'Get used to a less sweet diet' - expert on aspartame
www.youtube.com
The imminent move to label aspartame as a possible carcinogen will not likely bring any abrupt policy changes but it could impact consumers' behavior, says U...
  • dan@lemm.eeEnglish
    253·
    1 year ago

    Good. Aspartame tastes fucking awful. I’d rather have food that’s less sweet than sweeteners.

      • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        1 year ago

        i don’t think there’s a goodbot tracker like reddit had, but i’m sure you’re making the bot feel better about itself when you tell it it’s good.

  • Iridium@lemmy.worldEnglish
    151·
    1 year ago

    It’ll be interesting to see where this goes, but odds are it will be meaningless - the research is sketchy at best for now.

    In my mind with the quality of research out there right now, it will boil down to 3 outcomes:

    • If you used a lot of artificially sweetened products to avoid consuming lots of sugar, and you would go back to using the same amount of sugar otherwise, then keep using the sweetener. Sugar is far more likely to cause damage to you.
    • If you think you could cut out the aspartame and cut down on sugar, then do that instead.
    • If you eat a decent amount of red meat, you may as well continue consuming aspartame. Odds are the meat will cause cancer long before the aspartame does.

    The trouble is the news can latch on to the IARC plan to classify it as a class 2B carcinogen (“possibly carcinogenic”). The problem is, the IARC classification is kinda trash for an end user, since it only classifies the quality of the research available. Meat is a class 1 (“known carcinogen”), but so is asbestos and sunlight and alcohol. No one would argue that those are equivalent. Similarly, coffee, pickles and petrol are also 2B classifications. It’s easy for the news to run with “aspartame has been identified as possibly carcinogenic” and be completely correct while also entirely misleading.

    • Krazix@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      I drink diet soda to not drink soda. I drink soda to not do drugs and alcohol. I’d much rather have heroin than diet coke, but I probably shouldn’t ever have that again. So I’ll have a diet coke, on ice please.

      • quirzle@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        Diet Dew instead of coke, but otherwise spot on. I’ve done enough stupid shit that if fake sugar is what kills me, I’ve still managed to deny a few odds.

    • dudebro@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      The red meat part is crucial.

      Funny how people are never in a hurry to share those bits.

    • hitmyspot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      The thing with most carcinogens is they are cumulative. If people are going to continue to consume lots of red meat, cutting other carcinogens does help.

      Obviously, the media would be better from a public health point of view to focus on the red meat. However, the media focuses on news and changes. Red meat has been a known carcinogen for a while. Not to mention bad for the environment and ethically problematic. It’s led to a raise in veganism and vegetarianism and many people have cut red meat in particular or are flexitarian.

      The problem with sweeteners in partiyos that many people consume them in an effort to be healthier, cutting their sugar intake. Over time, we’ve found out that they are more problematic than we knew. Risks for diabetes as well as cancer.

  • schroedingershat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    I’d settle for a single less sweet option.

    The choice always seems to be extremely high in sugar, or even sweeter but with artificial sweeteners.

    • SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      1 year ago

      I like to use a soda stream. I can add co2 to my own water and add whatever I want to use to flavor it. Sometimes I just use a few drops of lime juice, sometimes I use bourbon.

      I also like it unflavored. Sometimes all I want is the bubbles.

  • bisq@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    However, the NutriNet-Sante study led by researchers at the University of Paris does not show that the risk was caused by aspartame and critics say its design, based on people self-reporting their real-world consumption of sweeteners, is a limitation.Erik Millstone, a professor of science policy at Britain’s University of Sussex, said the French finding, while not authoritative, was likely to have been a factor in the IARC discussion. The French researchers declined to comment. “That’s important – there are new data from new studies,” Millstone said. “Plus, aspartame is just about the most widely used additive on the planet.”

    This sounds similar to the recent red meat hate by letting people self report how much red meat they have. Surprise those who eat a lot of fast food burgers that contain red meat are more unhealthy due to dietary choices unrelated to red meat.

    • dudebro@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      I thought it was pretty understood that a sort of animal products is more likely to cause health problems than one without.