Pepsi To Stop Using Aspartame

An anonymous reader writes: Pepsi believes sales of diet soda are falling because of aspartame and how the general public thinks it's a dangerous substance to consume. Even though the FDA describes aspartame as “one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved,” Pepsi has decided to stop using it. Aspartame removal is being turned into a marketing campaign of sorts, with "Now Aspartame Free" printed on cans.

Comments

danger vs taste

[Anonymous Coward]

Dangerous smangerous. I don't drink diet because it tastes terrible.

Re:danger vs taste

[Anonymous Coward]

and i see fat people drinking it all the time so it doesn't seem to be working

Re:danger vs taste

[Frag-A-Muffin]

and i see fat people drinking it all the time so it doesn't seem to be working

That's because they're usually ordering it with a Double Big Mac combo ;)

I've always found it funny when people order like that. As if the diet pop is gonna counter the 2234872184732 calories of a double big mac you're about to wolf down. Not to mention the fries (which of course has been super sized!)

When I go to McDonalds, there's no pretense of nutrition or calorie reduction. I order a regular combo with a regular coke :) Diet drinks taste awful anyways.

Re:danger vs taste

[ShanghaiBill]

That's because they're usually ordering it with a Double Big Mac combo ;)

Nope, it is because diet soda makes you fat. It promotes the wrong kind of gut bacteria. The sweet taste also triggers insulin production, when causes hunger when the sugar that the tongue predicted doesn't show up in the stomach. So people end up eating even more to compensate. Sales of Diet Pepsi are falling because people are becoming more educated about just how unhealthy that crap is. If you are thirsty, try tap water.

Re:danger vs taste

[dirk]

I never understood this type of reaction. Yes, they are eating a boatload of calories through everything else, but at least they are cutting out a few hundred with the diet coke. Yes, it won't make them thin, but at least they are doing something to try and get healthier and possible lose a little weight, which they should be applauded for. You are probably the same type of person that goes to gym and tells people they should just quit because they aren't lifting enough weight or only doing cardio. The fact is, they are doing something, which is more than some people do and should be encouraged.

Re:danger vs taste

[Anonymous Coward]

The shitty test you're talking about didn't even *test* aspartame, it tested saccharine, which hasn't been in a diet drink for several decades. More shitty "science" that shitty newspapers can't bother to actually do 2.5 seconds of research on. The last major saccharine based diet drink was Tab. Try ordering one today. You'll look like Marty McFly in 1955.

Considering the ridiculous research that's been done in the past with sweeteners, I still won't trust it, because the research has all too often been shit. Did you know that the thouroughly debunked cancer study on Aspartame fed the mice the equivalent of 14 *cases* of pop every single day? Yeah, the same amount that is in over 300 cans of pop a day. And it still didn't actually give the mice cancer. If you drank that much today, guess what you'd die of: Water poisoning.

I have no idea why the research on artificial sweeteners is so bad all the time, but I have a sneaking suspicion that HFCS producers are behind it.

Re:danger vs taste

[beelsebob]

Except that if you actually go and find sources other than a sensationalist news article, you'll find several scientific studies that show that this is bullshit. Insulin production is triggered by the presence of glucose, and does not occur with the presence of aspartame even in high concentrations.

Re:danger vs taste

[Coren22]

That would be because sugar is a portion of the carbohydrate total. Therefore, it already has a % daily value.

My Pure Leaf Extra Sweet tea I am having with lunch shows:

Total Carb. 28g 9%
    Sugars 28g

Those 28g of Carbs is 28g of sugar (as it is sweetened with sugar, not HFCS)

Re:danger vs taste

[Njorthbiatr]

Tomato juice breaks down into more methanol than your soda.

Aspartame doesn't cause methanol poisoning.

Re:danger vs taste

[QRDeNameland]

The sweet taste also triggers insulin production, when causes hunger when the sugar that the tongue predicted doesn't show up in the stomach.

There is a quite a bit of contrary evidence to that hypothesis. For one thing, the onset of Type II Diabetes, the most glaring result of disturbed insulin response, is associated with decreased rather than increased first-phase insulin response, so if artificial sweeteners are increasing first-phase insulin response it is not clear why that would be a problem.

And if artificial sweeteners cause an overproduction of insulin in the face of no actual glucose, then consuming them in the absence of no accompanying carbohydrate should be expected to trigger hypoglycemia as insulin triggers body tissues to absorb blood glucose. Yet there is no evidence that this actually happens.

That said, if the choice is between artificial sweeteners and no artificial sweeteners, then the safer bet is not to consume them as they have no precedent in our food supply for most of human evolution. However, if the choice is between artificial sweeteners and the equivalent quantity of sugar (which also has no precedent in our food supply in the quantities consumed in modern diets and has far more well-established deleterious effects on metabolism), the risk of artificial sweeteners seems pretty low in comparison based on currently available evidence.

FTFY

[jklovanc]

So, yes, aspartame is extremely harmful for a small minority of people.

There are many substances that are extremely harmful to a small number of people either through allergies or sensitivities.

Aspartame got an unfair bad reputation

[iONiUM]

There are two major reasons why people incorrectly think aspartame causes cancer:

1. In 1975 a bad study was released saying aspartame caused brain and other cancers. This study became “legend”, and is what everyone thinks about aspartame, but it is not true. There is even an article on Wikipedia specifically about this controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
2. In 1998, a hoax was released saying aspartame caused all sorts of serious diseases, and people believed it: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blasp.htm. It’s also on snopes http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

Due to the 1975 study, studies were launched and FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut" (http://web.archive.org/web/20071214170430/www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_sugar.html)

1. The European Food Safety Authority concluded in its 2013 re-evaluation that aspartame and its breakdown products are safe for human consumption at current levels of exposure (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm)
2. As do other independent studies (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408440701516184)
3. The national cancer institute has cleared aspartame as having no links to cancer (http://web.archive.org/web/20090212130028/http://cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/AspartameQandA)

There are many more scientific studies on it by national governments showing it’s safe as well:

• UK https://www.food.gov.uk/science/additives/aspartame/
• Canada http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/addit/sweeten-edulcor/aspartame-eng.php
• Australia / New Zealand http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/aspartame/pages/default.aspx

Re:Since when

[Mal-2]

Since when is Sucralose better than Aspartame?

Ask someone with phenylketonuria. I once went to a restaurant with a group, one of whom has this disorder. When he ordered a drink, he specifically said "NOT diet, I can't have phenylalanine". They brought him Diet Coke. He drank enough that some time (maybe twenty minutes) later, he had a freak-out and would have gotten all of us tossed out if he hadn't had enough sense to explain to us what he thought was about to happen. The restaurant quickly reversed tack to make sure they weren't going to get sued, while one of the people in the group had to drive him to a hospital to make sure he'd be OK.

Re:Since when

[Minwee]

Pepsi should also advertise "Contains No Radioactive Nuclear Waste".

No... they shouldn't

I'm afraid that I'm bound by too many non-disclosure agreements to explain why, but legally speaking that wouldn't be a good idea for them.

Re:Won't be drinking it

[ArmoredDragon]

This message brought to you by the Aspartame industry and FOX News.

This message brought to you by the Organic Food Lobby, and the Church of Homeopathic Medicine.

Seriously, Aspartame is very safe. All of the anecdotes about it killing ants and whatnot are really just shitty science (somebody was able to repeat the same result using just a puddle of water, which also kills ants.) It's a non-nutrative sweetener, which means as far as your body is concerned, it is inert. There have already been decades of investigation into aspartame, and none have linked any kind of illness to it (except of course the bunk materials spread by the Church of Homeopathic Medicine.)

Re:Since when

[Applehu Akbar]

And furthermore, it causes Courier font.

Re:Xylitol to the rescue?

[Just Some Guy]

1g of Xylitol is enough to kill 3 dogs in half an hour.

That is the oddest mortality unit I've heard in a long time.