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The answer to this question, of course, depends on who you ask. The manufacturers of the low calorie sweetener will assure consumers that their product is safe. Afterall, is was approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. It's now used in nearly five thousand food products around the world. These include soda pop, hot chocolate, fruit drinks, cereals, jams and jellies, ice cream, yogurt, chocolate bars, and cookies, cakes, et cetera. Aspartame is also available in individual packets that you can use in your coffee, tea, cereal, et cetera.
So, what exactly is this artificial sweetener made of? According to it manufacturer, The Nutrasweet Company, (the product's brand name), it's made of aspartic acid and phenylalanine. Aspartic acid is an amino acid that builds proteins; it's found in sugar cane. Phenylalanine is another chemical that builds proteins in our bodies. It can be found in meats, and dairy products.
Other sources, however, claim that "methanol" or "wood alcohol" should be added to that list of ingredients in order to make it accurate. Once you eat or drink a food product that contains Aspartame, it breaks down into aspartic Acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. Methanol is a toxic chemical that can cause blindness, vomiting, headaches, and even death. It's often found in antifreeze, gasoline, varnish, and lacquers, and formaldehyde.
Now, who would want to eat or drink a known toxic chemical ?
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) rectified the situation by establishing an "Acceptable Daily Intake" of Aspartame. The FAO and the WHO set "forty milligrams of the artificial sweetener per kilogram of body weight" as a safe amount of Aspartame for people to consume every day. This means, that an acceptable daily intake for a small person who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds, (54.43 kilograms), is a little over two thousand milligrams.
To determine how much Aspartame you can eat or drink in a day without harming your health, remember that one kilogram is equal to 2.2 pounds. Therefore, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2. The answer will be in kilograms. Then, multiply the kilograms answer by forty. Your final answer will be the amount of Aspartame in milligrams that you can ingest every day.
A twelve ounce can of soda pop contains 225 milligrams of Aspartame; an eight ounce cup of yogurt contains 80 milligrams of it, and one packet of the artificial sweetener has 37 milligrams of Aspartame in it. Therefore, the small person in the example would have to drink more than nine soda drinks that were sweetened with Aspartame to exceed the recommended daily intake... and possibly harm their health, according to The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.
According to outside sources, Aspartame can cause health problems that include confusion,
depression, diarrhea, fatigue, headaches, insomnia, memory loss, menstrual problems,
migraines, weight gain, and many, many, many more.
If you are a user of Aspartame, and you question whether this product is causing you health problems or not, consult your doctor or your healthcare professional. Or, you can take a test to find out for yourself. Simply avoid using Aspartame in packets, and avoid all foods and drinks that contain it for a period of sixty calendar days. Do not change your eating habits in any other way! After that time, see if you still have the same questionable symptoms. If you don't, then you may want to continue to avoid Aspartame.
One thing is for certain, anyone that has a rare disease known as "phenylketonuria" (PKU) should avoid Aspartame at all costs! This disease prohibits a person's body from properly digesting phenylalanine. Therefore, a build up of phenylalanine occurs, and the result can be loss of mental functions, as well as brain damage!
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