What's your verdict on Crystal Light?

[limewave]

I was told by my doctor to add Crystal light to my surgery prep drink -- Go Litely. Yeah Right. I can't even look at the stuff anymore without getting sick.

My rule of thumb is to stay away from artificial sweetners as much as possible. Our bodies are meant to digest things that aren't real.

[smilingcat]

Someon here said "I'm not afraid of aspartame."

Well, I hink you might want to read both side of the issue. Check on Wiki and google.

Some web site backed by the industry claims totally safe.

Holistic people have a aspartame warning pages and claims that it is very dangerous. It's approved here in US but in some countries, I think it is banned.

I take a simple approach. human beings have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and we evolved over millions of years from other creatures, now extinct. Along the way our bodies were exposed to all the natural elements and we survived because our bodies learned how to deal with them. Aspartame, Saccarin (sp) and all the other un-prunounceable chemical names are artificial. Our bodies never saw them until about 100 years ago. Our bodies are going, "hey whats this? what do I do with them?" And god knows what our bodies do to these chemicals? Can the scientists really tell us what our bodies are doing with all this artificial stuff? I don't think they do. "hey John, the rab rat is still alive today. Must be safe and tastes pretty darn good. Lets put it in the food"

see how twinkie is made and from what. Saw it once and scary. A true Franken food.

smilingcat

[Flybye]

I have had so many problems with artificial sweeteners.

Here are a list of the problems that I have when I have a diet pop or crystal light once a day for a week or so. It takes a bit to notice the problems, as if the sweeteners build up for awhile before wreaking havoc:

tiredness - not the kind of tiredness that you can take a nap and feel better, either, almost like the tiredness from being pregnant the first 3 months
fogginess- can't seem to get words out, am not as sharp with things, some memory recall problems
achy - my joints in my shoulders hurt, as do my neck muscles and my shoulder muscles
stomach ache - lower stomach, like I am making WAAyYY too much acid.
gas - evacuate the building, evacuate the building!!!! I can hear my stomach rumble, comes out of both the attic and the basement.....
irritable - most likely the combination of not feeling well + caffiene
headache - on the sides of my head, near my temples

I know for certain that aspartamine and splenda are the causes of these problems because within a day or two of quitting drinking pop or crystal light or using things like yogurt, pudding, etc. with either of those ingredients in them, I feel much better.

I checked out the FDA site b/c I wanted to give these sweeteners the benefit of the doubt, but after reading their approved studies, I googled "health problems and ______ (sweetener name)" Man, did I get an education! Sometimes testimonials speak louder than research studies.

I still have the occasional diet pop because I am not a rock solid, make no mistakes-kind of person and every once in awhile, I just want some caffeine and some popcorn w/o consuming a bazillion calories. I generally regret the slip-up!

So, where am I going with this? Just saying STAY AWAY FROM THE CR@P AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, was that too subtle?

I found this soda that uses stevia . It is pretty good tasting.
http://www.zorange.com/index.html

Easier than shaking a packet of crystal light into some water, way easier than feeling like sh!t all of the time.

My $.02