Aspartame is one of those hot-button topics in nutrition. I know numerous people are going to feel trigger by this, but try to hear me out.
We are going through an organic, whole food, non-GMO spike in nutrition right now, which is great overall. People should be trying to live healthier lives. But because of that, artificial sweeteners are getting an even worse rap than before.
There is NO evidence to prove that consuming aspartame (or other artificial sweeteners) is detrimental to your health in normal quantities. Some studies show them potentially harmful, but only in absolutely massive quantities. Granted, nobody is saying these sweeteners are healthy either, but they are certainly not dangerous to the average population.
To put it into perspective, the FDA deems it safe to consume 50mg of aspartame for every kg of bodyweight. That means that to get anywhere near {potential} unsafe quantities, a 130 pound person would have to drink more than 15 cans of diet coke every single day for their entire life.
Studies surface all the time stating that these sweeteners are harmful in some way. But that doesn’t make them toxic. It is very easy to find a correlation in a study, but that does not equal causation. Those two things are very different. Google “chocolate diet hoax” if you want an eye-opener about these health studies.
It’s possible that aspartame bothers your stomach. But that doesn’t mean it is universally fatal. Dairy gives some people diarrhoea, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to give everyone cancer.
Look, I’m not advocating you start consuming massive quantities of artificial sweetener. Your diet should absolutely revolve around whole, real food. But if you find yourself craving a coke, and want to avoid the unnecessary calories and sugar, you’re allowed to drink a diet coke. You’ll be okay, I promise. Diet products can be a very helpful weight loss tool, they just need to be consumed intelligently.
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