Cheat'N Low

Having problems with blood pressure?

Here is an account taken from someone on the Aspertame Toxidity Report conscerning the direct coorilation with Equal to their bad blood pressure. This report is very scary, there are accounts of many people and serious health issues.  Please go to the link at the bottom of this post to see the Report.

Then I had a cup of coffee sweetened with Equal and my blood pressure soared

again. So I switched to decaf coffee sweetened with Equal and had the same

thing happen again. My blood pressure soared and stayed up for hours. After

that, I knew that Equal sweetener, (aspartame), was the problem. I drank decaf

coffee sweetened with sugar for a solid week, and it had no effect on my blood

pressure at all. I even went back to regular coffee sweetened with sugar and

had only a moderate blood pressure increase, (131/80), that lasted for about

an hour.

Mark Gold

           Aspartame Toxicity Information Center

              12 East Side Dr., Suite 2-17

                   Concord, NH 03301

                  mgold@holisticmed.com

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/adverse.txt

How to live the Sweet Life

Adding sugar back into ones diet is daunting.  I knew the awful affects that the artificial sweeteners were having on my body, yet I wasn’t ready to add sugar into my diet.  After all, the whole dilemma starts with the desire to eat right and loose weight.  Also my intense love for coffee – sweetened coffee that is, will never subside.  I was depressed at the thought of wiping out all sweet treats.

This all until I discovered a miracle.

Stevia

Stevia is the cure to all of this drama. 

What is Stevia? Wikepedia says this:

Stevia is a genus of about 150 species of herbs and shrubs in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), native to subtropical and tropical South America and Central America. The species Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sugar substitute, stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or liquorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations.

With its extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Stevia also has shown promise in medical research for treating such conditions as obesity and high blood pressure. Stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, even enhancing glucose tolerance, therefore it is attractive as a natural sweetener to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets.

Like I said- it is a miracle.  Stevia is natural and doesn’t add harsh man make chemicals to the body.  It comes in powder form like that other sugar substitutes as well as in liquid.  I prefer the liquid because of the taste.  I carry a small bottle of it in my purse and use it in my coffee and iced tea.  I have been successful with using Stevia when baking too! 

Stevia is sold at most health food stores and vitamin stores as well as the well known Whole Foods and Trader Joes.

So, I might rant about the harms of artificial sweetener, but what is the big deal?  What kind of negative affects are actually caused by using the stuff?  And this is probably all in this girl’s head, right?

So lets leave it to the doctors to decide.  My personal experience is only one very small reason why people should stop using artificial sweetener.  There are countless studies that prove the substances harmful and addictive.  I have listed a few websites in this post for you to go look at for even more validation. 

Consider this:

• James Bowen M.D: “Splenda/sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar; a chlorocarbon. Common chlorocarbons include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene and methylene chloride, all deadly. Chlorine is nature's Doberman attack dog, a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid.”
• Dr. Joseph Mercola: Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death.(1) A few of the 90 different documented symptoms listed in the report as being caused by aspartame include: Headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.

Enlightening Links:

http://www.wnho.net/splenda_chlorocarbon.htm

http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ccd8NfsDkE

The person who discovered fake sugar hit the jack pot!  The market audience of people that are trying to loose weight is huge and growing!  They companies that are marketing this tap intot he most vulnerable part of a person, their self esteem, and tell them that they can help.  Everyone wants the perfect solution to their diet and weight problems.  These ads are smart tapping into our brains encouraging us to consume poison filled blue packets. This Old Cher ad shows how even from the start they have been hungry for money.  Cher is a huge name and vey influential.  I'm sure that this very ad inspired many people to stop using sugar and start using Equal- the stuff that is damaging thier insides today.

We have all done it.  There is such a misconsception about diet soda being a 'healthy choice'.  I opted for the diet option for years of my life.  In High School thre would be weeks that i would only have an extra large Diet Coke for lunch.  I thought i was being so good.  Consuming ZERO calories, all while enjoying a huge sweet and carbonated refreshing beverage.  Well, i would have been better off eating a double bacon cheeseburger. Personally, after drinking the large diet cola i would experience not only an auful stomach ache, but about thirty minutes later, i would be attacked by ravenous sweet cravings.

These cravings would leave me in a diet hell.  I was not only starving from skipping a meal, but i was left with a demon inside my head telling me to scarf everything sweet in sight.  Therefore, my Diet Coke lunches proved to be unfruitful, as my wieght did not lesson. 

However, becuase i wasnt eating at mealtimes, i stil figured that i was doing the healthy thing.  I had begun to substitute meals with diet drinks at first, then i would drink the cans for snacks (because they were too small for a meal- the big gulp was the only way to go).  My fridge at home was stocked with every flavor imagionable from Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, to Diet Squirt, to my favorite: Diet Barqs Rootbeer.

I began to become obsessed with these drinks, having one with breakfast, two before lunch, one at lunch, at least three before dinner, and of course two or three for dessert.  Sickening isnt it.  The way i like my diet drinks also became fun for me, using straws, and different kinds of ice became exciting. My life revolved around this drink that was poisoning me fast. 

Drinking over a hundred ounces of this stuff a day never at any point seemed out of the norm.  My frineds all loved the stuff too.  My mom drank it, and my dad started his day with two 64oz  Diet Cokes each morning. 

So for skeptics of my blog, i want you to first see that i at one point was the biggest advocate of face sweetener there was.  My experience with it is extensive, i can tell the difference between Equal and Sweet'N Low in my Coffee, i can taste the use of Splenda in Diet Coke with Splenda. Sp please listen to my blog, i aim to connect with everyone and to hopefully help!

My name is Catie, and I am a twenty-year old young woman with a cause.  I am blogging about the evil nature of artificial sweeteners and why they are harmful to the people that consume them.  I titled this blog "Cheat'N Low" after the familiar sugar substitute "Sweet'N Low".  This title emphasizes how fake sugars are being marketed to people as healthy substitutes for sugar when they are really harming our bodies in countless ways.  They do much more harm to the human body than good, therefore cheat us and trick us.  I strive to raise awareness about the hidden negative affects that artificial sugars have, and enlighten anyone who consumes too much of it.  I am passionate about living a healthy life, and this problem keeps many from doing just that.

My personal experiences with being legitimately addicted to these products at a younger age make me a compassionate, reliable and credible recourse.  I understand being dependant of Diet Coke, and loading my coffee up with little blue packets, and how horrible I felt before I cut it our of my life.  With this blog I hope to help people realize the damage diet sodas are doing to their bodies and hopefully inspire them to make a change.