The "Zero Sugar" Propaganda. How Aspartame Managed to Poison Us for 5 Decades

There Is Nothing Wrong With Being "Healthy"

Knowledge, The Power That Is Being Taken Away

I can't remember when people started to get the idea that "No sugar + Low Calories = Healthy Diet". Clearly, sugar was never an option when it comes to control their body shape.

Back in the day, people were wondering how Diet Coke could be made without sugar but taste intensely sweet at the same time. When artificial sweeteners start to become more and more popular these days, it's often considered as a "healthy" sweet-tasting sugar substitute.

It almost seems too good to be true, as many people consider it to be the "ultimate solution". They had never imagined one day they could be enjoying their sweet snacks and beverages without compromising their daily calorie intake.

And here is something we must "appreciate", which is the industry's tremendous amount of effort in creating the "stigma" of being fat. A huge "victory" for the industries, as now our society is ruptured and stigmatized.

It's almost no secret that people would get crazy about weight loss these days. People would blindly pay their hard-earned money for medical treatment focusing on weight loss, even at the cost of their health. (The Ozempic Hype is a great example)

Your Daily Diet = Industry's Honey Pot

Artificial sweeteners are just another example of the industry's favorite money makers, like non-stick pans made from Teflon during the late 20th century. Not only because it's cheap and tastes like sugar, but more importantly, it's "healthy"!

This has to be a critical reason because sugar is always hated due to public health concerns. People always consider sugar as one of the major causes of things like diabetes and obesity.

And here is when the industries come into play, with money and power, all they need to do is just pay the media and let them do the work.

As time passes, when more and more people get "educated" (brain-washed), they start to incorporate artificial sweeteners into their daily diet as a "healthy" alternative to sugar, either it's in their food or drinks.

Here was the moment when the "effort" from the industries paid off since they just successfully made themselves numerous amount of cash machines, which allowed them to withdraw 24/7 throughout every year. All thanks to everyone's effort in maintaining their "healthy" diet until they die!

The "Issue" Was Never A Real Issue

There are thousands of articles on the internet saying aspartame is potentially harmful, however, the most critical point is not the problem (aspartame) itself, but what's causing the problem.

The media industry is always doing a great job of shifting public attention towards something insignificant (distraction). It's like you won't be able to win a fight if you don't know who you're fighting against.

When some people finally started to realize how bad aspartame is, telling other people to avoid it. It all seems like we are taking a step forward against the evil industries by recognizing the "poison" they added to our food.

The reality is, we are just barely scratching the surface of the iceberg, where all the truth is hidden beneath the deep dark and nobody cares to find out. Nobody seems to pay attention to the real issue behind this, the industries that make it, and the authorities who regulate it.

The Evil "Genesis"

The "Infamous" Discovery

Although artificial sweetener is often considered a sweet-tasting sugar substitute nowadays, it was actually created by accident when chemist Constantin Fahlberg was working on coal tar derivatives in the lab in 1879.

So what is Aspartame exactly? Why is it so harmful to our bodies? How did the industries keep abusing it on us and generate profit in a "legal" way? Why aspartame is still not banned despite countless studies confirming it as a multi-potential carcinogenic agent?

Aspartame (E 951), was discovered by James Schatter while working on a new drug for ulcers in labs back in 1965, as he seems to be surprised by aspartame's sugary flavor after licking the traces from his hand.

He claimed that aspartame possessed the exact same flavor as sugar and lower calorie profile compared to the other sweetener (saccharin) that dominated the market at that time.

Aspartame was later introduced to the market by the FDA in 1974, which is exactly 50 years ago. Nowadays, it can be found almost everywhere, carbonated beverages, energy drinks, sweets, yogurt, breakfast cereal, medication, vitamins, and so on.

The Absurd "Benefits" and The Unstoppable Side-effects

Back in the days, when aspartame just getting launched into the market, scientists strongly believed the "benefits" of it outweighed the potential side effects it may have.

For example, one of their chemists said, "There may be a psychological benefit for the obese person who, by using low-calorie sweeteners, is reminded that he is on a diet, sweetener itself serves as a reminder. And for people with diabetes, they can "benefit" from sweeteners in terms of pleasure and convenience rather than their health."

Aspartame mainly consists of 3 major ingredients: aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. The first two ingredients can be found naturally in food however when consumed in the form of aspartame, a potentially carcinogenic toxin by-product called "DKPs" will form in your body.

As for methanol, it can be found in fruit in a neutralized mode, but when consumed in the form of aspartame, it enters our body without neutralization, then it gets metabolized in the liver and turns into a carcinogenic substance named formaldehyde.

And what's more? 91 side-effects (symptoms) had been documented showing a close connection with aspartame, things like headache, dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, seizures, memory loss, rash, sleep problems, change in menstrual pattern, chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, and many more.

The Funding "Fallout"

So at this point, you might be wondering, if aspartame is really harmful to our body, why it is still not banned? Why is it still legal to be used in the food industry?

Well, the short answer is that the industries don't care about your health, they probably never do. We, humans, are "resources" from the industry's perspective. Massive profit is generated at the cost of people's health, just like how a huge pyramid is built up from piles of people's dead bodies.

Now, let's break the long answers into 2 parts:

The Ambiguous ADI Of Aspartame

The ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake) of aspartame was initially determined based on 166 studies, 74 studies are funded by industries and the rest 92 are independent. There's no surprise that 100% of industry-funded studies concluded it's safe to consume aspartame, whereas 85 out of 92 independent studies suggest aspartame is linked to several health problems.

The rule is simple, "industries/companies hired chemists to carry out their own studies so that they will get the favorable result they desire, even if the review of data had concluded the entire opposite."

The "Downfall" Of Regulatory Authorities

There were 2 major studies that could potentially lead the market to realize it's time to abandon aspartame once and for all. However, industries can never agree on that, as they will lose profit and their company stock price will go down ...

And you guessed it, both EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) and FDA rejected these studies, and the rest of the regulatory agencies promptly did the same. The first study was published in 2006 and it looks something like this:

There's no surprise that EFSA turned this study down. Hugues Kenigswald the chief of EFSA said the result is unreliable, as many rats had respiratory disease pathologies before their natural death which confuses the final result. This study was never accepted since ESFA considers respiratory disease could be the potential source of tumors.

However, the ironic fact is that the experiment took place for two groups of rats, where the control groups also saw some respiratory problems but without ingesting aspartame.

More importantly, it's never proved that pulmonary or renal infections could cause a tumor at the end of life in such a short period, unless there's stimulation comes into play, in this case, the aspartame.

The Constant Growing Market and Our Miserable Future

The "Infinite" Cycle of Profit

Research has found the sweeteners market is predicted to achieve 7 billion market capital by 2027 and artificial ones account for about half of it(≈51%). Aspartame is one of the most commonly abused artificial sweeteners in today's market where its market was valued at $375.5 million in 2021, it is expected to achieve $477.9 million by 2027 (roughly ≈13.7% of the total artificial sweeteners market cap.)

Based on some data I found, the brain tumor therapeutics market was valued at about 2.7 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11%, reaching 4.5 billion by the end of 2029. It's not surprising given the fact that the chance of getting a brain tumor will increase significantly after long-term aspartame consumption.

You can clearly see a pattern here, what the industries are trying to achieve and why they are so desperate to push our world towards a "healthier" future. The future the entire industries dream about is called the "infinite" cycle of profit.

The "Pandora's Box"

Aspartame has surely become the floodgate, which regulatory agencies shall protect at whatever cost, thus they will never address the controversies surrounding the use of aspartame.

They are never afraid of making mistakes, because it is never a mistake as long as you don't admit it, or perhaps it's never their mistake if they find themselves a scapegoat.

The truth is, aspartame industries' profit is solely built on the trust of the public, they will never admit something that could cause the public to doubt their confidence and authority, because once they admit one thing they did wrong, people will start suspecting things they did in the past.

It's like the Pandora's Box nobody within the industries wants to open because inside there's nothing but lies. BPA (Bisphenol A) is the perfect example to show just how defective and inefficient the regulatory system is.

References for this article were taken from various sources, including but not limited to books, academic research papers, marketing reports, Wikipedia, and articles/blogs from other websites.