Mini Round-up for 2023

The past year has been a busy one in regard to Aspartame, and Sucralose has also been in the spotlight.

On July 14th, 2023, for the first time in history, the International Agency for Research on Cancer made an announcement, listing Aspartame as an IARC Group 2B carcinogen. Substances in that category are described as "possibly carcinogenic to humans".

Well, it's a start.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) cited “limited evidence” for carcinogenicity in humans and JECFA reaffirmed the acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg body weight, this was their third ruling on the subject.

This 'Jeckyll and Hyde' result caused a ruckus in the news and raised the profile for Aspartame and its possible safe use. Of course, the usual 'doctors' and 'dentists' were quick on the scene; paramedics swarmed the internet, armed with disinformation to quell those who might become believers in the Aspartame Fraud... Further flood gates opened and another bombshell was dropped from The Washington Post on 13th September, 2023:

The Food Industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits

Read the full post HERE (extract below)

...As the World Health Organization raised questions this summer about the risks of a popular artificial sweetener, a new hashtag began spreading on the social media accounts of health professionals: #safetyofaspartame.

Steph Grasso, a registered dietitian from Oakton, Va., used the hashtag and told her 2.2 million followers on TikTok that the WHO warnings about artificial sweeteners were “clickbait” based on “low-quality science.”

Another dietitian, Cara Harbstreet of Kansas City, reassured her Instagram followers not to worry about “fear mongering headlines” about aspartame because “the evidence doesn’t suggest there’s a reason for concern.”

In a third video, Mary Ellen Phipps, a Houston-area dietitian who specializes in diabetes care, sipped from a glass of soda and told her Instagram viewers that artificial sweeteners “satisfy the desire for sweetness” without affecting blood sugar or insulin levels. What these dietitians didn’t make clear was that they were paid to post the videos by American Beverage, a trade and lobbying group representing Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and other companies. In all, at least 35 posts from a dozen health professionals were part of the coordinated campaign by American Beverage. The trade group paid an undisclosed amount to 10 registered dietitians, as well as a physician and a fitness influencer, to use their social media accounts to help blunt the WHO’s claims that aspartame, a mainstay of Diet Coke and other sodas, is ineffective for weight loss and “possibly carcinogenic.”...

As you can imagine, this admission is HUGE and should have been bigger news! What a surprise that I have heard no more on the subject... Is there a knock-on effect? It's slow, but I think so.

In the following weeks, my daily Industry Google Alerts popped up some interesting tidbits, it seems the food industry is getting twitchy with mixed opinion from attendees and exhibitors at the IFT FIRST, the Institute of Food Technologists’ annual meeting held July 16-19, in Chicago. But what I found very encouraging was the admission by Thom King, chief executive officer, Icon Foods, Portland, Ore:

“Our booth was slammed so hard the first two hours we ran out of brochures,” Mr. King said. “Many major manufacturers were clamoring to talk about ways to get aspartame and sucralose out of their finished goods."...

And that’s what a lot of formulators were exploring, that between the WHO’s evaluation of aspartame, and a March 2023 article in Nature suggesting sucralose may increase cancer risk, his company has been inundated by requests for clean label replacements.

“There are a lot of options like stevia, monk fruit, allulose, erythritol, sweet fibers and thaumatin. These read well on an ingredient declaration, as well as the Nutrition Facts panel. Consumers will demand these sweeteners.”

Read the full post HERE

Also, new arrival of aspartame studies might tip the balance:

Long-Term Artificial Sweetener Intake Linked to Risk for Obesity (Endocrinology Advisor)  

Read it HERE (September 15th 2023)

Researchers discover learning and memory deficits after ingestion of aspartameby Robert Thomas, Florida State University Read it HERE (18th September, 2023)

Drinking diet sodas and aspartame-sweetened beverages daily during pregnancy linked to autism in male offspring (The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio) read it HERE (20th September, 2023)

 

Memory Deficits Linked to Aspartame May Be Heritable, Study Says (Psychiatrist+ Newsweek) read it HERE (September 21st, 2023) and HERE (Sept 22nd, 2023)

Study links aspartame consumption to learning and memory deficits in mice (Food Safety News) read it HERE (September 25th 2023)

CPSI calls on USDA to update school snacks’ nutrition standards

read it HERE (19th October 2023)

“The standards regulating Smart Snacks should protect children from adverse health outcomes and should be aligned with the latest scientific evidence and the recommendations of the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans. However, the current Smart Snacks standards do not address added sugars, low-calorie sweeteners, or synthetic dyes,” Samuel Hahn, policy coordinator at the CSPI, tells Nutrition Insight.

A whole lot of other news has peppered the internet, so you can read all the news articles reporting adverse effects of consuming aspartame HERE

Returning to the decision by Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) reaffirming the acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg body weight - ...The committee therefore reaffirmed that it is safe for a person to consume within this limit per day. For example, with a can of diet soft drink containing 200 or 300 mg of aspartame, an adult weighing 70kg would need to consume more than 9–14 cans per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake, assuming no other intake from other food sources. Often it is forgotten that a can of diet soft drink, when consumed by an adult is very different to a child who has a lower body weight, yet still consumes equal amounts of aspartame per can of diet soft drink!

How the JECFA came to their original decision of what constitues the acceptable daily intake of aspartame is a mystery! Apparently, the IARC and WHO will continue to monitor new evidence and encourage independent research groups to develop further studies on the potential association between aspartame exposure and consumer health effects.

Those of us that have witnessed these illusory promises over the decades are a little more jaded.

 

Sucralose. A couple of reports have appeared in 2023:

A chemical found in common artificial sweetener may cause DNA damage, cancer

(Medical News Today) Read it HERE (July 17th, 2023)

Study indicates human sewage across Kaua‘i’s waters

Read it HERE (The Garden Island dotcom) July 25th, 2023

A newly published report detected sucralose — an artificial sweetener commonly found in manufactured foods — throughout Kaua‘i’s streams and rivers, indicating nearly islandwide water contamination by human sewage [...]

Sucralose is only partially metabolised by the human body, unlike Aspartame that is fully metabolised, the remainder is excreted and we simply don't have enough data to know the impact sucralose has on the natural world let alone fellow humans who don't choose to consume it. Several studies as far back as 2009 confirm Sucralose as a contaminant in wastewater/sewage plants, lakes, marine and coastal waters.

In 2016, the CSPI downgraded sucralose from "caution" to "avoid" - Read about it HERE

Center for Science in the Public Interest, February 8, 2016 ... The Center for Science in the Public Interest has downgraded its safety rating of sucralose, the artificial sweetener also known by the brand name Splenda, from “caution” to “avoid” in the group’s Chemical Cuisine glossary of food additives. ...

Monosodium Glutamate and Hydrolyzed Protein (glutamic acid) coming to your kitchens whether you like it or not...

Glutamic Acid Market To Reach $19,444 Million by 2030 - Read it HERE

...Glutamic acid is used for protein production. The increasing consumption of this kind of acid in the food and beverage sector as a food preservative and enhancer, together with the rising necessity for animal feed because of the augmented consumption of poultry products like chicken, pork, turkeys, beef and geese, along with increasing requirement for aquatic products like fish and shrimp, will drive the industrial growth in the future...

Clean Label Propaganda

It's official, food manufacturers are embarrassed by the bad publicity given by the food additives on their labels such as Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and other forms of L-Glutamate, Aspartame and other harmful artificial sweeteners. But it's not really about hiding their heads in shame because they put such junk in the world's food chain, it's whether it's still profitable to continue to do so. Oh, come on, you didn't really fall for the idea that ultra high processed food manufacturers really care for the health of its consumers, did you?

This from Transparency Market Research, March 2020 HERE

"Clean label is referred to food additives or ingredients that are fruits, vegetable, colors, flavors, flours, starch, sweeteners, malt, and others that fulfil any or all of the primary factors (such as less product ingredients with no chemical name, easy to understand, no artificial additives) and minimum one secondary factors (that include natural, organic and non-GMO products). An increase in clean label product is because of the growth in consumer preference towards clean label food products that indirectly drive intake of clean label ingredients another reason is the health issues that are linked to the consumption of artificial food additives of which people are becoming health alert and cautious for food safety." 

The trouble is, these companies can't help themselves. Food manufacturers have been lying for so long, like the snake oil merchants of old and they're really good at it - and we're too damned busy most of the time to say - what does 'natural flavouring' really mean in a product? Natural flavouring is where there's potential to hide MSG under a different name - depending on the percentage of MSG in the product, manufacturers are not required by law to label it as MSG...

They hope we won't notice... 

They try and deceive us with words like 'natural' hoping we'll swoon in ecstasy - which most of the time we do...

We're saved - they say it's natural!! It's OK, I'm not such a bad mother after all, giving you this poisonous junk masquerading as something natural in your lunchbox! 

Didn't the nice lady 'Mrs. Funmi Ogunjobi, a nutritionist and mother of three' tell me it was safe?

“My children’s school bags are never complete without a pack of their favourite Capri-Sun because they know what they want. I know what is best for them, and that is why I always ensure to give them Capri-Sun daily,” she added.

"Chi Limited, manufacturers of various fruit drinks, has harped on the health benefits of Capri-Sun fruit drink, describing it as a having a ‘Clean Recipe’ that gives it edge over many brands in the market. The company pointed out that while there are several brands in the fruit drink category targeted at children and currently competing for leadership through various offerings, a ‘Clean Recipe’ is Capri-Sun." HERE

It gets worse... they continue with:

"Capri-Sun is a leading brand in this category because it contains natural ingredients that can contribute to the growth and development of children."

Growth and Development of Children? Oh, please! 

extract from the MSG comic - Part Two

Further amplification from the 'food industry' with yet more statistics from another piece of news about Capri-Sun:

“...It is important for parents to know that when their kids consume these unwholesome fruit drinks, they not only miss out on all the benefits of taking fruit drinks made from premium natural ingredients, but they also leave their children’s health vulnerable to the long term implications from the ingredients within these products,” it added.
Furthermore, it pointed out that concerns have been raised on the possible link between food additives and neurological development deficiencies, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.

A number of recent studies have been performed worldwide to explore the possible relationship between food colourings and ADHD in children. A 2012 analysis of studies co-authored by Joel Nigg, professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University showed that studies support the link between additives and hyperactivity..."

Oh, you mean the same 'natural flavouring' that's potentially hiding the toxic chemicals that's ubiquitous in highly processed food? Yet it's still included in our food? What sort of double-speak is this?

Unfortunately, most people won't listen even when you tell them... the misinformation by food manufacturers is so persuasive; people watch the TV or read posts online with glazed eyes... many people are also poisoned and dumbed down by their own consumption of dangerous food additives - this has been going on for decades!

Tropicana sued over presence of malic acid in 'natural juices' - HERE

Children's fruit drinks need clearer labels, study finds - HERE

...One problem with food labeling today is that terms such as "pure" and "natural" have no official definition and therefore their meanings are open to interpretation. According to CBS News, there were approximately 300 lawsuits involving use of the term "natural" on food products from 2015 to 2018.

Some legal challenges have had results. General Mills quit using the term "100% natural" on its Nature Valley granola bars following settlement of a 2016 lawsuit filed by three consumer groups that the product contained trace amounts of the weed-killing chemical glyphosate.

While the FDA has asked for public comments on the term "natural," it hasn't yet come up with a new definition or guidance for industry using it on product labeling. Until it does, manufacturers are likely to continue using the term since it appeals to consumers, and shoppers will probably continue looking for it on store shelves. Should what they find not correspond with their sense of the meaning, though, they may decide to take the issue to court...

Read what is really going on from an expert in the field, become informed, save a life!

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a retired neurosurgeon talks about the food manufacturers deception in his book: 'Excitotoxins - The Taste that Kills'.

"Another way the FDA works with the Glutamate Association is by yielding to their lobbying efforts to change the labeling laws so that the words “monosodium glutamate” are not required on food labels unless it contains 100% pure MSG. Also MSG need not even be mentioned by any name if one product containing pure MSG is only used as an ingredient in another food. For example, if broth is used to make a soup, and the broth contains pure MSG, MSG does not have to be listed as an ingredient. But if the broth is sold alone, it must appear on the label.

As Dr. Schwartz has shown, substances labeled as “spices,” “natural flavoring” and “flavoring” may contain anywhere from 30% to 60% MSG. But you as a consumer are denied this vital information. Your only recourse is to avoid all foods with these hidden label names. And as you will quickly discover, most manufactured foods contain one or more of these excitotoxin “taste enhancers.”

So what should the FDA do? First, it should guarantee the consumer nutritional information by requiring the manufacturer to list all additives containing MSG and hydrolyzed vegetable protein and do so under these names and not disguised names. Second, it should conduct open hearings on the safety of these additives with scientific testimony from those not connected to the food manufacturing industry or to the manufacturers of MSG, NutraSweet®, or hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or their representatives."

Read my MSG comics to find out about the corrupt activities of the food manufacturers and how the governing bodies have their hands tied because of the corporate interests of the Glutamate Industry.

Oh, here's the chaser...

"...The Global Clean Label Ingredients Market is expected to reach USD 57.05 billion by 2025, from USD 34.22 billion in 2017 growing at a CAGR of 6.6% during the forecast period of 2018 to 2025."

Profiting from the clean label ingredients?