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The Troubling Truth about Sweeteners and Other Artificial
Additives
We are living in an age that is rampant
with health scares of all kinds. Today, even obesity is being considered an
ever-spreading epidemic that we are unable to control.
However, when we get down to the bare bones of our modern problems, the
causes are all the same: we over-consume, we produce and over-produce toxins
and chemicals that we pump into the air and into our food and stuff into our
bodies as quickly as we can.
The artificial additives that we put in and on the foods we eat may be
slowly killing
us. Even when we try to make a change, such as replacing sugar with
sweeteners like Sucralose and Aspartame, we are just trading one potential
problem for another.
The debate over the use of artificial sweeteners and other additives has
been raging ever since the 1970s, when it was discovered that sugar
substitutes cyclamate and saccharine caused cancer. Since then, sweeteners
have gone in and out of style as new tests prove that they may be bad for
us, and greedy product manufacturers insist that this may not be entirely
true.
The most popular artificial sweeteners today are Aspartame, which is used in
many diet versions of soda and sweets, and Sucralose, which is marketed as
Splenda, and is being used as a sugar substitute in more products every day.
Of course, many of us have never heard a good thing about Aspartame. There
are 92 side-effects repeatedly reported by those who consume the chemical,
ranging from headaches and chest pains to hypertension, impotence, breathing
problems, and brain tumors. In fact, your body converts parts of the
chemical Aspartame into formaldehyde, which ends up in the brain and may
cause problems to the entire central nervous system.
Industry advocates claim that you would have to consume massive amounts of
Aspartame in order to feel any of these negative effects, just as they claim
that evidence supporting the carcinogenic properties of all additives are
“inconclusive.” It’s no wonder that so many of us are overweight and
unhealthy when food producers are only too happy to offer us substances that
are acceptable because they might not make us sick.
In recent years, Sucralose has been hailed as the hip new solution to dated
forms of poisonous sweeteners. It is made out of a combination of sucrose
and chlorine, which many scientists say make this “harmless” new additive
more akin to a pesticide like DDT than to a sugar substitute.
Splenda is supposed to pass undamagingly through the body; however, lab
tests have shown that it has mutagenic effects on the thymus gland, the
liver, kidneys, and intestinal tract. Unfortunately, tests have only been
done on rats, and the Splenda people claim that this does not prove anything
about how humans will react to the product.
In fact, Splenda claims that they are offering us an all-natural product
that is safe for even the smallest child to enjoy. This is an odd claim,
since it seems unlikely that something damaging to a small animal would be
perfectly harmless for a child to consume.
The real fact of the matter is that artificial sweeteners and other
additives are, by and large, chemicals produced in labs, and were never
intended to feed human bodies. The more artificial and unnatural the
product, the more likely it is to affect the basic structure of our DNA,
possibly causing cancer, organ damage, or brain defects.
Dyes, preservatives, and flavor enhancers such as MSG, Nitrates, Sulphites,
and even caramels (dyes used in soft drinks and alcohol) have all shown
signs of causing cancer and other mutations in the human body. They are also
believed by many to cause hyperactivity in children, blood pressure
problems, asthma, and even arthritis.
These additives play a major, albeit covert, role in the current obesity
crisis.
The majority of sweeteners and artificial additives are found in fatty,
salty, sugary foods that are terrible for us to begin with. These additives
just make foods that are bad for us longer lasting, better tasting, cheaper,
and more addictive.
We just have to keep reminding ourselves that when it comes to artificial
additives, every little bit hurts. If we can stick to eating
whole, natural
foods that are free of dyes, preservatives and flavor enhancers, we may be
able to eliminate many of the cancer risk-factors that seem to attack us
from every side in this day and age.
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