Have you ever stopped and asked what the hell is in Diet Pop (or soda for those of you who were raised poorly… that’s a joke)? I admit, I am not a big label reader. It used to be that I could care less about what is in my food so long as it is tasty.
In fact it wasn’t until I met Jessi, my fiancee, that I started to question what is in my food. Jessi is a vegetarian who believes in eating organic foods. She has never forced this lifestyle on me, but over time I have tried some of the organic stuff. I actually really like it. I am not a vegetarian, for the record, but I’ve come to understand and appreciate the lifestyle.
Something I used to drink a lot of of was Diet Pop. I mean why not really? It’s pop with zero calories! Jessi hated this because she said that a chemical called aspartame was in all Diet Pop. She claims it is a bad chemical that causes health problems.
I dismissed this idea until just after the passinf of mother. She probably had roughly 5 cans of diet pop a day. She was also a smoker, which is never good. She died from Pancreatic Cancer at the age of 56. There is no history of this disease in my family, so the reason for her getting the deadliest of cancers can’t be linked to DNA. When I talked to the doctors about how she could have gotten this, they mentioned smoking, but said in all likelihood that it wasn’t the primary reason. They claim it was just “bad luck.”
The Pancreas produces insulin and enzymes that break down carbohydrates in your digestive system. In other words, it works with sugar. So many people seem to fear sugar, because too much of it makes you fat and can lead to diabetes and heart problems. As a result people use sweeteners, which are almost always aspartame.
My mother was like a lot of people; she cut the carbs out, ate and drank diet foods, and was able lose a few pounds or at least maintain her weight. What I think is she ate too much food containing aspartame. I believe aspartame confused her pancreas, which was no longer dealing with sugar. Instead of processing the natural sugar your body needs, she instead was getting synthetic chemicals that have been proven to cause serious health problems in every lab rat it has been tested on, including death. I think diet foods are on the way to causing an epidemic in this country. Pancreatic cancer rates are on the rise. So are Colon and stomach cancers. With that, aspartame consumption is going up because so many foods contain it now. Did you know you can’t walk into Wegmans and find a single type of chewing gum that doesn’t contain it? This isn’t Wegman’s fault of course.
I don’t blame people for wanting to be skinny. I don’t blame grocers for carrying so many products containing aspartame. I do blame for the food producers for using it and FDA for not banning it, but that’s for another blog. My point is that maybe you should cut back on your aspartame filled diet foods. Nothing is bad for you in moderation, but everything is bad for you in abundance. If you want to control your weight, then do what you’re supposed to do and cut back your portions. Eat more veggies and LEAN meats. Or simply learn to love yourself!
I might be wrong in assuming aspartame killed my mother, but I don’t think I am. Just some food for though, pun intended.
clinics will be held from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.: