the sugarless conspiracy

as a avid consumer of diet cola, including a recently acquired penchant for cokonic irrigation, i take exception to the urban myth dispersions put upon my good friend, aspartame…

aspartame does not fatten me when i desire caffeine, aspartame-laced drinks let me sleep when coffee will not, aspartame helps kiss me awake in the late morning.

yet the collective wisdom – almost entirely derived from internet ‘journalism’ – is that the sweetener i hold dear is virtually a precursor to plague if not every other malady. moreover, it is collusion in the established media that is keeping this terrible secret from the masses. it is nothing less than a conspiracy.

let’s set aside the chemical in question for the moment.

journalism is biased. journalism is partisan. editors and publishers can both exert and succumb to pressure. journalism isn’t always journalism (and not just news corp).

but the fact remains is that hacks live and die for the scoop. it is the grail. it is the sword they willingly fall on, regardless of consequence. if you have something and the other fellow doesn’t, well, ‘woohoo! coconuts on me’.

i am neither a scientist nor a medical researcher. what i do know is that aspartame has been put through a rigourous ream of testing for decades on end. and, yes, that includes legions of non-partisan studies.

still, perhaps for a tiny handful of tragic souls among the six billion plus of us the quintessential unsugar may eventually prove to somehow, someway not to have been the best of ideas. but that holds true for virtually every compond we ingest – synthetic or natural – each and every day.

the point remains that journalism not only always comes to smell a smoking gun, but in time can hear it.

case in point, bisphenol a, easily as tied to imaginary corporate malfeasance as anything monsanto has conceived. this hormonally-challenged melding tool for plastics has just begun its journey down the road to official damnation by the powers who save us from ourselves.

we will see whether that concern is justified. it is, however, very much out there. not under a carpet.

i am told it is also typically in the liner that coats the inside of the aluminum cans that transport my special brew. perhaps now i have something to worry about. i like my breasts. but i do not wish them larger.

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