I wrote this just hours before it was due in. It's for a Nutrition assignment, on artificial sweeteners, their history, a bit of description, good or bad effects, and if i'd use them as a naturopath. I decided to focus on aspartame versus stevia. I'm soooooo last minute I hate it. Oh well, bring on the qualifications! I wouldn't be surprised if half the doctors bluffed their degrees!
Since times unheard of, plants have been an integral part of human existence. Whether they’re used for medicinal purposes, as a food, as tea, as clothes, or as poisons, innumerable uses have been cultivated from these earth born gifts. Regardless of the contrasting cultures, climates, and flora around the world, different plants have been used for similar purposes. For example, sugar cane, agave nectar, and stevia have been cultivated for use as a sweetener in foods and beverages. However, as humankind further experiments and develops cheaper and more ‘sustainable’ ways of producing foods and flavors, it seems that the idea of artificial products as a substitute for nature has taken over, which truly misses the essence and point of plants being here in the first place. With ever growing demand for financial power and decrepit processed foods, and not to mention the misleading influence of conglomerate pigs, it looks like things are just getting started! This assignment will look at artificial sweeteners in comparison to naturally occurring sweeteners, with particular focus on Aspartame and Stevia—to find out which is indeed the acceptable substitute for the age-old sugar, and which would be appropriate to prescribe as a naturopathic nutritionist.
The history of artificial sweeteners involves a lot of mistakes and bad hygiene practices. In fact, the first artificial sweetener, Saccharine, was discovered when a clumsy Constantin Fahlberg spilt a concoction on his hands at a lab in 1879. Without washing his hands, he went to dinner and was licking his fingers when he noticed something tasted sweet. This same process of accidental scientific discoveries continued with the invention of many other artificial sweeteners, including Sucralose, Cyclamates, and Aspartame in 1965. However, as technology and scientific knowledge developed, artificial sweeteners harmless for human consumption are still a very mythical concept. Over many decades, frequent political, social and financial battles have been the result of these man made alternatives to sugar. Disputes over whether it is actually safe for human use have continued since they came into being, and will persist as long as there are conflicting opinions on the matter. While many scientific lab results have shown that Aspartame has been the cause of cancer and various other diseases in rats, the labs that have patented Aspartame, along with their slick marketing and lawyer teams, have done a good job in fooling the FDA and the public. The result is toxic artificial additives in mainstream food and beverages, with the public brainwashed into thinking that it’s okay, because they won’t gain weight. The weight shedding, artificial sugar free delusion seems like it’s just beginning, but there is still hope to believe that it is the end that’s drawing near. Aspartame is found in everything processed from cola, to cookies, to cakes, to yoghurt, to chewable vitamins, and sugar free chewing gum.
Aspartame is composed of three main ingredients: Phenylalanine, Aspartic Acid, and Methanol, which have all shown to produce adverse health effects on test animals in their synthesised forms. These ingredients all occur in safe ratios, bound to different substances in nature, however in the way that it has been manufactured, it is toxic to the body in almost everyway, and unfortunately is almost completely absorbed. Phenylalanine and Aspartic acids are actually amino acids, but their ratio in comparison to the other amino acids is what makes them potentially deadly. The ester link between the amino acids are broken down by the body to form free amino acids, which can have a neuro-toxic effect on the body, also known as excitotoxicity. Although they aren’t recognised in the body, they will still be metabolized, and can lead to cell death. The methanol is also occurring naturally in some foods, yet it usually has something to bind to, such as pectin. Since Aspartame has nothing for the methanol to bind to, it has the potentiality to spontaneously break down to a toxin called formaldehyde, which accumulates in your cells and causes serious consequences. The safe consumption of Aspartic Acid in Aspartame, as defined by the EPA, is 7.8mg a day, which is found in half of a can of diet soda – indicating how much damage these alternatives to high sugar sodas are actually doing. They may even be worse for you. There’s not much to say about any positive effects, in fact it is quite the opposite. Studies are increasingly showing detrimental effects to the human organism, and there’s no light at the end of the artificial tunnel of Aspartame.
Stevia on the other hand was nature born, and has been used for over a thousand years in South America, particularly around Northern Paraguay and Southern Brazil. The Guarani Indians had used it for centuries, and eventually Spanish and Portuguese farmers cultivated it as a crop. The first official documentation of Stevia was in 1576 by a Spanish physician known as Francisco Hernandez. It was then ‘rediscovered’ in 1887 by Dr. Moises Santiage Bertoni. After the first large scale harvest of Stevia in 1908, plantations soon spread around the world. It is now grown in Japan, China, India, Europe, the United States and many more. The FDA and other authorities have for decades tried to suppress the use of stevia as a sweetener, despite it’s beneficial health effects. This is gradually changing as time goes on, with several countries allowing it to be marketed legally as a sweeter, except for the United States, where it can only be sold as a dietary supplement. Stevia is up to 400 times sweeter than sugar with roughly about 10 calories per pound, which makes it ideal as a sugar replacement. It can be purchased in liquid form, extract powder, and dried leaves. However, as long as there is a natural product, science will try and extract the molecular structure of the plant, and recreate it in labs. This has lead to Japanese scientists replicating the steviol in the stevia plant, and using it as an additive in foods. While this is still more appropriate than aspartame, it is most likely to be found as commonly as high fructose corn syrup in processed and packaged foods in Japan. No matter how many different ingredients may be added into refined foods, they will never match the potency of organic whole foods. Stevia is best consumed as a cold pressed extract, which doesn’t destroy the enzymes in the plant, however a lot of brands will heat it to keep out bacteria. It has been shown to balance blood sugar levels (which makes it safe for use by diabetics), decrease reproduction of oral bacteria, have healing effects on skin diseases such as acne and eczema, it is a good stomach digestive aid and has been known to cut down cravings of sweet and fatty food. Despite attempts to ban stevia, there have been no real adverse health effects.
After reviewing the differences between Aspartame and Stevia, between artificial and natural sweeteners, an obvious conclusion should have been made by the reader. Anything that isn’t 99.9% natural is potentially hazardous, and putting something artificial into our bodies can in no way be an intelligent thing to do.
“If you’re consuming a food or beverage created in a lab instead of by nature, you can be assured your body doesn’t recognize it. This opens the door to short-term and long-lasting health problems for you and your family” – Dr. Mercola (mercola.com)
Addiction, disease, and increase in sales are the only thing s Aspartame can create, so to help restore diseased organisms to health, without depriving them of their sweet tooth, stevia is an acceptable substitute.
As a naturopathic practitioner, the client would be recommended to steer away from all processed foods, packaged foods, irradiated fruit and vegeatbles, anything with added sugar, preservatives and additives. In doing so, to satisfy those sugar cravings, cakes could be replaced with bananas, cups of tea with cows milk and sugar could be replaced with stevia and almond milk, or in making pastries, stevia could be used to replace sugar for that sweet taste. It would be advisable that one would eventually replace all artificial sugars with naturally occurring sugars, such as in fruits, and dried fruits. If the client has candida, then stevia would be a good way of increasing the sweetness in food, without feeding the hungry bacteria.
Reference:
2. http://asktom-naturally.com/naturally/stevia3.html
3. http://www.rense.com/general37/stev.htm
4. http://hubpages.com/hub/Artificial-Sweeteners-A-History
5. http://www.steviainfo.com/?page=news_detail&id=23
