Ban Aspartame

The Cancer Prevention Coalition is calling on the FDA to ban aspartame, according to this article by the Organic Consumers Association. Aspartame is used in food, sodas, and gum--but it's been shown to cause cancer in lab rats. The article gives a brief history of how this dangerous artificial sweetener was even approved in the first place. If you're drinking diet sodas or chewing sugarless gum -- or worse giving it to your kids, please read this article.

Stevia-sweetened diet soda

For those of you familiar with my blog and writing, I don't recommend the use of artificial sweeteners (more info here). Well, for those of you who really want a diet soda, Virgils has just come out with a stevia-sweetened diet cola. It has 6 calories and no artifical sweeteners. I tried it and it tastes pretty much like the diet soda I remember from my soda drinking days.

What happens to your body within 1 hour of drinking a soda

The average American drinks more than 60 gallons of soft drinks each year, but before you grab that next can of soda, consider this: one can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and sulphites. Not to mention the fact that it’s also your largest source of dangerous high-fructose corn syrup.

After drinking a can of soda, this is how your body is affected within the first hour:

Within the first 10 minutes, 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. This is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake, and the only reason you don’t vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor.

Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.

Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream.

Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.

After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a sugar crash.

For more info, check out Dr. Mercola's Web site at: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/1/19/what-happens-to-your-body-within-an-hour-of-drinking-a-coke.aspx

still drinking soda?

Soda is loaded with sugar and chemicals - bad for your body, bad for your teeth. Many sodas contain caffeine which kids are becoming addicted to at younger and younger ages. Sugary sports and juice drinks are not much better - although at least they don't have caffeine. If you drink soda - or more importantly if your children do, this article has some eye-opening information.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/diet.fitness/03/06/soured.onsoda.ap/

If you have young kids, give them water to drink right from the beginning. Getting your kids to enjoy and love the taste of pure water is a great gift you can give them.