nutrasweet
nutrasweet® and the nutrasweet symbol, are registered trademarks of nutrasweet property holdings, inc. ©2003 nutrasweet property holdings, inc. all rights reserved
robert e. flynn, chairman and chief executive of nutrasweet, said nutrasweet help develop new pepsi products .
richard nelson, a spokesman for nutrasweet, said nutrasweet now had agreements with 4 of its top 10 customers that extend beyond the patent' s expiration .
the company markets its aspartame - based sweeteners under the brand name nutrasweet aspartame .
read the greenfacts digest on aspartame to find more on the safety of nutrasweet .
“bill has a deep understanding of nutrasweet’s business, ” said nutrasweet’s chairman true knowles. “it makes him the perfect fit by background and experience to take over the company. ”
march 2004 - craig r. petray was named chief executive officer of the nutrasweet company .
defer has 19 years of nutrasweet experience and a broad background in global food ingredient businesses .
nutrasweet is based in augusta, ga with a global sales and distribution network. it is the recognized leader in high intensity sweeteners, including nutrasweet ® brand aspartame, neotame and twinsweet ® .
nutrasweet' s exit leaves merisant as a major player in the aspartame - based artificial sweetener business .
nutrasweet ® is the nutrasweet company' s brand name for the low - calorie artificial sweetener aspartame. it is used to sweeten a variety of foods and beverages and is about 200 times sweeter than sugar .
nutrasweet co. says it will no longer make the artificial sweetener aspartame as a result of foreign competition .
however, alleged side effects of aspartame fuel debates on artificial sweeteners such as nutrasweet. more ...
as executives at nutrasweet in the early 1980s, both healy and rosa were instrumental in successfully launching nutrasweet, which has become the global market leader in the $ 1. 1 billion worldwide high - intensity sweetener market .
nutrasweet ® brand sweeteners have been widely used for diet carbonated soft drinks since their introduction in the early 1980s .
since its introduction in 1981, millions of people worldwide have enjoyed and continue to enjoy more than 5, 000 products containing nutrasweet® brand sweetener. as the world' s premier sugar substitute, nutrasweet offers great taste and virtually no calories. with regulatory approvals in more than 100 countries on six continents, nutrasweet is the most widely recognized and tested sweetening ingredient in the world .
1965 - nutrasweet® brand sweetener was discovered at g. d. searle and company. 1985 - monsanto acquired g. d. searle and company. the nutrasweet company operated as part of the monsanto company life sciences division. may 25, 2000 - j. w. childs equity partners ii l. p. purchased the nutrasweet company from monsanto, a wholly owned subsidiary of pharmacia corporation .
artificial sweetener maker nutrasweet said on wednesday it would exit its aspartame business by the end of the year, citing increasing foreign competition .
nick e. rosa, formerly a senior vice president with monsanto, will serve as president and ceo of the nutrasweet company, the world' s largest producer of aspartame. in addition, nutrasweet' s approximately 500 employees have all been offered positions with the new company .
nutrasweet® brand sweetener is sold in more than 100 countries and used in over 5, 000 products. it is consumed by 250 million people worldwide .
nutrasweet' s patent on aspartame expires in december, and the company has been working aggressively to keep its customers from buying aspartame from other companies. by securing contracts with coke and pepsi, nutrasweet has effectively blocked competitors like the holland sweetener company from doing business with the two largest users of aspartame .
nutrasweet, which also sells brands such as neotame and twinsweet, said it would shut down its aspartame and l - phenylalanine production plant in augusta, georgia .
the pepsi - cola company said it had a signed a long - term agreement for the nutrasweet company to continue to supply aspartame for sweetening its soft drinks .
we are pleased about adding the nutrasweet company to our portfolio of food and beverage companies ,
said tim healy, a managing director of j. w. childs, who will serve as chairman of the nutrasweet company .
the high - intensity sweetener market is the fastest - growing segment of the global sweetener industry. we see a major opportunity to build on nutrasweet' s brand equity and its track record of delivering innovative products, operational excellence and superior customer value to the sweetener industry .
nutrasweet ® is used in a variety of foods and beverages and is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. nutrasweet ® is one of the brand names under which aspartame is marketed. more than 200 scientific studies have been conducted on aspartame over the last 30 years, verifying its safety and establishing an acceptable daily intake. more ...
) - - the nutrasweet company announced today that long time president and chief operating officer william l. defer has been named ceo of the company effective january 13, 2014. boston - based private equity firm j. w. childs associates, l. p. has owned nutrasweet, one of the world’s most recognized brand names, since 2000 .
in may 2000, defer joined the senior management team of the then newly independent nutrasweet company. he was appointed president and chief operating officer of the company in 2004. prior to nutrasweet, defer was vice president, manufacturing and operations, for monsanto’s nutrition & consumer sector, which included consumer food, alginates, xanthan gum, and sweetener businesses .
after the announcement, the coca - cola company said it had signed a long - term agreement in december extending its relationship with nutrasweet, a unit of the monsanto company .
nutrasweet said the plant in augusta, ga. , had supplied customers around the world for more than 30 years. it said it will now focus on making neotame and twinsweet .
chicago (may 25, 2000) - j. w. childs equity partners ii, l. p. today announced that it has completed the purchase of the nutrasweet company from monsanto, a wholly owned subsidiary of pharmacia corporation, for $ 440 million in cash. the sale includes the sweetener business, the nutrasweet® brand name and the revolutionary new sweetener, neotame .
nutrasweet spokesman hud englehart said the company started facing competition as a supplier of aspartame once its patents on the artificial sweetener expired. he noted the company had been facing pressure for some time .
defer replaces craig r. petray, who is leaving nutrasweet to become ceo of the j. r. short milling company of kankakee, illinois, also a privately owned supplier of food ingredients .
the pepsi agreement with nutrasweet, which had supplied the company since 1983, covers united states and foreign soft drink markets. a coke spokeswoman characterized the company' s agreement as
worldwide .
nutrasweet was sold to the private equity firm j. w. childs by monsanto co. in 2000. at the same time, monsanto sold the retail face of aspartame, equal, to merisant .
low - cost imports now dominate the aspartame market, making it impossible for us to sustain a profitable business while maintaining our unmatched standard of quality ,
nutrasweet ceo william defer said in a statement .
the nutrasweet company revolutionized the sweetener industry in 1981 with the introduction of aspartame ,
explained rosa ,
and we intend to do it again with neotame when we receive approval from various regulatory agencies around the world .
the nutrasweet company, headquartered in chicago, stands alone in its ability to provide customers with a full value portfolio including superior quality products, unrivaled technical, r & d and regulatory support, competitive pricing and an experienced management team .
joining rosa on the management team will be craig petray, senior vice president of global sales and marketing, and william defer, senior vice president of global operations; both of whom have more than 10 years of experience with the nutrasweet business, and chief financial officer william schumacher, formerly with select beverages. members of the new management team are also investors with j. w. childs in the purchase of nutrasweet, and have a significant ownership stake in the business .
nutrasweet® brand sweetener was discovered in 1965 at g. d. searle and company by researcher james schlatter. he was working on research with amino acids to develop a treatment for ulcers. when he licked his finger to pick up a piece of paper, schlatter got the world' s first taste of nutrasweet. his amino acid combination may not have cured ulcers, but it helped create a product that revolutionized the category of
sweetener
for individuals and food ingredient companies .
knowles joined nutrasweet’s board of directors in 2002, and has been chairman of the company since that time. he was formerly executive vice president of dr. pepper / 7seven - up and president and chief operating officer of dr. pepper north america .
one 12 ounce can of most aspartame - sweetened soft drinks contains about 10 mg. of methanol. the amount of methanol ingested by heavy consumers of nutrasweet (tm) could easily exceed 100 mg. daily, 13 times the limit recommended by the epa .
former white house chief of staff rumsfeld owed a debt of gratitude to former white house confidante and rumsfeld friend donald kendal, pepsi’s chairman. the pepsi announcement and aggressive marketing (millions of gumballs, a red and white swirl, tough contracts) made nutrasweet known in every home .
in november 1983 hayes, under fire for accepting corporate gifts, left the agency and went to searle’s public - relations firm as senior medical advisor. later searle lawyer robert shapiro named aspartame nutrasweet. monsanto purchased searle. rumsfeld received a $ 12 million bonus. shapiro is now monsanto president .
given this record, it is little wonder that many health - conscious people believe avoiding nutrasweet improves their quality of life. if and when a scientific consensus concludes that aspartame puts some, if not all, of its consumers at risk, it will be much too late. the point is to eat safely now. remember: the brain you save may be your own .
many health - conscious people believe that avoiding aspartame, found in over 5000 products under brand names such as equal and nutrasweet, can improve their quality of life. the history of this synthetic sweetener’s approval by the u. s. food and drug administration (fda), including a long record of consumer complaints and the agency’s demonstrated insensitivity to public concern, suggests they’re right .
with the introduction of nutrasweet (tm), consumers began drinking as much as six times more diet drinks. in 1985, 800 million pounds of aspartame soft drinks were consumed. that translates into 5. 8 pounds per person, a figure which has probably doubled by now. sales of diet sodas grew five times faster in 1988 than those of regular sodas, with two million american households .
in recommending against approval, the board said searle' s studies were scientifically deficient and did not demonstrate reasonable safety. after entering the body, the components of aspartame are rapidly released nto the blood stream. methanol, a deadly metabolic poison, is apparently the first to be separated. how many people who abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages are regular consumers of methyl alcohol as users of drinks with nutrasweet ?
the nutrasweet company' s library of diet, nutrition and health information on sweeteners is available to you at this site. here you can learn about the remarkable benefits of aspartame as a non - nutritive sweetener. we' ll help you find information on its discovery and the results of more than 20 years of intensive scientific study. click on any of the topics below or use the search function to go where you want .
nutrasweet (tm) is a synthetic chemical additive. it is not a natural product derived from banana plants or cows as implied by tv commercials. rather, it is - a man - made substance composed of three ingredients which are natural, but never found together in nature in such a combination. it is composed of two amino acids, phenylaianine and aspartic acid, as well as methyl alcohol, also known as methanol .
neotame is a new - generation, high - intensity sweetener, designed to deliver a clean, sweet taste like sugar, with no added calories. in addition to being great tasting and functional, neotame' s potency - it is 40 times sweeter than nutrasweet and 8, 000 times sweeter than sugar - is expected to deliver substantial value to food and beverage manufacturers because it will enable them to use significantly lower levels than other sweetening alternatives .
the nutrasweet (tm) ingredient, phenylalanine, is known to be toxic to the - brain in large dosesas a free aminio acid. the amino acid can cause mental retardation and seizures in people with phenylketonuria (pku), a genetic disorder. but their numbers are relatively small (about 1 in 15, 000) and most are careful to avoid phenylal. the problem, according to dr. wurtman, is the rest of us .
nutrasweet (tm), the trade name for the sweetener aspartame, was developed by the b. d. searle pharmaceutical company and is now consumed by more than 100 million persons in the united states several times daily. searle' s 100 million per year advertising campaign, the largest ever for an ingredient, is clearly paying for itself and a whole lot more. during 1986, aspartame grossed - more than 750 million for the pharmaceutical company .
monsanto was one of the companies to bid for part of searle after the searle family, which controlled 34 percent of the company, announced last september that it wanted to diversify its holdings, thus prompting management to seek buyers for all or part of the company. according to wall street sources, monsanto had entered into a joint venture with another company to buy searle' s pharmaceutical and consumer products divisions, while a third company had offered to buy the aspartame division, which markets nutrasweet and equal .
during the early 1970' s, searle submitted the results of more than 100 tests which persuaded the federal drug administration (fda) that aspartame was safe. however, during the fda' s approval deliberations, several scientists, more notably dr. richard wurtman, a professor of neuroendocrinology at mit, raised serious questions about the sweetener' s safety. as a result, the agency created a public board of inquiry to audit the searle tests. the board, headed by walle nauta, a professor of psychology and brain science at mit, recommended against approving nutrasweet (tm) .
in his preface, he states - aspartame is potentially dangerous and may produce - a wide variety of physical and mental symptoms, most of which now go - unrecognized or are misinterpreted as serious illnesses. these misdiagnosed cases are often referred to doctor after doctor at great expense to the patients and health care system. these patients are then treated with a host of other drugs, often adding additional side - effects, or banished to - psychiatry while the simple cause, nutrasweet (tm), goes untreated. v an exceptional physician, dr. roberts has published more than 2000 articles and letters in leading medical journals and written five books, including the highly respected medical text + aci - difficult diagnosis: a guide to the - interpretation of severe illness .
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the monsanto company announced today that it would pay about $ 2. 7 billion to acquire g. d. searle & company, the diversified drug company that makes aspartame, the artificial sweetener .
searle, which is based in skokie, ill. , accepted monsanto' s $ 65 - a - share cash offer just four months after it had announced that it would remain independent .
last fall, searle officials said they were seeking to sell parts or all of the company, but the company' s board decided last march that the company should remain independent after the bids it received were below what management had been seeking .
monsanto, a st. louis - based chemical company, has long said it was interested in acquiring searle' s drug business as a way for monsanto to bring to market the drugs it is developing in its biotechnology laboratories .
as profit margins in the bulk petrochemical business have been squeezed, many chemical companies have looked for new directions, and monsanto is staking much of its future in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals .
monsanto is one of the world' s leading producers of herbicide and is a worldwide supplier of electronic - grade silicon. the company also makes astroturf. it had earnings of $ 439 million on sales of $ 6. 7 billion last year .
'' we have said for some time that we were interested in the pharmaceutical business,'' said richard j. mahoney, monsanto' s chief executive officer.'' we didn' t have a development and marketing skill in that area, but the searle company did in precisely the pharmaceutical specialities that interested us.''
to help finance the deal, monsanto said it would sell its oil and gas assets, which had revenues of $ 203 million last year .
william r. young, a senior vice president with dean witter reynolds inc. , estimated that monsanto would get about $ 900 million for those assets, and he suggested that monsanto would sell another $ 600 million in assets.'' i think the merger is a pretty good deal,'' he said.'' monsanto needed a sales force to market pharmaceuticals and they needed people with expertise in dealing with the f. d. a. searle provides all this.''
last march 25, however, searle announced that its board had rejected the offers. wall street sources said the offers totaled about $ 55 a share, or $ 2. 7 billion .
searle in 1984 had earnings of $ 162 million on sales of $ 1. 25 billion. searle stock was the second most active on the new york stock exchange yesterday, closing at $ 63. 75, up $ 4. monsanto stock was the seventh most active, closing at $ 50. 25, up 50 cents .
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mr. young of dean witter said:'' the key here was that they sold one company in one quick, neat deal. before they were asked to sell it in three or four parts, which would not have worked out as neatly.''
mr. mahoney, who will remain chief executive of the merged company, said that after searle rejected monsanto' s offer for the pharmaceutical division, monsanto began a study of the sweetener division, which had $ 585 million in sales last year.'' we looked at its affordability and decided it looked good,'' said mr. mahoney, whose company was represented by goldman, sachs & company .
last thursday, monsanto' s board voted to make searle an offer for the whole company, and the offer was made on friday .
'' we closed the window on offers last march,'' said john e. robson, searle' s president.'' unsolicited and unexpected, monsanto came back.''
mr. mahoney and donald h. rumsfeld, searle' s chairman, negotiated on wednesday morning, and searle said late wednesday that it would accept the offer.'' monsanto' s original offer was a few dollars below what searle finally accepted,'' one source close to the negotiations said .
sources close to the deal said that mr. rumsfeld, a former secretary of defense, had been offered a job in the merged company. mr. rumsfeld would not comment .
mr. mahoney said the merger'' would rapidly accelerate monsanto' s timetable for becoming an important factor in the health - care industry.''
under the agreement, monsanto will make a cash tender offer for all of searle' s outstanding shares. the tender offer is not conditioned upon any minimum number of shares being tendered .
shares not purchased in the tender offer will be exchanged for $ 65 in cash when searle is merged into monsanto as a wholly owned subsidiary .
searle family members, who now own about 20 percent of searle stock - the company purchased 7. 5 million of their shares last april - gave monsanto an option to purchase their shares for $ 65 each as part of the agreement. in additon, searle granted monsanto an option to buy 7. 7 million unissued shares of searle' s common stock at $ 65 a share. the two options would give monsanto about 32 percent of the outstanding shares. monsanto officials said the purpose of the options was to bar any other potential buyer from coming along .
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j. w. childs associates, a leading private investment firm located in boston, focuses on acquiring and growing middle - market companies in partnership with management. childs has substantial experience in the food, beverage and food ingredient business .
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we will continue delivering exceptional value and building on our long - term relationships with customers on a global basis ,
said petray .
we will do this by producing the highest quality aspartame in the world, continually improving operational efficiencies to remain the lowest cost producer and by providing unprecedented technical, r & d; and regulatory support .
j. w. childs associates, l. p. , a leading private investment firm located in boston, manages $ 1. 5 billion in capital. the firm focuses on acquiring and growing middle - market companies in partnership with management and has substantial experience in the food, beverage and food ingredient industries. current portfolio companies and former investments include ghirardelli chocolate company, empire kosher poultry, general nutrition centers and chevys
fresh mex®
mexican restaurant chain, plus many non - food consumer companies .
aspartame, which is about 200 times sweeter than sugar, is widely used to sweeten diet sodas .
low - cost imports now dominate the aspartame market, making it impossible for us to sustain a profitable business... ,
chief executive william defer said in a statement .
the company said it would offer severance payments and placement assistance to the about 210 people employed at the plant .
beverage companies have struggled to hold on to customers amid fears about the safety of fda - approved aspartame, which has sweetened diet soda for 30 years .
however, the european union' s food safety watchdog said in december that aspartame posed no health risks at currently approved consumption levels .
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in october 1980 the public board of inquiry (pboi) impaneled by the fda to evaluate aspartame safety found that the chemical caused an unacceptable level of brain tumors in animal testing. based on this fact, the pboi ruled that aspartame should not be added to the food supply .
this ruling capped 15 years of regulatory ineptitude, chicanery and deception by the fda and the searle drug company, aspartame’s discoverer and manufacturer (acquired by monsanto in 1985), and kicked off another two decades of maneuvering, manipulating and dissembling by fda, searle and monsanto .
in 1965, a searle scientist licked some of a new ulcer drug from his fingers and discovered the sweet taste of aspartame. eureka! selling this chemical as a food additive to hundreds of millions of healthy people every day would mean many more dollars than limited sales to the much smaller group of ulcer sufferers .
searle, a drug company with little experience in food regulation, began studies to comply with the law — but which failed to do so. its early tests of the substance showed it produced microscopic holes and tumors in the brains of experimental mice, epileptic seizures in monkeys, and was converted by animals into dangerous substances, including formaldehyde .
in 1974, however, in spite of the information in its files, the fda approved aspartame as a dry - foods additive. but the agency also made public for the first time the data supporting a food - additive decision. this data was subsequently reviewed by renowned brain researcher john olney from washington university in st. louis, and other scientists .
dr. olney discovered two studies showing brain tumors in rats and petitioned fda for a public hearing. consumer action for improved foods and drugs (represented by the author of this piece) also petitioned for a public hearing based on the approval process having been based on sloppy science and the product’s having reportedly caused epileptic seizures in monkeys and possible eye damage .
dr. olney had already shown that aspartic acid (one aspartame component) caused microscopic holes in the brains of rats after each feeding. aspartame also includes phenylalinine, which causes pku in a small number of susceptible children, and methyl, or wood, alcohol which is neurotoxic in large amounts .
faced with this array of possible health dangers, fda granted the hearing requests. in lieu of withdrawing its aspartame approval, the agency prevailed on searle to refrain from marketing the sweetener until after completion of the hearing process. it then proposed that a public board of inquiry (pboi) review the matter .
in july of 1975, as the fda prepared for the pboi, an fda inspector conducted a routine review of the searle’s skokie ill. , testing facilities and found many deviations from proper procedures. this report led the fda commissioner to empanel a special commissioner’s task force to review searle’s labs .
in december of 1975 the task force reported serious problem with searle research on a wide range of products, including aspartame. it found 11 pivotal studies conducted in a manner so flawed as to raise doubts about aspartame safety and create the possibility of serious criminal liability for searle .
the fda then stayed aspartame’s approval. it also contracted, over serious internal objection, with a group of university pathologists (paid by searle) to review most of the studies, set up a task force to review three studies and asked the u. s. attorney for chicago to seek a grand jury review of the monkey seizure study .
the pathologists paid by searle only reviewed failure to properly report data and not the study’s design or conduct. they found no serious problems. the fda task force found searle’s key tumor safety study unreliable, but was ignored. the u. s. attorney let the statue of limitations run out, then (along with two aides) proceeded to join searle’s law firm .
while these committees met, the fda organized the pboi. searle, the petitioners and the fda bureau of foods each nominated three members for the board and the fda commissioner selected one member from each list. the board, which convened in january of 1980, rejected petitioners’ request to include the commissioner’s task force information in its deliberations. still, in october 1980, based on its limited review, the board blocked aspartame marketing until the tumor studies could be explained. unless the commissioner overruled the board, the matter was closed .
in november 1980, however, the country elected ronald reagan president. donald rumsfeld (former congressman from skokie, former white house chief of staff, former secretary of defense and since january 1977 president of searle) joined the reagan transition team. a full court press against the board decision began .
in january 1981 rumsfeld told a sales meeting, according to one attendee, that he would call in his chips and get aspartame approved by the end of the year. on january 25th, the day the new president took office, the previous fda commissioner’s authority was suspended, and the next month, the commissioner’s job went to dr. arthur hull hayes .
transition records do not show why the administration chose hayes, a professor and defense department contract researcher. in july hayes, defying fda advisors, approved aspartame for dry foods — his first major decision. in november 1983 the fda approved aspartame for soft drinks — hayes’ last decision .
shortly after the fda soft - drink approval, searle began test marketing, and complaints began to arrive at the fda — of such reactions as dizziness, blurred vision, headaches, and seizures. the complaints were more serious than the agency had ever received on any food additive, at the same time, scientists began looking more closely at this manufactured chemical sweetener .
in 1985, the fda asked the centers for disease control (cdc) to review the first 650 complaints (there are now over 10, 000). cdc found that the symptoms in approximately 25% of the complainants had stopped and then restarted, corresponding with their having stopped and then restarted, either purposely or by accident, aspartame consumption .
the cdc also identified several specific subjects whose symptoms stopped and started as they stopped and started consuming aspartame. the fda discounted the report. the day the fda released the cdc report, pepsi cola — having obtained an advance copy — announced its switch to aspartame with a worldwide media blitz .
at the same time, according to data released in 1995, human brain tumors like those in the animal studies rose 10% and previously benign tumors turned virulent. searle and fda’s deputy commissioner said the data posed no problem. two years later this same fda official became vice president of clinical research for searle .
from 1985 to 1995, researchers did about 400 aspartame studies. they were divided almost evenly between those that gave assurances and those that raised questions about the sweetener. most instructively, searle paid for 100% of those finding no problem. all studies paid for by non - industry sources raised questions .
james s. turner, esq. , is a partner in the 27 - year - old washington, d. c. consumer - interest law firm of swankin and turner. he is the author of the chemical feast: the nader report on the food and drug administration, making your own baby food, and a number of law journal and popular media articles .
in the ’70s my first wife drank tab believing it would help with her constant sinus drainage due to many allergies and keep her from gaining weight. when diet coke came along she began drinking it. a great deal of the time she drank it and always when she ate out. in her last year or so she bought a half gallon of it and drank it throughout her work day. she had more severe and longer last headaches and body pains. she gave up balancing our checkbooks and was having difficulty with at least numbers. she began having a headache for a month. one day on her way to work she blamed out three times! i picked her up from work and eventually she was admitted to the emergency room. a scan found the ‘trademark’ glioblastoma multiform. it was stage 4, inoperable. she was given 6 months to three years. she lived 8 very difficult, painful months. the autopsy showed 2 tumors in her brain and one in her brain stem. she was a great woman, loving wife and mother who had taught in jr. high and been a pastor. it would have been so simple to avoid aspertame. she would probably be with us today. we didn’t know. now you do .
now we know where michael j. fox got his degenerative disease from, after peddling coke in the 80s…
i was a big soda junkie going back to my childhood. drinking regular sodas until all the sugar began its detrimental damage, from weight gain to tooth decay, not to mention gas, bloating, etc. so i switched to diet big - time and was consuming bottles and cans every day–until i began getting regular headaches and problems (including weight gain–from diet ?). i started reading about aspartame poisoning and how the stuff decays into formaldahyde and all… a few years ago i went cold turkey on all soda beverages and in no time at all, 99% of my headaches disappeared! i also had more energy and perhaps a bit more health. today i only drink tap water (which is well water in my house), ideally boiled on my stove and served as black tea. now i only drink soda…socially…and very rarely on special occasions .
i used to drink only diet sodas, eat anything diet, “lite” low calorie. i was always intent on trying to lose weight. then i started having seizures – strong enough ones that i almost died. i was revived 3 times. then the shakes started, and the “brain fog”, lack of concentration, unable to reason, i couldn’t walk without a cane. i was diagnosed with parkinson’s disease, and given heavy duty drugs. since one should not drink alcohol with parkinson’s meds, i would always order diet soda’s when out for the evening…. constantly continuing to poison my body, unbeknownst to me. i was taking parkinson’s meds for 6 years before a new neurologist discovered that i didn’t have the deadly disease after all, but what i had was aspartame poisoning. years of violent shaking and stammering, of seizures, of living like an idiot who couldn’t think like a rational person, and it was all because of aspartame. i now avoid it like the plague. if my story helps one person, i will be happy. please don’t eat or drink anything that says diet, low cal, or sugar free without reading the labels. no - one should go through what i did .
if monsanto is behind it, regardless of what it is, it’s to be avoided like the plague .
hey jasper, everything is poisonous you muppet! even water… its the dose that matters .
i hope the u. s sort out their shit and get it together soon, my precious baby boy passed away of brain cancer here in nz and we have a disgusting healthcare system here i am ashamed to call myself a kiwi now
once i heard the negativity and poison of aspertame, and to read labels, i cut off the poison little packages, the blue and yellow ones. yet, i had a slow reckoning in not eating the “diet” products because i believed these foods were good. then again i hear about what aspertame does to our body and what a negative it is. i finally decided not to eat anything that says…low calorie, no sugar added and it reads “diet”…yeah, i read it again and say, poison! !! !! !! so i drink more water with limon, or even a little real sugar, sugar is bad if i overdo it, but i have learned that sugar…less is more. i don’t crave sweets, just on holidays. i am using stevia, and i am learning in my old age, and teaching my adult children the dangers of the chemicals in our food. that natural foods are better and safer, to think before just buying sweets, diet foods. just to think of what it will do to our bodies and of any side effects that could be detrimental and even early death. i enjoyed reading all about aspertame, and also all the comments people left here for me. i am grateful, i also know that knowledge is power. this knowledge is freedom of evil .
are we talking about gary johnson who must be about……well 14 or 15 at most …. plus… he was 29 / 30 so he is maybe 72 years old now? he worked for monsanto in the uk. that gary johnson? interesting .
so, thirty - two years after this substance was proven to cause brain tumors, i’m ordering dinner with a friend, the waitress asks, “anything to drink with that? ” and he replies, “yeah, i’ll have a diet coke. ” they drove this poison to market despite all evidence that it is unsafe to consume. these corrupt business - people would have us all breathing nerve gas if they could convince us it would make us appear younger, thinner or more beautiful. when corporate greed meets consumer vanity, billions are at stake and it seems nothing can dam the river of cash at stake .
hw and gw bush own huge shares of pfizer pharmaceutical and used the fda as an excuse to let people die here when there was a flu vaccine shortage. rick perry gets kickbacks from merck and tried to enact law that would force teenage girls to get unneeded hpv inoculations that would only stop one of a dozen strains of hpv. trials showed many girls had horrible side effects. big pharma, insurance companies and the mic (military industrial complex) run america through our corrupt congressmen many of whom have obviously been “lobbied” (bribed) in the same way big pharma and the insurance companies wrote the aca law (obamacare) so they could exclude giving full - life medical care (death panels) to the baby - boomers who’ve paid their insurance premiums all their lives. you’ll be given pain pills and paid incentives to “self - terminate” once you get any “expensive illnesses” the insurance board decides is not in their financial best interest to treat late in your life .
did you know there’s a drink in new zealand that is sweetened with stevia? i think they are the first soft drink in the world to use stevia as a sweetener instead of nasty synthetics and chemicals. you can buy it in australia and nz, not sure about anywhere else though. here’s their website urltoken
i live in new zealand. the main difference with this ch’i sparkling herbal drink is that it does not contain erythritol. zevia and the other stevia soft drinks contain quite a bit of erythritol. there is quite a difference in the calories attributed to erythritol in various countries. some declare it as calorie free, some declare it as delivering calories and some experts think that the more erythritol you consume the better the flora in your gut become at digesting it to extract energy (ie more calories )
just found this site, after being given an apparently dead stevia plant, which i am watering, because the leaves have not wilted, are still green, and i may be able to save it, and will plant it. for many years, i avoided aspartame, found that it was causing terrible problems in many people, and know that the corruption in government is crimes against humanity, and we do not charge them, they are given bonuses in the millions while killing us with their lies. monsanto is evil, and needs to be dismantled, to start with. searles as well. let us take back our government. feed our children safely, and stop their evil .
i have found out the hard way to avoid aspertame. i was drinking a diet drink daily that was processed with aspertame along with diet desserts that contained aspertame. i lost the use of my left arm and quit the aspertame use. a couple of years later i forgot that crystal light contained aspertame and drank quite a bit of it. i started having symptoms of a heart attack, went to the er and was told they couldn’t find anything. i asked myself what i had done differently and remembered the episode that i had before. cut out the crystal light and all symptoms disapeared. i shudder to think what might have happened to me had i not discontinued the aspartame usage .
have you considered you may actually have another condition which reacts badly with aspartame (and most likely other substances)? go to a doctor .
jasper it seems important to you that aspertame is safe to eat. can you explain why you think this ?
maybe you should read my issues that mimicked parkinson’s disease. aspartame is poison. no way around it .
the subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures .
aspartame is more commonly known as the ingredient used in equal, the blue packets of sweetener often found on tables at restaurants .
the privately held company said wednesday that it expects to shut down a major portion of a plant that employs about 210 workers, including contractors, by year - end as a result. that will leave it with only about 10 to 20 employees to focus on its two other smaller sweeteners, the company said .
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since aspartame is intensely sweet, very little is required to sweeten foods and beverages. therefore products sweetened with aspartame are usually lower in calories .
monsanto stock jumped after pepsi' s annoucement, gaining $ 1. 875 a share, to $ 68. 25, on the new york stock exchange .
a brand of aspartame used in a low - calorie sweetener and in other processed foods, as soft drinks .
urltoken unabridged based on the random house unabridged dictionary, © random house, inc. 2018
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it looks like sugar, tastes like sugar (so i' m told), even feels like sugar. but it has virtually no calories, doesn' t rot your teeth, and, unlike saccharin, has not been proven to cause cancer. the advertisements say it' s as natural as a glass of milk and a banana. i always say if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is .
food manufacturers have switched from sugar to aspartame in unprecedented numbers. this food additive, marketed as a food, is now found in over 1200 products, including everything from baked goods and breakfast cereals, to children' s vitamins, laxatives and drugs. in fact, it' s hard to find a packaged product that doesn' t contain aspartame. but nowhere is the artificial sweetener more visible than in cans of diet soft drinks .
why are so many people drinking so many aspartane - sweetened drinks? partly because tap water is unhealthy, but mainly because sugars are addictive and because aspartame creates an increased thirst .
rarely found in its free form, methyl alcohol is usually derived or produced from other substances. it can cause serious tissue damage, including blindness, and even death. one of the reasons methanol is so toxic is becausethe body lacks the necessary enzymes to detoxify it. its rate of elimination is five times slower than a similar amount of ethyl alcohol, as found in whisky, beer and wine. for aspartame to be eliminated at all, the body must first convert it to formaldehyde, then to formic acid and ultimately to carbon - dioxide .
an estimated two percent of the u. s. population, or about 4. 5 million people, have one of the two genes necessary for pku. they do not develop the disease, but may be sensitive to phenylal. unfortunately, there is no test for the one gene condition .
dr. wurtman says that a typical adult who drinks about four or five aspartame sweetened soft drinks a day might introduce enough phenylal into the brain to affect the synthesis of brain neurotransniitters, possibly leading to mood swings, irritability, anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches, high blood pressure, increased appetite and even seizures .
the relative concentration of phenytal and spartic acid, the two amino acids in aspartame, is ten times higher than found in foods. aspartame promotion literature implies that the body treats these two amino acids differently than if they were derived from fruits, vegetables, milk or meat. many researchers strongly disagree with the promotional claims .
physician and aspartame researcher, dr. h. j. roberts, m. d. , says, there are profound differences in both the rate of digestion and the degree of digestion and the degree of absorption depending on whether these amino acids are provided by food or by aspartame. consumed in their natural state, in foods, these aminoacids are digested and released into the bloodstream slowly, he says, buffered and balanced by other amino acids .
when aspartame is consumed, however, especially in beverages, the body is suddenly deluged with large amounts of phenylal and aspartic acid, which can - then cross into the brain unopposed and cause significant disturbances of the brain neurotransmitters and endocrine functions .
in 1984, soon after the introduction of aspartame, dr. roberts noticed clusters of symptoms that even he, the doctor who wrote the book on difficult - diagnosis, could not diagnose or effectively treat .
if you must use a sweetener, a truly natural and healthful alternative to aspartame is the juice from the brazilian shrub, stevia, which is 30 to 40 - times sweeter than sucrose, has been used as a sweetener in south america for - several hundred years and in japan for 20 years. two drops of the liquid extract equals one teaspoon of table sugar and is less than one calorie. one teaspoon finely ground stevia powder is equivalent to one cup of sugar.
the nutrasweet company is an american nutrient company that produces and markets nutrasweet , their trademarked brand name for the artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame . the nutrasweet company states that its product is used in more than 5,000 products and consumed by some 250 million people worldwide . aspartame was invented by chemists at g. d. searle & company in 1965 . searle was bought by monsanto in 1985 . in march 2000 , monsanto , which was then a subsidiary of the pharmacia corporation , sold nutrasweet to the private equity firm j.w. childs associates . 
the nutrasweet company is an american nutrient company that produces and markets nutrasweet, their trademarked brand name for the artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame. the nutrasweet company states that its product is used in more than 5,000 products and consumed by some 250 million people worldwide. aspartame was invented by chemists at g. d. searle & company in 1965. searle was bought by monsanto in 1985. in march 2000, monsanto, which was then a subsidiary of the pharmacia corporation, sold nutrasweet to the private equity firm j.w. childs associates.
the nutrasweet company is an american nutrient company that produces and markets nutrasweet, their trademarked brand name for the artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame. the nutrasweet company states that its product is used in more than 5,000 products and consumed by some 250 million people worldwide. aspartame was invented by chemists at g. d. searle & company in 1965. searle was bought by monsanto in 1985. in march 2000, monsanto, which was then a subsidiary of the pharmacia corporation, sold nutrasweet to the private equity firm j.w. childs associates.