Eat Clean with Joleen!: Sweet Poison

Eat Clean with Joleen!: Sweet Poison: I just returned from almost a month away in sunny South Carolina.  I was working and vacationing with my family.  Of course when on va...

Sweet Poison

I just returned from almost a month away in sunny South Carolina.  I was working and vacationing with my family.  Of course when on vacation we tend to indulge in things we wouldn't normally.  For the most part, as adults, we consume more alcohol and food while we are on vacation.  I have two boys and what I struggled with the most was their drink choices (or lack thereof) when in restaurants. Recently I have been reading/studying about the harmful effects of Aspartame, and if there is one thing I suggest people do it is to get off the Aspartame!  I would rather see someone drink a regular Coke or Pepsi then a Diet one.  I'm not recommending Coke and Pepsi but the dangers of aspartame poisoning have been a well-guarded secret since the 1980s. The research and history of Aspartame is conclusive as a cause of illness and toxic reactions in the human body.  Over ten years ago when I worked in the Corporate world a colleague of mine had so many side effects from drinking Diet Coke (she was up to 6 per day at one point) that it landed her in the hospital. Why do we have artificial sweeteners and why are they so harmful?  So we can have our cake and eat it too!  People can eat sweets and lose weight right?  WRONG!  When we look at the studies of people who drink diet pop daily we know they are gaining weight versus the people who do not drink diet pop because when you eat or drink sweet you crave sweet.  Artificial sweeteners are so much sweeter than regular sugar causing calorie dis-regulation which in a nutshell means you are going to want everything you consume to be sweeter and sweeter to satisfy you and this is where the weight packs on.  They also raise insulin, feed the bad bacteria in the gut and the more bad bacteria in the gut equals more fat storage.  There are so many side effects to aspartame and I encourage you to look into it further and please educate your friends and family.  So what can you do when you are in a restaurant and you are not sure what is coming out of the fountain of drink choices?  Try club soda with lemon and lime, try water or bring a healthy drink for your kids with you and tell the waiter your kids have many sensitivities.  Many people want to know what other artificial sweeteners they can safely use instead of aspartame. My first recommendation is NOT to use any chemical sweeteners at all, but merely use natural sugars or learn to adjust to the natural sweetness of raw foods themselves. As you start to eat clean, your body will naturally detoxify and what was once not sweet at all eventually becomes too sweet as we get back into balance where we can thrive.  The best thing to do is avoid all artificial and chemical sweetener substitutes. They have NO food value, trick the body into thinking it is eating something sweet, and they have by-products of harmful toxic side effects. And remember that aspartame was discovered as an ulcer drug, not a sweetener. Every diet drink you used to drink was a dose of medication.