My main goal in being a nutrition coach is to build awareness. Judging someone for their choices is never my desire or goal. The most beautiful thing about being human, a child of God, and an American;) is our freedom of choice. Life is full of many choices as we all know, the big ones like who will I marry, what job will I take, where will I live or go to school...those are daunting enough, making the little decisions like what foods to eat are often times shoved to the back of the shelf for obvious reasons. We are so busy with everyday tasks we often don't take time to research the little things.
Today I want to talk about diet drinks. (yikes!) It's summer time and what does that mean?? Bathing suit season!:) Yay! Right?! I know so many people who will grab a diet soda over a regular because they think it's "better for them" or "has fewer calories and fat" etc. The truth is, a diet drink is WAY worse for us than regular drinks in the long run. I want to break down the ingredients in a diet drink today and try to build awareness as to what we're putting in our bodies when we consume a diet beverage. Are you ready for this? You might want to sit down;).
Here are the ingredients on a can of diet coke=
Carbonated Water
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Caramel Color
Phosphoric Acid
Natural Flavors
Caffeine
Aspartame (NutraSweet)
Potassium Benzoate
Citric acid
Lets talk about phosphoric acid. Here's what it does in the body=
1. The carbonation irritates the stomach.
2. The stomach "cures" the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.
3. The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.
This means that over time, drinking a beverage with phosphoric acid can drain your body of the calcium that it needs, causing osteoporosis. If you don't believe it, just try it and let me know;).
I kind of feel like I don't even need to talk about caffeine, I think we all know about it's harmful affects on the body. BUT, for shits and giggles, lets talk about it!
Caffeine overstimulates the adrenals and then weakens them with persistent or chronic use. First, sugar stimulates and weakens the adrenals, which creates fatigue. Then we use caffeine to keep us aware and awake, further depleting our adrenals, to which many respond by drinking more caffeine with sugar. In addition, people who overuse caffeine tend to need more tranquilizers and sleeping pills to help them relax or sleep. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who drink caffeine on a regular basis and have chronic migraines. They go hand in hand. I'm not going to go into caffeine anymore, I think we get the point.
Ah, now to Aspertame, my favorite!!! I love building awareness about aspertame, I feel like if even one person stops drinking soda's with this ingredient, I will have made a difference. This stuff is straight from the pit of hell (I'm pretty sure;), and it just pisses me off that it's legal.
Aspartame is one of the most dangerous substances ever added to food. Not only has aspartame been proven to make you fatter, it's been proven to cause some pretty serious diseases, not the least of which are cancer and neurological diseases.
This is part of a great article on the effects of aspertame, I can't say it better myself=
"Methanol, from aspartame, is released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounters the enzyme chymotrypsin (Stegink 1984, page 143). Free methanol begins to form in liquid aspartame-containing products at temperatures above 86 degrees F.. also within the human body.
The methanol is then converted to formaldehyde. The formaldehyde converts to formic acid, ant sting poison. Toxic formic acid is used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings. Imagine what it does to your tissues!
Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when unaccompanied by other amino acids we use [there are 20], they are neurotoxic.(WHAT?! NO THANKS!)
That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food. It gets you too, causing brain disorders and birth defects! Finally, the phenyalanine breaks down into DKP, a brain tumor agent.
In other words: Aspartame converts to dangerous byproducts that have no natural countermeasures. A dieter's empty stomach accelerates these conversions and amplifies the damage. Components of aspartame go straight to the brain, damage that causes headaches, mental confusion, seizures and faulty balance. Lab rats and other test animals died of brain tumors.
*Formaldehyde obtained from methanol is very toxic in *very small* doses as seen by recent research.
Aspartame causes chronic toxicity reactions/damage due to the methanol to formaldehyde and other break down products despite what is claimed otherwise by the very short, industry-funded experiments using a test substance that is chemically different and absorbed differently than what is available to the general public. "Strangely enough", almost all independent studies show that aspartame can cause health problems."
-Mark Gold (health researcher for over 20 years)
Honestly, after researching the effects of aspertame I don't even think that talking about the other ingredients is necessary. Aspertame alone is enough to make me want to scream from the roof tops that diet is NOT "diet"!!
I know that we all make choices that aren't always the best things for our bodies but as long as we are aware of the side effects, aware of the health hazards, aware of the disease potential- maybe we can avoid these products on more of a regular basis.
As far as I'm concerned, diet beverages that contain aspertame should be avoided like the plague!!
I'll leave you with a last interesting fact-
Aspartame was not approved until 1981, in dry foods. For over eight years the FDA refused to approve it because of the seizures and brain tumors this drug produced in lab animals. The FDA continued to refuse to approve it until President Reagan took office (a friend of Searle) and fired the FDA Commissioner who wouldn't approve it. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed as commissioner. Even then there was so much opposition to approval that a Board of Inquiry was set up. The Board said: "Do not approve aspartame". Dr. Hayes OVERRULED his own Board of Inquiry.
The FDA refused to approve aspertame for over 8 years? I'll take that little hint and avoid it.
