Interesting article - artificial sweeteners.....

The Norwegian governments recommendations on Aspartame:

The daily limit of of Aspartame to avoid health damage is 40 mg per kg body mass. This means that you can drink 14 boxes of diet soda every day for the rest of your life without damage to your health.

Aspartame causes cancer with rats in high dosages. I am not a Rat, and I definitely weigh more than a rat, so until Aspartame is proven harmful to people in low dosages, I will safely keep drinking my Diet soda.

Kaysa

I remember seeing a story on What's good for you show a few years back with regards artificial sweetener versus normal sugar.... They said... don't quote me... that they would prefer people to use normal sugar, but less of it of course due to calories..... as it was "better" for you than artificial sweeteners.... A lot of artificial sweeteners in America are now banned, but alas Australia is always behind in banning things.....

I know I have written this in here somewhere before but I highly recomend a sugar alternative called Xylitol. It is all natural and looks exactly like sugar and tastes just like white sugar. It has 50% less calories than sugar however, and this is the big one, it has a GI rating of 7. Sugar has a GI of 85 or higher if I remember correctly. This means xylitol does not cause rapid increases in blood glucose levels which is the dieters natural enemy. It is often marketed as PerfectSweet and you get it from heath food stores. I replaced all sugar in my house with xylitol, the kids can not taste the difference.
I tried stevia but it made me puke. And I wont touch the artificial sweeteners.

Fortunately I absolutely HATE the taste of artificial sweeteners.

I have a friend who works for the Cancer Council and said she wouldn't touch artifical sweeteners with a barge pole after doing studies and research.

Hands up to letting my kids drink diet coke. Is it the right choice, well that I am not sure of. I do know with our family history of obescity that memebers of the family who have made the choice to let their kids drink fruit juice thinking it is healthy ALL have major obescity issues with their children, where we do not. I do think you have to weight up the health impacts that a life of obescity brings. My daughter drinks for the most part water, has since she was a baby. my son is now going that way. I think the only other thing with sweeteners in that we purchase is diet yoghurts. I would have to think hard to find anything else. Oh the male of the species uses it in his coffee some times. I choose to wean myself off sugar and was suprised how easy it actually was when done gradually. I now drink tea or coffee minus sugar or artificial sweeteners. I am super consious being a diabetic on how much sugar is in any food, as in hidden. I tend to be a sugar nazi not a fat one. BUT not replacing it with artificial sugars. I noticed a LONG time ago the increased sugar in so many diet products in order to cut back the fat. I tend to choose non diet options with a low fat content naturally and not made that way on purpose. Because I see those are the products that climb up the sugar ladder.

I do think artificial sweeteners are a concern BUT I do think they have to be weighed up with how big a health risk obescity is.

applesauce

Sometimes even reputable sources like ninemsn and major newspapers can blow things all out of proportion!

I noticed in the article that it stated;

A recently published long-term study of aspartame indicated that aspartame caused dose-related and statistically significant increases in the incidence of several types of tumours. This has unfortunately been ignored by food regulators.

Aspartame becomes methanol after exposure to heat or during prolonged storage, which is potentially toxic to the brain, retina and nerves. The regular use of these artificial chemicals especially in a child's diet could therefore disrupt normal growth and development.

This is not entirely correct. Aspartame has an affect that when digested it "transforms" to formic acid. Formic acid can also become formaldehyde which is toxic and is closely related to neuropathic conditions. However, despite what the article states about "ignored by food regulators" one small thing about this is also ignored by so called 'health' advisers. Formic acid is also found in apples. In fact there is more formic acid produced from a medium sized apple than a can of diet coke.

Yes, aspartame will probably contribute to a tumor or other toxic related condition (see the bit in article that says "dose-related"), BUT so will just about any other food substance if eaten in the quantities required to cause the condition.

Secondly we don't heat aspartame when we consume it and we don't store it for prolonged periods.

Notwithstanding any of this, I agree that natural sources of "sweetness" is always better. In fact, natural sources of any food is usually better

http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1047814