Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Deadly Poison In Our Food



I heard last night that Glenn Beck (we love him!!) was having some health complications due to aspartame consumption.

That prompted me to write about aspartame today and tell you what a horrible addition to our food that has been and what it's done in our family.

My husband, Robbie, has multiple sclerosis. He grew up playing sports and has been super athletic all growing up. Shortly after our son was born 18 years ago, he started noticing small things like tripping and blurry vision. Being a manly man, he wouldn't go to the doctor. Years later, he had some absolutely HORRIBLE leg weakness. I finally just made an appointment with the doctor and sent him. They did numerous tests and couldn't find anything.

Meanwhile, jump back....we used to have absolutely horrible fights about once every month. Now, part of that could be explained on youth, pride, and the inabilty of moi to control her mouth. However, part of that was the fact that I had to walk around on eggshells to not send my husband into a rage that would last for months at a time. He literally went 4 months without speaking to me other than hurl outrageous hate at me because I wanted him to get us free Six Flags tickets from work to donate to our son's swim team fundraiser. He didn't want to do it, so I went behind his back and got them from one of his co-workers. He got so mad that he cussed me out and didn't speak to me all summer.

Meanwhile...he was drinking about 12 diet cokes a day. I had no idea. I knew it was his drink of choice. Back then, in our house, all of our diet and nutrition info came from women's health magazines and Muscle & Fitness. My Lord! Pick up one of those mags and see all the advertisements for fat burners. Health my hiney. Anyway, we ate super low fat, and sugar free foods. Well, back then, for us, sugar free meant aspartame-y. We had sugar free jello, sugar free kool-aid, sugar free cokes, sugar free lemonade, sugar free all snacks. And all three of us were "soft and pudgy" including me who at the time was teaching 15 aerobics classes a week.

We went to Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws and my sister-in-law's grandmother saw me drinking my beloved diet Dr Pepper. She told me that her friend had gone blind and her doctor told her to stop consuming aspartame. She stopped and her eyesight came back!! That prompted me to look up the effects of aspartame knowing that Robbie was drinking alot of it and he had all these unexplained health issues. By then, his arms had become weak as well. What I found was astonishing. Aspartame has been found to have side effects that mimics MS, Parkinson's, ALS, anxiety, rage, vision problems, balance problems, stomach issues, etc.

I told my husband that we had to stop consuming aspartame (which is in a lot of food by the way!). Immediately his arm weakness went away, our fights have become less frequent. In fact, its been almost a year since our last squabble, not even a real argument. He immediately also regained some of his leg strength. WOW!

But, you'll still hear doctors say "No, the FDA approved it so it must be safe" That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Do you know that the biggest killer in our nation is not heart disease or cancer, but "medications as prescribed by their doctor". How many of us haven't seen the commercials for lawyers suing drug companies because the side effects killed people? Those were FDA approved drugs. Have some common sense. They approve things all the time that we shouldn't be consuming. Not only that, there is a lot of politics in our food. So, it behooves the health conscious consumer to be aware and pay attention.

Other things I found interesting is that aspartame was studied in mice and neuroscientists have reported that mice that were given aspartame had holes in their brains. What's even more disturbing than that is that animals are better able to metabolize it than humans. Even worse than that is that children don't have mature brains able to protect themselves from the poison. It is a poison too. Don't be fooled. It is a neuro-toxin that literally poisons your body. It's even more poisonous when its been heated to above 86 degrees F. Think about the Jell-O. What about the Diet Cokes stored in the garage? Geesh! No wonder disease is on the rise.

I want you to go read Dr Mercola's article Aspartame Dangers for the more technical information on "why" its bad for you.

Be aware, pay attention to where your food is coming from, stay informed, and take charge of your family's health.

1 comment:

  1. I have given up all soda but was addicted to my diet coke for years and years. I am now vigilent on reading ingredients and the other day I read what was in a piece of gum - not "sugar free" but just regular gum. It had sugar, HFCS, aspertame and then I think fructose - all in a stick of gum - good grief!

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