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Before I get into today’s blog post, do you have any guesses as to what the worst, most acidic ingredient in the world is?
I know how smart you all are, so a lot of you are probably thinking sugar. And that’s a good guess. It is highly acidic and toxic, no doubt.
But surprisingly, it’s not quite as bad as the ingredient we’re going to talk about today.
So what’s this ingredient that so bad, it’s poisonous?
Artificial sweeteners!
Aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, and some other ‘unusual suspects’ that you NEVER would have thought were highly acidic and carcinogenic.
Yes, this includes Splenda (sucralose), NutraSweet (aspartame, neotame), Equal (aspartame), Sweet-N-Low (saccharin, cyclamate), plus 2 other sweeteners that you probably thought were ‘healthy’ that you’ll be shocked to read about.
You should avoid EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE like the plague and I’m going to tell you why!
You know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
As a society, we keep using artificial sweeteners because they seem so great, right?
All the sweetness of sugar, with none of the calories, weight gain, or risk of diabetes.
Unfortunately, even the claims about weight loss and diabetes prevention don’t hold up, and what’s worse, study after study has linked artificial sweeteners to cancer.
Let’s break down what’s so bad about a few of the worst offenders because they are the most popular.
ASPARTAME
Even if you don’t buy aspartame under names like NutraSweet and Equal, it can be found in more than 6,000 products and 500 prescription drugs.
It hides in the places we would never suspect, including:
• diet sodas
• fizzy drinks
• 
chewing gum
• yogurt
• chewable vitamins
• dessert mixes
• sugar-free cough drops
• diet and diabetic foods
• breakfast cereals
• jams
• other names like AminoSweet
This means that there’s a good chance that you and your family are among the two-thirds of the adult population and 40% of children who regularly ingest this artificial sweetener.
Aspartame is perhaps the most controversial food additive in history.
Once upon a time, the Pentagon listed aspartame as a biochemical warfare agent. Yet today, it's an integral part of the modern American diet for its sweetening properties.
For years, studies have linked aspartame to cancer and recent evidence linking it to leukemia and lymphoma has added fuel to the fire.
Yet, it’s still widely used because it is calorie free and 180 times sweeter than sugar.
However, if you are drinking that Diet Coke expecting that it won’t make you gain weight, I have bad news for you.
Aspartame is worse than sugar-laden Coca Cola!
That’s right… All of those products like Diet Coke that people think are making them skinnier are actually making them heavier!
Products marketed as "reduced calorie," "sugar-free," and "diet" can actually sabotage your weight control efforts.
What happens is this… Drinking or eating something sweet-flavored triggers a release of the body chemicals dopamine and leptin, so you feel good from the dopamine, and then the leptin is supposed to kick in and give you the sensation of feeling full once you’ve consumed a certain number of calories. With calorie-free sweet things, that never kicks in.
So what does your body do? Crave more sweets.
As a result, people who drink diet drinks regularly experience more weight gain and worsened insulin sensitivity, a precursor for Diabetes.
One study found drinking diet soda, often sweetened with aspartame, was linked to increased belly fat.
Another study concluded that with each can of diet soda consumed daily, there was a corresponding 41% increase in obesity risk.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, this makes matters worse…
One of the ingredients in aspartame is METHANOL (wood alcohol). Now, it’s not the actual methanol that is toxic to your body, it’s the breakdown product the methanol TURNS INTO once consumed inside your body.
For those of you who do not know what methanol is, you may know more about what it breaks down to form inside your body, something called formaldehyde!
That’s right, the same stuff they use in paint remover and embalming fluid!
Formaldehyde is a poison that is several thousand times more potent than ethyl alcohol, another heavily toxic substance to your body.
In fact, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has concluded that formaldehyde causes cancer in humans, specifically breast and prostate cancer.
Formaldehyde is not only a toxic poison to your body, but is heavily acidic as well. Its end waste product inside your body is something called Formate, which can cause metabolic acidosis, or acidity in your blood.
Metabolic acidosis can result in massive nutrient depletion, blindness, fatal kidney damage, multiple organ system failure, and even death.
SACCHARIN (SWEET-N-LOW)
If I were to dare you to eat coal tar, would you do it? What if I told you it was 350 times sweeter than sugar, would you do it then?
Probably not, because the vision of coal tar inside your body would not be that good.
Well, that is exactly what this coal-derived, calorie-free sweetener is, and it just so happens to be in virtually every restaurant across the country.
Saccharin was first produced in 1879, by Constantin Fahlberg, a chemist working on coal tar derivatives at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory.
Fahlberg noticed a sweet taste on his hand one evening, and connected this with the coal-derived compound on which he had been working that day, later to be known as saccharin.
Saccharin officially assumed the 'carcinogen' title in March 1977, when a rodent study in Canada produced an excess of bladder tumors.
Once labeled as a human carcinogen by the Department of Health National Toxicology Program, I find it hard to believe that the FDA now declares saccharin safe for human consumption.
SUCRALOSE (SPLENDA)
Over the last ten years or so, people have turned to Splenda as a supposedly safe alternative to other artificial sweeteners that have been linked to cancer.
Unfortunately, Spenda is no better than aspartame or saccharin.
Sucralose, the chemical compound in the brand name Splenda, has been ringing more and more alarm bells in recent years.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit watchdog group, graded sucralose as "caution," or in other words, that the additive could pose a risk to public health and warranted further study and testing.
The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health conducted a study in which mice were fed sucralose daily throughout their lives, similar to the way many humans consume the chemical daily.
These mice developed leukemia and other blood cancers.
Even if there were no links to cancer or other health risks ranging from headaches to seizures, because it is 600 times sweeter than sugar, it poses the same threat as aspartame of causing body chemistry to crave more sweet foods.
Studies have found that Sucralose creates peaks and valleys for blood sugar and insulin levels that could lead to cravings, headaches, and mood swings.
Again, more sugar cravings lead to more weight gain, not weight loss, as the makers of Splenda claim.
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS)
I am blown away at how many products in the market contain this harmful GMO sweetener.
HFCS has been shown to damage immune function, speed up the aging process, and contribute to weight gain, and is found in everything from crackers to bread, chips, yogurt and sauces.
Also, did you know high fructose corn syrup is often loaded with alarmingly high levels of mercury?
One study by Environmental Health found mercury in over 50% of samples tested. Mercury exposure can result in irreversible brain and nervous system damage – especially in young, growing bodies.
SO WHAT ARE MOST PEOPLE TURNING TO?
They are turning to sweeteners like Agave and Truvia which they think are healthier, but in reality, is just as bad, and in some cases, even worse.
AGAVE
The truth is that agave is perhaps worse than HFCS since it has a higher fructose content that any commercial sweetener that you will find.
HFCS has a fructose content of 55% which is BAD, but agave has a fructose content of 70-97% which is dangerous!
High fructose levels are heavily acidic to your body, and cause things like insulin resistance, type II diabetes, increased LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol)) and decreased HDL (the good kind), increased weight, and increased triglyceride levels, heart disease, and even cancer!
TRUVIA (Coca-Cola Co.) / PUREVIA (PepsiCo)
Truvia and its competitor PureVia, are the new “all-natural” sweeteners created from the stevia plant. Thanks to their claims to being “natural,” many health-conscious shoppers have been swayed into believing they are a good healthy alternative to sugar.
They should NOT be an alternative and they are far from healthy!
Truvia and PureVia are processed, altered, and mixed with chemicals in a laboratory.
In other words, they are GMO. Don't eat it.
Truvia contains erythritol, which, according to Truvia, is a natural sweetener, produced by a natural process. It's a sugar alcohol made from a food-grade starch - genetically modified corn - and is broken down by fermentation (the process of decay = ACID!).
So is it still "natural" if it's coming from fermented Monsanto GMO corn?
The bottom line about all of this research is to avoid ALL artificial sweeteners like the plague.
SO WHAT CAN YOU DO INSTEAD?
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First, if you’re regularly consuming artificial sweeteners, don’t try to stop cold turkey. These chemicals are highly addictive, perhaps as addictive as any drugs. So slowly wean yourself off in order to prevent side effects that will just make you crave the additives even more.
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Cut back on sweets. Because of the biochemical reaction of dopamine and leptin, the more sweets you eat (especially with artificial sweeteners), the more sweets you’ll want to eat. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. The more you cut back on sugary foods, the less you’ll want them, and the more you’ll enjoy naturally sweet foods like fruit and smoothies. -
Use natural organic sweeteners like:
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Stevia
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Coconut Sugar and Coconut Nectar
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Dates
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Honey (Manuka honey from New Zealand)
Cut back on sweets.
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Start taking AlkaMind Daily Minerals every night to neutralize the acid formed from the sugars and sweeteners you’re consuming. In addition, when you find yourself craving sweets, it’s usually a minerals deficiency, specifically magnesium.AlkaMind Daily Minerals will help get you feeling good, so it’ll be easier to cut out more and more of the sweet stuff.
Start taking
