Software Development

We all know how bad Aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, Diet Coke/Pepsi, etc.) is and how it kills. But I never used to drink much Diet Coke anyways. But lately, something felt really wrong. I won't go into the details except for mentioning fatigue and numbness in the arm which doctors can't find anything, but all the symptoms combined are not pleasant. I finally traced it to the only thing that has changed. With the summer months, I started eating more frozen products like ice cream and frozen flavored ice products. The effects didn't feel exactly like Aspartame and there was none in these products anyhow. I've eaten plenty of ice cream before anyhow. And nothing else has changed. So what's up?

Check this out. The only other time I had some of the same symptoms (but this time I had more) was when I drank regular soft drinks. I thought those effects were simply from sugar or perhaps some minor ingredients. On a whim, I checked the ingredients and compared them to Coke and Sprite. Sodium Benzoate was in both. I'm going to cut this out and see if it makes a difference. I'll let you know if this works out.

Check this and this as well. The scariest thing about my field is that I remember seeing people with piles of soft drink cans around their desk laughing about the sheer amount they could build up. I was one of them. We were literally killing ourselves. All soft drinks are poison. They've found that when these products are chilled, they seem to be safe. But what happens is when they are heated to body temperature, these chemicals combine and separate into other toxic by-products. I don't know much about chemistry, but I know their effects first hand. I'm now convinced that Gulf Syndrome is related to Aspartme and Benzene produced from the combination of sodium (or potassium) benzoate with other chemicals such as vitamin C.

BTW, benzene is a known carcinogen. Toxic amounts of sodium benzoate is about half a cup. You can die. But it's near impossible to ingest that much. But if it converts to benzene, which is possible by adding heat in soft drinks and other products, you only need to ingest less than half a teaspoon of benzene to risk dying from it. That's more than possible, it's actually likely.

From someone who never gave a damn about this stuff, I'm really sorry I didn't pay more attention. Then again, there was no reason to think a soft drink would be dangerous. I'm only reporting this because I know how much programmers are prone to drinking soft drinks. Another reason is that I know first hand what this does. Drink anything else. You'll have to check to make sure you don't pick an alternative that's just as bad, but there's got to be something else you can drink besides soft drinks. What's the worst that can happen? Try it for 6 weeks. It just may save your life. No joke.

edit:
Benzene in soft drinks.
One thing that bothers me about this even more is that one product Health Canada tested produces high amounts of benzene, but not when it came directly from the factory. Why wasn't more said about this? Isn't this rather strange? If benzene is produced during transportation, this would be cause for alarm, no? BTW, Health Canada confirms everything said in the wiki link and everything said in the links I provided elsewhere. Something in me was hoping none of this was real.