What you won’t find in my kitchen

Artificial Sweeteners.

One habit of us humans, which I have never been able to fully understand, is the notion that something made from humans is better for humans. The further along I progress along my path, the more I come to learn that we don’t really know anything! School books have taken educational conditioning only so far, and then you have to ask yourself, who are we to mess with Mother Nature?

Pink Stuff – Saccharin – Sweet ‘n Low – dextrose and cream of tartar: Saccharin is 300 times sweeter than sugar. It was banned as early as 1911, but the bans were lifted during the sugar rationing of WWI. Then in 1977, Canadians proved that saccharin does in fact cause cancer and as a result, the FDA required that any saccharin products carry a warning label which reads:

“Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin, which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.”

The label was ironically removed in 2000 by the US Congress (not by the FDA) after heavy lobbying by the saccharin industry. The National Cancer Institute ran studies over the next 2 years and found that saccharin was indeed connected with bladder cancer.

Blue Stuff – Equal – Aspartame – Nutrasweet – Combination of two amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartic acid) and methanol: Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. Let’s look at the amino acids – Aspartic acid is an excitotoxin as an isolate – a product that kills the neurons of the brain causing brain damage. Methyl alcohol (immediately produced from a methyl ester), breaks down to formaldehyde and formic acid – ant sting poison. Lastly, phenylalanine, as an isolate, a neurotoxin that lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin triggering psychiatric and behavioral problems. All three in combination break down to cluster mess including diketopiperazine, a brain tumor agent. (This product worsens with heat exposure.)

For those of you who know better, I know what you’re thinking, “but the amino acids are NOT isolates in this product,” and my response would naturally be, how do we know for absolute sure, that with all the other crap we put into our bodies that some conversion doesn’t happen somewhere down the pipeline? We don’t know for sure but I’ll tell you one thing, just because it hasn’t been tested doesn’t mean I’m putting it in my body.

Aspartame cannot be metabolized in people with phenylketonuria (PKU) as they lack the enzyme needed to convert phenylalanine into tyrosine, another amino acid. High concentrations of phenylalanine can accumulate and can cause brain damage.

Yellow Stuff – Splenda – Sucralose:It’s made by replacing three hydroxyl groups of the original sugar molecule with chlorine. The result is a molecule not recognized as sugar by the body hence it is not digested. Sucralose is sometimes called ‘chlorinated sugar.’ Sucralose does not occur in nature. There have been no long-term human studies on the safety of Splenda; however, issues have been raised and Duke University did a study with significant findings:

“suppresses beneficial bacteria and directly affects the expression of the transporter P-gp and cytochrome P-450 isozymes that are known to interfere with the bioavailability of drugs and nutrients. Furthermore, these effects occur at Splenda doses that contain sucralose levels that are approved by the FDA for use in the food supply.”

Interesting! So the sugar free yogurt you just ate… completely worthless. (And that’s only the small amount of testing done so far.)

White Stuff – Processed White Sugar: The naked cousin of sugar in the raw. Once full of minerals as a whole food, now striped and bleached to create a ‘cleaner’ and ‘safer’ product. So sad.

Brown Stuff –  Raw Sugar – Sugar in the Raw: I’m sure that the brown packets have some sort of processing too but it’s the best option we have. Think of white sugar as white flour, completely bleached and processed without any of its original nutrients while the brown, raw sugar is like whole wheat flour, less processed and hopefully still contains most of its original nutrients.

Stevia – Green/ White Packets: It’s a plant. Pure. Simple. Natural. It is many many times sweeter than sugar. The leaves can be harvested and purified/ processed into a fine powder from the glycoside components. It is indeed a the best choice for a no calorie sweetener over any man made option. (Also a great option for kids, diabetics, and those wanting to lose weight!) Be careful as many stevia products are now being combined with other sweeteners such as white sugar, xylitol, etc. The best brand I know of is called Sweet Leaf stevia. They use a wonderful techonology that essentially uses only water to purify the stevia, no enzymes, alcohols, chemicals, or solvents!

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