Speaking of sugar, lets talk about aspartame. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether or not sugar substitutes are actually better for you than regular sugar. There are lots of claims out there that claim aspartame will cause everything from cancer to obesity to seizures, that it gets broken down in the body as formaldehyde and that it's one of the most dangerous substances that you could ever add to your food. So if all of this is true, why is it still being added to food and, more to the point, how come we're all still miraculously alive? Luckily enough, the aspartame conspiracy theories (which basically all stemmed from a hoax chain email in the late 90s) have caused enough of a stir that aspartame is now one of the single most scrutinised ingestible substances out there. Countless studies have been undertaken in order to investigate the many supposed health risks and there have so far been no links found between artificial sweeteners and any of the supposed health risks. There have been some links drawn between aspartame and migraines in people that are already susceptible to them, but migraines are often triggered by certain foods and so this isn't an indicator of toxicity. It also can be linked to obesity in the sense that people who consume low-calorie sugar substitutes are more likely to over compensate in the rest of their diet (we'll call this the diet coke and large fries phenomenon).
