What are you most afraid of? A global warming
disaster? Terrorists shooting you down in the street? Your airplane
crashing on a flight to Detroit?
Pshaw. Nah. What you should
really fear is...
dum-ta-dah!...
DIET COLA!!!!!! Bwah-hahaha!!! Aiiieeee!
*sigh*
Sadly, way too many people believe the oddest things. Worse, they will
worry
about aspects of life that are, at worst, trivial. Objective, realistic
risk-assessment is a skill at which most citizens, well, er,
suck. Even if a “danger” exists in regard to “X,” folks tend to misinterpret what that “danger” means and how they should respond.
I rarely drink coffee. Most of the caffeine I ingest
(ahhh...caffeine.......) comes from either iced tea or diet colas.
Twenty years ago in grad school, I consumed the real deal —
full-sugared pop with caffeine, often Jolt cola straight from the
fountain machine of a drug store across the street from the U of
Arizona — but with age comes a lowered metabolism and less exercise.
Since I drink a
lot of soda, I long ago migrated to diet soft
drinks to save the calories. Now, I never claimed this stuff is health
food. I don’t push it on others as an option, even very obese others.
If they don’t want it, fine. No skin off my ba—, er, nose.
A few of those others, though, apparently take it as their duty to “save” me.
Ahh....
“Formaldehyde! Formic acid! Acidosis! Neurotoxicity! Methanol! Phenylalanine!Poison!” Run for your lives!
Oy.
Aspartame is alleged to “cause” such dire conditions as MS, lupus, Gulf
War syndrome, brain tumors, and diabetes. Given the millions of gallons
of diet pop consumed over the years, Americans are doomed.
Or they would be if this nonsense were true. (See
here for some fact checking.) Well, it
is
true that aspartame does, indeed, metabolize to methanol. A 300 ml can
of diet pop gives you about 20 mg. But, as I tell my students, without
a baseline or other examples for comparison, a raw number is virtually
meaningless as a guide for risk assessment.
So. What’s the scoop? Well, a similar amount of
fruit juice results in 40 mg of methanol. Twice as much! Aiieeee! Wait! There’s more. Booze ratchets this up to 60 to 100 mg, three to
five times as much. Urg. Not
beer....!?!
Oh, no! That can of soda produces 100 mg of phenylalanine in your
body...while an egg loads you up with 300 mg; a glass of milk, 500 mg;
and 900 mg for a big ol’ hamburger.
Oh. So sad. So bad...not.
The gullible who read idiotic claims that “aspartame kills!” obviously get
something
out of believing this tripe. What, I don’t know. As I told one
scientifically illiterate person who jumped on my case about my
consumption of diet cola, I don’t know why anyone would want to live
her life being fearful of everything (“Life is scary!”), but I can
guarantee, it will not be
diet soda pop
that kills her. Maybe being overweight and getting no real exercise
might — just might — result in graver risks of mortality than drinking
diet pop.
In the meantime, bottoms up...
(from
Don't Get Me Started!, 8-10-07)
