Warning: Two drinks you’ll want to keep off your dinner table
Happy Thanksgiving!
I know you’re busy today celebrating the holiday with family and friends. And if you’re the one heading up mission control in your kitchen, good luck!
You’re probably getting ready to load up that dinner table with enough food to feed a small army.
But before you break out the beverages, there are a couple you might want to leave in the fridge.
Because there’s a frightening new “sweetener” that’s being added to sodas sold all across America.
And when you hear how this stuff is really made, I know there’s no way you’ll want to serve it to your family — or yourself.
And make no mistake about it. This new additive called Sweetmyx is a drug.
It’s already been added to Mug Root Beer in Denver and Philadelphia, and is sold in Pepsi’s apple soda, Manzanita Sol, all across America.
Now with a name like Sweetmyx, you might think this is just a sweetener, maybe stevia mixed in with sugar or some other sweet ingredient. But, believe it or not, Sweetmyx doesn’t have any taste at all.
Senomyx, the company that makes Sweetmyx, actually cloned human taste receptors (I don’t want to know how they did that!) and found a way to trick your brain into thinking it’s tasting something sweet.
Talk about mind-altering drugs!
Now if letting some company play nutty professor with your brain chemicals is more than you bargained for when you picked up that two-liter, there are some very smart people who agree with you.
The Feingold Association — a non-profit group that studies the effects of food additives and colors — claims that Sweetmyx should be considered a drug (and not an additive) and should have gone through clinical trials.
The FDA is so unsure of what this stuff will do that it even put out an alert clarifying that it’s never declared Sweetmyx safe.
And when was the last time you saw the FDA do something like that?
But because Sweetmyx is considered an additive, Senomyx doesn’t have to ever tell us what’s really in it or which foods or drinks it’s being dumped into.
Right now, we only know about those two Pepsi drinks I told you about. But who knows where it might show up next?
So to stay safe, you should avoid anything that lists “artificial flavor” or “artificial sweetener” among its ingredients, because you won’t find Sweetmyx listed there.
Another likely tipoff will be new versions of products advertised as being lower in “sugar” and calories.
But for now, you should do everything you can to keep Sweetmyx out of your meal plans. That way you can feel good about what you’re serving your family — without worrying about any trouble that might be coming down the road.
By the way, I just want to thank you for taking a moment out of your holiday to support our work at HSI. We appreciate your support today and every day.
Sources:
“Root-beer drinkers in Denver, Philly get first taste of Sweetmyx” Jennifer Kaplan, Bloomberg Business, Bloomberg.com
“Senomyx to the rescue? Uh…no.” The Feingold eNews, feingold.org
