Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 533 of 3212

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...is not nearly enough... I think I'd have to get a
PHD to get to the bottom of this.

I liked the tone and approach of this site:

http://aspartametruth.freeservers.com/

In a nutshell, it suggests that aspartame fears are
overblown and provides links (not just copied text) to
sources on both sides of the argument. The author
seems honest and genuinely interested in getting to
the truth.

But as I mentioned, an hour just isn't enough. There
are many, many terrifying anti-aspartame pages written
by people with much more impressive credentials than I
have. If I drank a lot of diet coke, I'd probably
spend a bit more time poking around. One piece of
advice from an ex-librarian to people in that boat:
anyone can put up web sites (including ex-librarian
computer programmers who think they are qualified to
write about diet and exercise); you have to think
critically at what you read and ask yourself whether
it's from a reputable source. I'm not suggesting that
people who've posted haven't, just a friendly
reminder.

So what's my advice? Same as before. If you can do
without fake sugar, you might as well do without. If
you can minimize it, you might as well minimize it.
Apart from possible health issues, I think it's bad
psychology (and bad gastronomy). But if you really
can't do without pop of some kind, my hour's research
suggests diet pop is probably a better choice for most
people. I'll stand by my hierarchy of pop alternatives
that Rich mentioned.

As Tracy points out, there are other sweeteners that
seem to be less contentious than aspartame. If you can
get those instead, it seems like you might as well. 

What do I do, beverage-wise? I tend to drink
unsweetened black coffee, tea, and water during the
day, and wine or beer with dinner. To tie in with
Rose's post about juicers, I often squeeze oranges or
grapefruit or some other odd citrus fruit for
breakfast (I just use a regular old hand juicer that
you can wash like a dish, no messy machine). I have
diet drink maybe once a week. I have a non-diet soda
maybe once a month (on an s-day). I rarely drink
pre-packaged fruit juice because squeezing my own has
made me a snob (it's also made me realized that an
awful lot of oranges go into a tall glass of orange
juice).

Thanks all who contributed to this thread. Just
remember, we're after truth, not victory. It's a
contentious, murky subject, so let's be patient with
one another.

Reinhard