you are still kickin

^^^ I admit I am too lazy to form my own words in response to an already well covered point so am quoting Aaron from previous page.....


" I try to avoid making assumptions about whether or not something might cause migraines in a particular person or whether that response is "real" or psychosomatic. Maybe it does maybe it doesn't, as far as I know pretty much anything can be a migraine trigger (or be perceived to be a migraine trigger) but it clearly doesn't in everyone and there is no clearly defined causal link.

If someone tells me they get migraines when they ingest aspartame I would say "oh okay, best to avoid then". But if they say I get migraines when I ingest aspartame, therefore its dangerous and everyone should avoid it...that is when I call BS."

Fairly Lisa you may just having been sharing your own experience and as such it is valid.

As long as you don't extrapolate from that to "it is bad for everyone"

Which your post didn't do - we are all just pre emptively counter- acting

Sadly, I think Aaron, the OP, is no longer on MFP. If he were, I strongly suspect he'd also disagree with the idea that generically "sugar is not good for our bodies" irrespective of context or dosage.

For example, the World Health Organization recommends we limit added sugar to 10% or less of our calorie budget - at least that was the recommendation last time I looked, not zero. Digging into the "why" behind that recommendation, it was 3 things:

1. Eating too much added sugar makes it very likely that if we stick with reasonable calorie intake, we won't get sufficient good nutrition. Sub-par nutrition is bad for health.
2. Eating too much added sugar also makes it likely that if we get sufficient good nutrition, we won't be able to stick within a sensible calorie budget. Exceeding sensible calorie intake means we'll gain fat, and that's not good for health, either.
3. Sugar tends to cause dental cavities.

That seems like a reasonable analysis to me, and doesn't seem exactly synonymous with "sugar is not good for our bodies". Many nutrient-dense foods - fruits, veggies, dairy - inherently contain sugars, and those sugars aren't chemically different from added sugars. Eating pure sugar alone can have some different effects, but eating in a mixed meal in reasonable amounts isn't biochemically or physiologically different from consuming foods with inherent sugars in a similar overall nutritional context.

I eat some added sugar. My nutrition is good overall, health is good, health markers good, body weight in a healthy range nowadays. I don't see a problem with this, nor any reason I need to totally cut out added sugar. It's not the devil, it's just easy to overconsume, and overconsuming it is detrimental.

So....ideally you would cut out all sweets

I think this would be better worded as '" ideally you should keep sweets to within an overall nutritious and calorie appropriate diet."