Oh dear...not wanting to piddle on anyones' parade, but aspartame has never been shown to cause cancer anywhere in the world in any properly conducted scientific tests...
Of course, there are a lot of "everything artificial causes cancer" websites which spread rumors, urban myths, bad science, and even outright lies about additives, but aspartame has been approved practically worldwide by health agencies and food administrations. We get phone calls in the Quality Department at work from people who have heard some story from some weedy media talking head for one of these mobs, you know the type, someone who looks like a nice t-bone steak and chips would kill them.
It has been said that if you feed the right amount of anything to the right breed of rat, you will produce a tumor. These panic merchants would have you believe everything from "don't cook in aluminium pots because you'll get altzheimers disease", to "don't use spray deodorants because they cause breast cancer" (honestly!), and "don't use mobile phones because the hospitals are full of people with tumors behind thier ears...the government just hides the figures so people won't panic". :b:
The internet is, once again, showing how it can give a wide audience to some people who should really be more responsible about spreading fear and half-baked "facts" to further thier own faulty idealism. There are even thriving websites which claim that diet drinks actually make you fatter, thereby making you buy even more diet drinks and supporting the industry profits...how something that has very low energy levels and zero percent fat can make you gain weight is beyond me, and I know rather a lot about soft drink formulations...kind of says it all about thier logic... :whistling
Much is made of the fact that artificial sweeteners have been banned in Japan. The actual reason for this is simple protectionism. They have a fantastic sweetener called Stevia, which comes from a plant, and even a tiny drop is so sweet you wouldn't believe it. They have used this for many years and have a thriving industry in it, so why would they import sweeteners made overseas? We all know what the Japanese are like about imported goods from otehr countries. Stevia may come here some time in the future, if we can work out the growing and processing on a wide scale.
Until that time however, don't feel scared to drink diet drinks...apart from the god-awful taste a lot of the diet cola's have, they won't hurt you... :yeah:
