Aspartame makes you fat

I woke up this morning to the sounds of Smashing Pumpkins coming through my radio. The song was 'today" from their 1993 album Siamese dream. This immediately made me think back to my high school days (yes, I'm dating myself here).

Back in high school my buddies and I were coffee house rats. Yep, my addiction to all things coffee started very early in life, mostly because there wasn't much else to do when you were 15 in Southern Ontario.

(album of choice while cruising in my 1986 supra..)

My high school crew are now all in different parts of the world these days. One is a chef in Toronto, another is a journalist in Japan and one is an architect in New York. So needless to say, none of them were about to meet me for coffee.

But since I do love coffee, I went anyways.

I noticed two interesting things while waiting in line for my coffee at a local Williams Coffee Pub. One, I realized I still had the chorus from 'Today' stuck in my head, and two I was eaves dropping on the people in front of me.

The lady in front of me ordered a coffee with one sweetener. The gentlemen with her ordered a large coke, then emphasized the word 'Regular'.

He then turned to the women he was with and said "I'm off artificial sweeteners, I heard on the news that research says they make you fat".

"really?" she responded

"Yeah, they just make you hungrier 30 minutes after you eat them, apparently you are better of drinking regular Coke". he replied.

So this man just ordered 16 ounces of sugar because artificial sweeteners might have slightly increased the chances of him ordering 16 ounces of sugar later in the day. The logic here is so messed up, it makes my nose bleed.

This is another reason why I now go out of my way to avoid nutrition advice that comes from the mainstream media.

I could understand ordering a water, or a black coffee..but a regular coke? because a diet coke will make him fat?

This is what happens when weight loss research that is cutting edge and novel is found by mainstream media. Something that is very exploratory, very new, and not conclusive at all can be turned into a completely backward nutrition "factoid" that serves to do nothing more than confuse us.

Losing weight would be easy if everyone didn't try to complicate it all the time. Find a simple way to reduce the calories you eat, find the time to exercise and ignore crazy nutrition factoids from the main stream media.

BP

All Natural Aspartame

Here's some pretty sad information that will ensure that food and food labeling will stay confusing for years to come...

According to food navigator.com, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no plans in the near future to establish a definition of the term 'natural', saying it has other priorities for its limited resources.

So really, every single food can be called "natural" as long as there is room on the label!

BP

Sweet Misery

Here is a link to a very interesting movie on the history and politics behind Aspartame.

I will warn you ahead of time that the movie is very one-sided, and many of the claims that are made about the dangers of aspartame seem to be greatly exaggerated. However, it is also very eye opening.

Even if the claims are greatly exaggerated, they still describe a very scary political battle that was behind the legalization of what is probably the world's most famous artificial sweetener.

Sweet Misery -1 hour 30 min

PS- By posting this movie I am not verifying or agreeing with its views or opinions. I am condoning it as an educational piece of work for you to assess and to use as a tool to build your opinions on what you choose to eat and what you choose not to eat.

BP

What's up with gum?

The other day, after watching the movie "Sweet Misery" I started thinking about gum.

I've never been a big gum chewer, but I decided that I should go on a shopping trip and see exactly what is going on in the gum aisles these days. I was amazed by what I found.

Firstly...from what I could find at my local convenience stores, almost all gum contains aspartame, sucralose, or acesulfame-potassium (remember I'm in Canada, so the ingredients may be different then in other countries).

The interesting thing is that this includes the "sugar" gums - Even the well known "bubble gums" contain both sugar AND artificial sweeteners!

We have gotten to the point where chewing on straight sugar isn’t sweet enough anymore, we have to add artificial sweeteners to sugar to make it sweet enough for our tastes!

Secondly, and probably most shocking to me, was that several of the "bubble gums" contain hydrogenated vegetable oils in their ingredients. I had no idea that there could be trans fats in bubble gum!

Just another reason to read the labels on everything you put in your mouth.

BP