10 Things You Should Never Feed Your Kids - Number 2

Artificial Sweeteners

The culprits - Aspartame, Acesulfame K, Saccharin, Sucralose and Neotame. These are the FDA ‘approved’ sweeteners currently available under a plethora of trade names at your local supermarket. I say ‘approved’ because these additives fall within a category known as GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe. This means that they have been considered safe to use by food industry experts and are therefore exempt from FDA tolerance requirements. From what I can see, that means that the FDA recognizes them as safe but accepts there may be some scientific evidence connecting some of these sweeteners with health risks, bladder cancer in particular. The fact that the GRAS can be ’self affirmed’ is a little unsettling to me. It means that the manufacturer of the product can deem it safe to use which the FDA can review and put in the FDA- Pending file or allow it through unchallenged with a No Comment approval.

You can find articles all over the internet discussing studies that link cancer and a host of other diseases and conditions to pretty much all of these sweeteners. Of all these products the two which should be on your hot list are Aspartame ( Nutrasweet and Equal) and Saccharin( Sweet’N Low). Both are deemed as safe by the FDA but both have a number of scientific reports linking them to cancer. In fact between 1980 and 2000 Saccharin was on the National Toxicology Program list as a carcinogen but removed as a later review of the supporting data was inconclusive. Aspartame is derived from aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two essential amino acids and has been linked to a number of ailments from headaches to depression and even seizures. One thing is certain is that it can have a negative effect on sufferers of PKU or phenylketonuria which is a metabolic disorder. As it is not possible to detect whether unborn children have PKU it is recommended that pregnant women stay away from Aspartame. By law all products sweetened with Aspartame must be labelled as containing phenylalanine. 

Clever labelling and promotion has allowed Splenda to also become a market leader in the artificial sweetener sector. It is FDA ‘approved’ as Sucralose which may lead people to believe that it is a recently discovered, long lost, low calorie cousin of sugar (sucrose). It was created accidentally whilst manufacturing pesticides and does in fact contain chlorine. It is however a long way from table sugar being seven hundred times sweeter . 

On an ironic note, the use of artificial sweeteners may actually cause weight increase due to the brain being unable to process that you just ate something sweet but no calories arrived in the body resulting in the brain not being able to control appetite leading to people eating more.

The solution -As we have discussed in several of the previous posts both the USDA and FDA have approved additives, hormones, antibiotics and other adulterants which although banned in many other countries continue to be used widely even with agency acknowledgement that they are categorically harmful to your health.This leads me to believe that these broken, possibly corrupt agencies are not looking after our best interests.If you are willing to accept FDA approval of chemicals that have been tested and deemed safe by the same people who manufacture them then keep using them. If you are suspicious of chemicals that may or may not cause cancer and other health problems then I would err on the side of caution and buy products sweetend with cane or beet sugar and if possible choose organic.       

http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/hotnews/fda-notification-gras-stevia-purecircle.html