THE NEW YORK TIMES: The F.D.A. and the powerful beverage industry protested the new findings, and a second W.H.O. group stood by its standard that the sweetener is generally safe.
A World Health Organization agency declared on Thursday that aspartame, an artificial sweetener widely used in diet drinks and low-sugar foods, could possibly cause cancer.
A second W.H.O. committee, though, held steady on its assessment of a safe level of aspartame consumption. By some calculations using the panel’s standard, a person weighing 150 pounds could avoid a risk of cancer but still drink about a dozen cans of diet soda a day.
The declaration by a W.H.O. agency of a cancer risk associated with aspartame reflects the first time the prominent international body has weighed in publicly on the effects of the nearly ubiquitous artificial sweetener. Aspartame has been a contentious ingredient for decades. » | Christina Jewett | Thursday, July 13, 2023
I am not surprised. But doesn’t everything cause cancer these days? Here’s a list of foods that are said to cause cancer: canned tomatoes, refined sugar, alcohol, French fries and potato chips (crisps), processed meat, mass-produced bread, artificial colours, microwave popcorn, hydrogenated oils, charred meats, farmed salmon, sodas (pop), red meat, pasta, milk, and GMOs. [Source: Miles Spar MD. ]
And that’s just in the food section. Add to that, smoking—Could we ever forget?—and just about every other pleasure besides, and by now you must be wondering what you could possibly have for lunch!
Back in the day, people must have been so much happier. They could eat whatever the hell they liked, oblivious of all the dangers, they could have a drink with impunity, and they could puff away to their hearts’ content, unaware of the dangers of everything. Bliss, it must have been, in that dawn to be alive! (Please excuse the play on William Wordsworth’s words.)
These days, it seems that we know the dangers in everything, but the pleasures in nothing. – Mark.
