Diet soda

1
Diet soda
2
What is in diet soda?

• Artificial sweeteners
• Sucralose (or splenda)
• Neotame
• Sugar alcohols (sorbitol, manitol)
• Tagatose (nutralose)
• Aspartame (equal, nutraSweet)
• Saccharin (Sweet N Low)

3
Aspartame

• What is Aspartame?
• 2 amino acids
• Aspartic acid and phenylalanine

4
History of aspartame

• Discovered in 1965
• 200 times sweeter than sugar
• Completely broken down by the body
• Deemed safe by many leading health authorities

5
Is aspartame safe?

• Some people say aspartame will
• Multiple sclerosis, cancer, lupus, brain tumours,
  seizures etc
• Most claims come from studies performed in
  animals
• Some people cant metabolise phenylalanine

6
Is Aspartame safe?

• Scientists and health agencies say
• The amino acids occur naturally in foods
• No scientific link between disease and aspartame
• Most tested food additive ever

7
Aspartame and obesity

• Can aspartame help to avoid obesity ?
• 2000 tonnes consumed annually
• 50g added sugar daily
• Eat 5g aspartame annually
• Diets high in sugar are low in fat

8
Other considerations

• Promote a sweet tooth
• Replace water and milk
• Not good for teeth
• Phosphoric acid can leach calcium
• Drive for diet drinks comes from soft drink
  companies

9
What do you think?

• Should we promote diet soda?
• Do you think they can be used to help weight
  loss?
• What are the other issues for diet soda?