[Sca-cooks] sugar substitutes (Mostly Aspartame, but not totally)

[El Hermoso Dormido]

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 12:40 pm, Kirsten Houseknecht wrote:
[...]
> many people have violently allergic reactions to Nutrasweet (Aspartame) and
> *any* contact with it. any amount at all in their food. can trigger an
> allergic attack.
> (severe asthma in one friend's case... migraines in my husband's)  not to
> mention the fact that a lot of people do not believe nutra sweet is safe as
> a food
>
> for the record, i am one of them.  i wouldnt touch the stuff if you paid
> me. Kirsten

'scuze the rant - the "science fascist" corner of my brain is demanding
a chance to speak here...(despite how the first couple of paragraphs go,
it's not a knee-jerk defense of Aspartame and accusations of conspiracy
theorism, honest.  I leave that sort of thing to overpaid talk radio show
hosts...)

I keep hearing these horrible stories of how Aspartame will give you brain
cancer and poison you and make your head explode and make you serve non-period
food at SCA feasts and so on, but have never seen a controlled study to show
it. (I also find it kind of amusing to hear people will gladly consume a
halogenated organic compound before they'll consume a digestible bit of
protein...)

Quite honestly, the notion that Aspartame is *harmful* (as opposed to possibly
causing relatively harmless discomfort - see the "disclaimer" at the end) to
anyone but people with phenylketonuria (who have to carefully watch their
intake of ALL foods containing the essential amino acid Phenylalanine) or
people who go through a very large (which would be rather prohibitively
expensive...) quantity of it at a time, or people who are on starvation diets
seems, literally, ludicrous to me.

Aspartame is a simple dipeptide of Phenylalanine and Aspartic acid.  I find it
hard to believe that any complete protein source doesn't contain billions of
these amino acid molecules as well.

In fact, I just pulled up NCBI's protein sequence database for Corn.  In the
first 50 sequences alone (out of 5500 in the database) I find 47 occurances of
Phenylalanine-Aspartic Acid linkages and 24 instances of Aspartic
Acid-Phenylalanine linkages.

Soybean similarly shows 61 Phenylalanine-Aspartic acid links and 60 Aspartic
Acid-Phenylalanine linkages in 50 of the sequences I looked at.  Tofu
anyone?...

And lest anyone think this is a conspiracy to push meat-eating, the first
50 protein sequences in the database for the domestic cow comes up with 37
and 56 of the aforementioned linkages, respectively...

I've also heard the conspiracy-theory accusation that it "turns into
formaldehyde" when you ingest it...and you know what?  It strikes me as
something that's probably true in a literal sense - I seem to recall
that similarly poisonous wood alcohol is a natural byproduct (in small
amounts, obviously) of amino acid metabolism, and formaldehyde is a
similar molecule.  If it is true, then, once again ANY protein-containing
food will "turn into formaldehyde" when you eat it...and the body IS
prepared to deal with it in "natural" amounts.  I'm convinced this got
turned into a bit of handy fear-mongering by somebody wanting to drum up
sales for his or her "The Man(tm) is out to poison you" book...

Okay, now the disclaimer.  The body IS obviously also prepared to deal
with another common amino acid - Glutamic Acid...the stuff in MSG.  It's
also widely recognized that it IS possible to be sensitive to an unusually
large (or perhaps just unusually fast-absorbed?) amount of it at one time, so
this is not to deny that some people may very well be unable to deal with a
"disproportionate" amount of one of the two amino acids in Aspartame.  I've
always assumed that Phenylalanine is the culprit here - it's a precuror to
a number of related neurotransmitters, and my assumption is that this is where
the association with headaches (and the fear of brain cancer) comes in.  If so
keep your eyes out for "Alitame", for which I'm STILL waiting to be released.
Same concept, but with the common, related, non-essential amino acid Alanine
instead of Phenylalanine, which ought to get rid of any real neurological
sensitivities anyone may be having to Aspartame.

There are two studies I'd LOVE to see done with Aspartame:

A study of blood levels of Phenylalanine after meals comparing the
effects of foods containing aspartame and foods not containing it.
(which would also show whether or not Aspartame's amino acids are
any more quickly absorbed than other amino acids in foods).

A similar study on the effects of protein content of ingested foods
on the reported effects of aspartame (i.e. I would suspect that
eating high-protein foods would alleviate any "imbalance" in the
proportion of Phenylalanine to other amino acids being absorbed into
the body and as a result reduce or, most likely, eliminate symptoms
caused by said imbalance).

(Since in the modern diet, the majority of "sweet" foods, where
Aspartame might be used as a substitute for other sweeteners, seem to be
relatively low protein, and since people looking for low-calorie substitutes
are probably NOT eating a "normally balanced" diet, it seems reasonable that
people who consume aspartame are more likely to run into amino-acid
"imbalances" and such and therefore most likely to notice.)

Okay, enough pedantry from the science-fascist corner of my brain.  Hold on
while I lock him back up again...

On the subject other sweeteners:

Splenda is good stuff.  Less aftertaste than aspartame has, at least to my
taste buds.  I had always wondered about its heat-stability, though , since it
doesn't seem to do much in my hot tea.  (Oh, Splenda(tm) - generic name
"Sucralose", is the "halogenated organic compound" I mentioned before, too...)

I've been wondering for a while now when Acesulfame K (which I otherwise don't
know a whole lot about) would become available for purchase "raw".  It seems
to get used a lot in conjunction with other sweeteners (usually Aspartame) and
in my experience seems to cut down the aftertaste.

Saccharine's nasty.  I think the health concerns are grossly overblown for the
small amounts normally consumed by people, but it tastes DISGUSTING to me...

There's some sort of plant extract called "Stevia" that seems to be really
popular among the aforementioned "The Man(tm) wants to poison you" crowd.
Might be good stuff, but I've yet to find something that explains what's in it
that makes it sweet.  (I would be not at all surprised but highly amused
should it turn out to be a naturally-occurring peptide a-la Aspar/Alitame...)
So far every site I've found that talks about it seems to feel that "all
natural" and "it's not Evil Nutrasweet" are all anyone needs to know about
it...

And, of course, if you're only worried about blood-sugar levels rather than
calories, there's the various sugar alcohols - Sorbitol, Mannitol, Xylitol,
Maltilol, etc.  To me, Sorbitol has a slightly funny taste, but Xylitol's not
bad.

signed,
El Hermoso Dormido, Mad Food Scientist in Training...