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Although Kansas has taken steps to make the content of their school vending machines healthier this year, some of those decisions are in jeopardy now that… read more This is a sad example of left wing rejection of science. Aspartame consists of two naturally occurring amino acids … aspartic acid and phenylalanine. These occur in food and are essential to life. The binds between them is the normal way all proteins occur … a dipeptide. Put another way aspartame is a natural substance that happens to be a sweetener. The Kansas School Board’s science is as bad as anything coming form the nut fringe of the right. Like anything “scientific” aspartame generates fear that mad scientists have done something very, very bad. To be fair, even “natural” foods … that is things we have eaten for centuries .. can be bad for us. Scientists, of course, know that and studies have been done of aspartame. These concluded that aspartame specifically does not cause headaches, seizures, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, lupus or multiple sclerosis. In fact, no unsafe health consequences of aspartame have been identified. What is especially disturbing is the similarity between the public scared of aspartame and the fear of fluoridation in the water or mass vaccination for cervical cancer. These are “unnatural” as well. So why, other than fear of mad scientists or corporate greed, is the school board concerned? |