Artificial sweeteners have been sweeping our nations since the early 1980’s. With diet drinks, sugar free snacks, and alternative sweeteners for coffees and teas, these chemically produced products are everywhere we turn. It is no secret that sugar isn’t good for our bodies, but how much better could chemicals be? Let’s see by taking a look at the two most popular artificial sweeteners on the market today, aspartame and sucralose.
All About Aspartame
1. So…What Is It?
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener , 200 times sweeter than regular sugar, that is becoming more and more commonly used in today’s foods. It is made up of aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. All of these chemicals have different adverse effects on the body.
2. What We Put It In
It is truly shocking the amount of consumer goods that contain aspartame instead of sugar. Many people assume that sugar is bad for you or will make you gain weight, so any alternative has to be better. This isn’t the case with this toxic sweetener. Here is a list of some of the most common and most consumed products that contain aspartame sweetener.
Sugar Free Drinks
All Varieties of Diet Coca Cola
Diet Pepsi
Activia Yogurt
All Varieties of Wrigley’s Chewing Gum
Weight Watchers Vanilla and Toffee Yogurt
Sugar Free Pudding or Jell-o
NutraSweet Sweetener
Equal Sweetener
Low Sugar Syrup and Jellies
3. Side Effects
Aspartame makes up over 75 percent of all negative food reactions to additives. This is a number that is steadily increasing. The FDA has documented 90 different symptoms related to aspartame consumption. Dizziness, seizures, depression, memory loss, irritability, muscle spasms, migraines, insomnia, rashes, and slurred speech are just a few of the LESS SERIOUS side effects. There are also a number of chronic illnesses and disease that can be made or worse or even caused by the consumption of aspartame. Some of these are brain tumors, lymphoma, birth defects, and diabetes.
4. How To Avoid It
It may seem like aspartame is unavoidable, but it certainly is not! Removing all sugar free or artificially sweetened products from your diet is a great first start. Drinking lots and lots of water will also help you to flush out the damage already done in your body from consuming aspartame. Detoxifying and restoring nutrients that the body needs is another great step you can take to restore your health.
Facts About Sucralose
1. How It Is Made
Sucralose is a calorie-free sugar substitute that is widely used today, known as Splenda. Is is made by chlorinating regular whit table salt. It is done with a five step process that replaces three hydrogen oxygen groups on a regular sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms. It results in an intensely sweet taste with no calories.
2. Why It Is Bad For You
The most important reason to avoid sucralose in your diet is the simple fact that our bodies cannot break it down. The human body is equipped to break down and detoxify most compounds, however this is not the case with organochlorine, which is what sucralose is. It has also been proven to make certain medicines less effective because it limits the absorption of them.
3. Other Dangers
Rendering medications less effective is no the only danger associated with the consumption of sucralose. The list is pretty long, and will leave you wondering why this toxin is legal. We have a certain amount of “good bacteria” or tiny microbes that are present in out stomach. They aid with digestion and also fighting off illness that we may acquire through out mouth. Sucralose alters the amount of these good little guys that we have by as much as 50 percent, and in some cases even more. This causes major digestive and stomach upsets and is associated with weight gain. Another large and untalked about danger of sucralose is baking with it. Splenda often advertises the use of their product in baked goods as a way to make them have less calories. This is a very dangerous trade off because sucralose decomposes during baking and releases chloroproanols, which are potentially toxic compounds.
Differences Between Aspartame and Sucralose
1. Chemical Make – Up
The largest difference between these two artificial sweeteners is essentially what makes them sweet. With aspartame the presence of many different chemicals are responsible for the overly sweet taste. In sucralose the use of chlorine is the cause for it’s sweet effect.
2. Effects
The health effects that each aspartame and sucralose have on our bodies are also vastly different. With sucralose the negative effects are not always that noticeable, but are still damaging. Aspartame on the other hand will give you some pretty nasty and in your face effects, like nausea and headaches.
3. Fact The Facts
The main reason people opt for artificially sweetened drinks and foods are because of weight loss and sugar addiction. They believe that replacing regular table sugar with a zero calorie options such as Splenda will allow them to have their cake and eat it too. If you are really trying to put health and nutrition at the fore front of your life these are not the options for you. Start by phasing out sugary things in your diet little by little. Having zero to no sweetness in your daily diet will have much better health effects than having artificial sweetness.