“The IARC will reportedly classify aspartame as a possible carcinogen. But this isn’t a food safety agency, and the context matters.”
I mean, to be honest, with 1 in 2 women and 1 in 3 men in the US estimated to get cancer in their lifetime, I’m just not surprised anymore when someone tells me <insert whatever> is linked to cancer.
Wasn’t aspartame also linked to liver failure in the 90’s? 🤔
Afaik it has been linked to cancer for about that long too. Used to tell my mom that aspartame (in her diet cokes) causes cancer all the time in ~2000-2001, don’t know where I heard it back then but obviously someone knew because child me was not a biochemist with a lab enough to come to that conclusion by myself.
Soda companies could literally just switch to stevia or monk fruit tomorrow and it wouldn’t be a problem. The only issue is their refusal to change.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32811239/
TL;DR Stevia is shit and bad too
A lot of people complain about it, but I don’t have any problem with it. I enjoy stevia-based sodas like Zevia or even hard seltzers with it (Truly has a few) with no problem. I wonder if it’s one of those things where it tastes different to various people like cilantro.
It is. They’ve done research and found that basically all artificial sweeteners have a genetic component. For me personally, stevia tastes like soapy bitter lawn clippings, while aspartame and sucralose taste basically normal. A few of my old standby drink mixes swapped to stevia a couple years ago, and I instantly noticed and couldn’t finish them.
I got some monk fruit at the discount grocery store where they have random discontinued things and it was a huge bag of little mini pixie stick sized, single serve packets of monk fruit powder and I ate the whole bag like they were pixie sticks and I was a six year old on Halloween.
Still tastes like crap.
I seriously take issue with how artificial sweeteners taste. It’s terrible.
I really don’t understand how people can’t tell, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a genetic thing like with cilantro.
I can’t claim to taste it everywhere, you could probably slip it by me in something. But with sugar free drinks across the board, they all have this bizarre sickly, sweet taste from the sweetener that I just can’t stomach.
I quit artificial sweeteners last year. Just use real sugar in moderation. Seems to be working for me. Biggest change is switching to water to drink. Once you conquer that the rest is cake.
Sugar is still a highly processed sweetener. Even brown sugar sold on a supermarket has gone through several processing steps. At this point, the healthiest way to sweeten your food is not sweetening it at all.
