To keep the business going, diet sodas and other products are created using artificial sugar subtitutes and sold as "Zero...", not to mention any particular names. Zero stands for Zero calories. But I wonder, why can the industry freely and without prove advertise artificial sweeteners as being good for your health?

Well, I don't blame the consumers, although nowadays it is easy to obtain information on the internet and one has got no excuse. The reason why I'm writing this article is the misinformation I come across almost daily in newspapers, magazines and other media. Food and beverages containing artificial sweeteners are advertised as being beneficial for health. I regard this as a deception per se. It means the industry does not shy away from targeting your health concerns for their business. Let's zoom in on an artificial sweetener called Aspartame for example. There is a large number of diet products mentioning this name on the ingredients label. What is Aspartame? Does our body know how to metabolize it? Our digestive system regards the molecule structure of Aspartame as a foreign substance and it does not know how to process it.

Aspartame contains Methanol. Methanol is known to be a dangerous neurotoxin, can cause cancer and other severe health risks. Methanol is needed to fuse together two amino acids to create the sugar substitute Aspartame. In our body Methanol breaks down into Formic Acid and Formaldehyde.

Long term studies on rats by an Italian Cancer Institute, the Ramazzini Foundation, found increases in Lymphomas, Leukemias and Breast Cancer. The rats were given 20 mg of Aspartame per kilogram of body weight. One can compare this to a 50 pound child that consumes two and a half cans of diet soda. This doesn't sound alarming as currently the acceptable daily intake is set at 50 mg/kg of body weight. But there are hundreds of other products which contain Aspartame and are likely to be consumed by kids and adults alike. It all adds up. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) downgraded the rating of Aspartame to “everyone should avoid”. Experts are calling on the FDA to review the Aspartame Cancer risk. Remember, this is a multi billion dollar industry and the pressure on the authorities to turn a blind eye to this issue is high. Ultimately you are responsible for your health, so just stop consuming products containing artificial sweeteners as a precaution.

If you have got a sweet tooth like I do, use brown sugar or honey in a moderate amount as a sweetener. It is a natural substance, tastes lovely and does not do you any harm. And do you know that pure water as a replacement of diet sodas is most beneficial to your health by hydrating your body and flushing out toxins? I'm sure you do! Then I need to say no more.