Last Swill and Testament: Diet Pop

[Guest guest]

Dear Editor:

 

In reading Umbra Fisk's excellent article, the answer to the

addiction of diet pop is that it contains aspartame which has free

methyl alcohol which is classified as a narcotic. This causes

chronic methanol poisoning which effects the dopamine system of the

brain and causes the addiction. (Aspartame Disease: An Ignored

Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com H. J. Roberts, M.D. ) A lot of

people won't give it up because they use so much they are no longer

rational. Aspartame effects the front lobes of the brain and as Dr.

Bill Deagle says: " It's like talking to someone who has had a lobotomy. "

 

My compliments for Umbra's title. Aspartame also triggers sudden

cardiac death: http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_msg_scd.htm You don't

have to worry about embalming because the formaldehyde converted from

the free methyl alcohol in aspartame embalms living

tissue: www.mpwhi.com/formaldehyde_from_aspartame.pdf Eat, drink

and be buried, already embalmed.

 

For those who wish to give up the addiction here is the detox

formula: www.wnho.net/wtdaspartame.htm

 

For those who want to know how aspartame poisoned the world and the

environment here is the documentary: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned

World www.soundandfury.tv

 

For a safe sweetener use Just Like Sugar which can be gotten in Whole

Foods or www.justlikesugarinc.com It's made from chicory and orange

peel. As to the environment, these are the people behind the

project: " Save the Amazon Rain Forest " .

 

All my best,

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Mission Possible International

9270 River Club Parkway

Duluth, Georgia 30097

770 242-2599

www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com, www.wnho.net

Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

Aspartame Information List. www.mpwhi.com scroll down to banners

 

 

 

 

Last Swill and Testament

 

 

 

 

On diet soda

 

By

<http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/advice/ask/2008/08/11//cgi-bin/s\

earch.pl?query=gristauthor=(Umbra

Fisk) & reverse=on & sort=gristdate>Umbra Fisk

11 Aug 2008

question

Dear Umbra,

 

My name's Jon and I'm a diet pop addict. My diet right now is 70-80

percent local, organic, or both, but I just can't help myself when it

comes to getting my fix. I drink several 20-ouncers a day of diet and

just can't seem to stop. Is my habit hurting the earth? Common sense

says that water from my stainless steel canteen is a whole lot better

than chemicals from a plastic bottle, but my addict brain is grasping

at straws, hoping that diet pop is one of those rare exceptions.

 

Jon B.

Lakewood, Ohio

 

answer

Dearest Jon,

 

As you no doubt know, your question is funny, and the answer is: Of

course your processed beverage and its container have an

environmental impact. Plus, it's gotta be horrible for you. The

ingredients were made in a lab, and I'm not sure the new

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/business/07soda.html>fortified

Coke or Pepsi diet sodas (Niacin! B vitamins! Chromium!) will close

the nutrient gap. Several countries and at least one American state

have tried to ban

<http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/aspartame>aspartame,

that pop-ular artificial sweetener. Health isn't my bailiwick,

though. I get to ignore your teeth, intestines, and major organs and

focus on the planet.

 

Woman sipping soda

 

Aspartame the beast.

 

Is your habit hurting the earth? Sure -- the manufacturing process

for the chemicals (synthetics and " natural flavors, " anyone?) all

have emissions impacts. But more on the carbon footprint of

<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/7/161211/3130>soda

ingredients in a moment -- first we must speak of Coke and water. I

use Coca-Cola as a whipping boy (er, representative example) because

there is ample documentation about how the soda giant operates.

 

Water is the primary ingredient in all Coke products, and a major

component of pop-making in general. Each liter of a Coke product

<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1814261,00.html>requires

approximately 2.5 liters of H20 -- and that's just at the bottling

plant. In 2006, for example, Coca-Cola apparently sucked up about 80

billion gallons of water for use in its drinks, for growing the

ingredients, and for general manufacturing uses. The mildest thing we

can say about your addiction in this context is that it wastes water.

A harsher comment might be: You are actively complicit in

<http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4492835>global

corporate water hogging, stealing a scarce resource from impoverished

communities.

 

We can also get a little extrapolative climate change information on

your addiction from our new toy, the Carnegie Mellon Green Design

Institute's <http://www.eiolca.net/>Economic Input-Output Life Cycle

Assessment model. Remember, EIO-LCA is an online tool that calculates

the overall environmental impact of producing certain dollar amounts

of various products. In this case, we click on the " food, beverage,

and tobacco " industry, then choose " soft drink and ice

manufacturing, " which, the model reveals, involves power generation,

grain farming, wet corn milling, trucking,

<http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/advice/ask/2008/08/11//advice/as\

k/2004/01/15/umbra-bottles/>aluminum

production, paper mills, oil and gas extraction, and more. Forgive my

ignorance -- do you spend somewhere in the dollar-and-change range on

those 20-ounce plastic bottles? If so, and if " several " per day means

three, you're drinking more than $1,000 retail per year, which must

be at least $500 worth of wholesale soda per year. For each $500 of

economic activity in wholesale soft drink and ice manufacturing,

0.439 metric tons of CO2 equivalent are released. Given those very

approximate numbers, and leaving lots of wiggle room to account for

variations in soda brands, your fizz fixes emit maybe half a ton of

CO2 equivalent a year. To what is this comparable?

<http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/#air>Flying

round trip from Cleveland to New York City.

 

As to the packaging, I sweetly refer you to the many discussions in

this space about the importance of reusable vessels over disposable

(<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=%22plastic+bottle%22 & gristtitle= & gris\

tauthor= & dr_o=12 & dr_s_mon=8 & dr_s_day=7 & dr_s_year=2008 & dr_e_mon=8 & dr_e_day=7 & dr_e\

_year=2008 & gristcat=Search+All & sort=swishrank & submit=Search>search

Grist for " plastic bottle " and prepare to be rewarded). Yes, your

stainless steel canteen, used many times, is better than a single-use

<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/23/15449/5974>plastic

bottle. And it's certainly better than

<http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/advice/ask/2008/08/11//advice/as\

k/2006/07/12/foil/>virgin

aluminum -- gadzooks. In sum, as we already knew, your diet soda

habit is not remotely compatible with the rest of your organic, local

food lifestyle. You alone can decide if the impact of the addiction

is acceptable to you and by extension to your fellow earthlings.

Water also has a large advantage over diet drinks: It is good for

you. In fact, you can't live without it.

 

Drippily,

Umbra

 

 

 

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please

<http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/advice/ask/2008/08/11//cgi-bin/e\

mail-umbra.pl>send

Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first

<http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/advice/ask/2008/08/11//advice/as\

k/2005/10/26/faqs/index.html>check

out her FAQs!

 

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this

magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any

advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this

column at your own risk.

 

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals

Unit, floors 2B-4B.

 

 

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