2y ago

You don’t have to freak out about aspartame in your diet soda

www.theverge.com

"The IARC will reportedly classify aspartame as a possible carcinogen. But this isn’t a food safety agency, and the context matters."

the_dunk_tank @hexbear.net

Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them] @hexbear.net

2y ago

Verge does PR for carcinogenic aspartame.

www.theverge.com /2023/6/30/23780115/aspartame-iarc-who-food-safety-carcinogen

31 comments

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.
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
- I'm a card carrying hippie and I fucking hate stevia. It ruins all it touches.
- Yeah buuuuuuuuut bottom line et al
  
  If you don't mind me being pedantic, "et al." is short for "et alia" which means "and other people". "Etc", short for "et cetera", means "and other things". You only use "et al." when talking about people not named in a list.
  The More You Know 🌠
  
  Which I don't understand. It literally would be cheaper for them to use stevia or monk fruit and call it a day than to quibble over something so trivial.
- Aspartame doesn't taste great, but stevia is just awful
  
  I'm more of a monk fruit person myself too honestly.
  
  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.
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.
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.
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.
  
  Abstinence is the safest way to have sex.
I think a good rule of thumb is "everything in moderation." Excessive use of anything isn't healthy.
- Yeah, I mean drinking too much soda in general isnt exactly gonna be good for you regardless of how its sweetened.
  
  However, if you are drinking a lot of soda, better you drink diet versions and get exposed to this spurious "possible" cancer risk than get exposed to ridiculous amounts of sugar that will all but guarantee weight gain and the build up of insulin resistance
People have been freaking out about it since it was first introduced. Can't count how many times someone has told me to put down my diet soda because it causes cancer/diabetes.
- Same as microwave oven, cell phones and laptops. Human beings freak out about stuff that they don’t understand, it was then thunder that human freak out about, it is now technology that human freak out about.

31 comments