Artificial sweetners?

[Desi's_lost]

Well... All water is arguable if you wish to get technical. Well water has to be softened with chemicals a lot of the time. City water has fluoride in it. My grandparents live in an appartment complex where they can not drink the tap water because the levels of lead are so high. Even bottled water is purified with arsenic soooo lol

But those technicalities aside, yes, flavored water with natural flavoring should be healthy.

 

[Sarahkka]

Actually, Desi's_lost, I disagree on this sort of off topic side of the argument. I am vehemently against bottled water. Tap water should be drinkable in developed countries. End of.
The absolutely shocking waste of both water and other resources to produce bottled water (which has a way higher contamination rate than what comes out of most municipalities' taps) is due mostly to the erroneous idea that water out of a plastic bottle is somehow "more pure". There is no shortage of scientific or political data to prove that idea false!
You want to go for banning a consumer choice? I think bottled water should be either off the shelves or prohibitively expensive (to reflect its true cost to the environment and our health) because its effect on the health of the common is way too extreme to go unchecked.
And I don't care if you flavour it or not, same politics apply. That's way more of an issue for me than artificial sweeteners are.

 

[deafgal]

bottled water probably have BPA anyway from plastics.

 

[Sarahkka]

bottled water probably have BPA anyway from plastics.

I guarantee you they have BPA unless they are in some other form of packaging.
Another statistic?
It takes 3 litres of water to produce 1 litre of bottled water - talk about a horrendous footprint, all in the name of being healthy and earth-conscious? Absolute BS.

 

[alaskagrown]

Next time you go to your grocery store look at all the flavored waters/seltzer waters etc. I bet 90% have aspartame and that's just not fair. I can't stand plain water, soda is unhealthy, juice is expensive if you want one that has 100% juice or no HFCS, so what option do I really have left? =P aside from making my own I suppose but that's costly too as fruit isn't particularly cheap either. I pay about a dollar per apple I buy and that's your run of the mill, non organic apple!

Also, crystal light and the like, they don't make similar products without aspartame. Aside from like one I've seen that was 5 bucks! I don't have that kind of money. :/ so it's not as if I'm trying to aim for sugar free drinks, it's just that they dominate the category of teas/ everything besides juice and soda.

I don't know many people who cannot stand plain water enough that are left with flavored water to drink...you make it sound as if you are forced to buy artificially sweetened water. I don't think the whole world should bow down to your picky needs. Instead, you need to be proactive, broaden your horizons, and be more creative with ways to drink water.
And things with a sugar substitute are more expensive than things sweetened with sugar. So no...poor people aren't left with nothing to buy but artificially flavored foods. It's just the opposite! If you're seriously that poor, just drink plain water and get over it!

 

[deafgal]

here, we make sweetened iced teas...with plain sugar. it is really cheap to make too.

 

[Sarahkka]

I was going to say, deafgal - it costs pennies to toss a few tea bags (herbal or caffeinated) into a jug of water in your fridge and add real sugar to taste. No, this may not be a choice for diabetics, but it sure does offer a far cheaper and more environmentally responsible choice to lower income consumers than bottled waters do.

 

[deafgal]

we sun brew our tea in a glass container.

 

[Desi's_lost]

Actually, Desi's_lost, I disagree on this sort of off topic side of the argument. I am vehemently against bottled water. Tap water should be drinkable in developed countries. End of.
The absolutely shocking waste of both water and other resources to produce bottled water (which has a way higher contamination rate than what comes out of most municipalities' taps) is due mostly to the erroneous idea that water out of a plastic bottle is somehow "more pure". There is no shortage of scientific or political data to prove that idea false!
You want to go for banning a consumer choice? I think bottled water should be either off the shelves or prohibitively expensive (to reflect its true cost to the environment and our health) because its effect on the health of the common is way too extreme to go unchecked.
And I don't care if you flavour it or not, same politics apply. That's way more of an issue for me than artificial sweeteners are.

Thats one step further

Unfortunately i think we're going to find issues with each form of packaging ie aluminum, glass, plastic and also with source ie tap, bottled.

I havent looked into it recently but at least until the last year or so i can say with certain that in the US the water is fortified with fluoride. I've heard a lot about the negative effects of fluoride to start with. So that isnt a viable option really either for many.

I do agree though, these things should NOT be happening but its best to start somewhere, isnt it?

 

[Laura2919]

Both aspartame, sucralose etc types and high fructose corn syrup? Opinions?

Personally i think both should be point blank banned but i have a harder time finding definitive fact on how they hurt you.

Why should it be banned? You've even said yourself you have a hard time finding a definitive fact on how they harm you.

I haven't had sugar on my cereal and in my tea and coffee since I was 11 because my dad found out he was a diabetic and my family changed their lifestyle to help him. I use sweetener on everything that I would normally put sugar on.

I definitely don't think it should be banned, people make up their own minds about what they put into their systems. I prefer sweetener to sugar and I've been using it for the past 14 years.

And when I am on my diet, sweetener is free of syns whereas sugar is not.

 

[Nibblenic]

Agree with the above /\

 

[Desi's_lost]

Of course its hard to find studies against it when there are so many huge companies putting millions into proving that it is safe. Tbh, i want rid of everything on the GRAS list. "generally reguarded as safe" and safe are two very distant concepts.

But if you'd like one very specific reason i'd like rid of it, heres this. Its put in so many things that it becomes very difficult to find products without them. Remember i'm talking about all fake sugars. not just aspartame. And to further elaborate, aspartame is the only one that i've had trouble finding things on and im pretty sure its newer than the others.

 

[alaskagrown]

Oh my goodness, I don't know where you shop but it is certainly NOT difficult to find things without fake sugar in them!

 

[Desi's_lost]

Things must be very different here.

Dont get me wrong, the public has put a lot of pressure on HFCS so its been taken out of quite a few things but its just a matter of time till they come up with a creative new name and put it back in.

I've even seen juice now that it naturally AND artificially sweetened....wtf is the point of that?!

 

[summer rain]

When I visited the US it was virtually impossible to find foods and drinks suitable for my son who we took with us that didn't have a)artificial colours b)artificial sweeteners c)other dubious rubbish, corn syrup I really had to not mind as it was in everything. In a huge branch of walmart the only suitable snack I could find for him was those goldfish crackers and even then one of the two varieties had bright coal tar dyes in them. Another thing that was pretty shocking was instead of having natural plant waxes to create a shine on antacids and sweets/candy a lot of them used mineral oil (basically vaseline!) instead. Also the food was full of GMOs. Sure you have whole foods stores and the like but they are not accessible to everyone. xx