Iced-tea mix to go

It is July, and supposed to be part of the season for iced tea, lemonade, or any number of other refreshing fruity drinks. While this summer has been more mild, rainy, cold nastiness, it is still enjoyable to sometimes quench ones thirst with these beverages.

While brewing tea and then icing it is probably healthier, using the mixes that Lipton or 4C produce are sweeter, and tend to lack the bitterness that brewed tea has. Reading the labels on most of these items is scary. Why? Because instead of being sweetened by sugar, they are sweetened with aspartame. 4C offers a product that does not contain aspartame. However, any of the to-go packs do. So if you want to enjoy any of Lipton's, or Crystal Light's products this summer, be aware that you are ingesting a product that metabolizes into methanol, and then oxidizes into formaldehyde.

I look at this section of the grocery store, and it makes me sad. I would like nothing more than to put one of the to-go packets into my bottle of water, shake it up, and voila! have a sweet refreshing beverage. However, I would much rather have sugar. Sugar may have more calories than aspartame. However, sugar is not going to kill me. Sugar is not going to give me life-threatening illnesses, or otherwise make me sick. It is not going to mess with my nervous system, kill brain cells, give me seizures, etc. Aspartame can do all of those things. It can complicate diabetes, cause weight gain, and at least 90 other harmful affects. At least when sugar metabolizes in the body it breaks down into energy so that cells can function. Yes there are simple and more complex sugars. Some metabolize faster, and some take longer (therefore giving your body more of a helpful benefit), but none of them are going to have that many harmful attributes.

What I don't understand is why companies, such as Lipton, do not offer iced tea products that do not contain aspartame. Even if they marketed their product unsweetened, like Kool-Aid, and then have the consumer sweeten it themselves with the product of their choice, that would be preferable to nothing. That way, if people want to continue poisoning themselves with an item that was once considered to be utilized as a biochemical warfare agent by the United States government, then that is the consumers' business.

The more and more that I become informed about these things, the more I realize that the adage: "You are what you eat" is a dogma that should be followed more frequently. I, for one, do not want my body to have anything to do with a chemical that is used as an industrial alcohol (methanol), and another chemical that is used to preserve dead bodies (formaldehyde). These substances are lethal in and of themselves. While the tea mixes, sodas, gums, etc. that contain aspartame would not have enough to be lethal in and of itself (how could it, because then the companies that produce it would not have a consumer-base to market to), over an extended period of time, it could be lethal. In the meantime, even one usage could cause headaches, nausea, and other "milder" health complications.

Something that should be considered is the fact that if formaldehyde can be used for preserving dead bodies, how much does that really disrupt the flow of normal bodily functioning? Regardless of the fact that it is carcinogenic, but as a preservative? I recently cleaned out my car, and there was a chocolate chip cookie underneath the seat. I do not know how long it had been there because I could not even remember the last time that I purchased such a cookie, but it was fully intact, not crumbling to pieces, but not too hard. It looked just like a cookie should look. There was no mold whatsoever. I could have put it on the kitchen counter, and somebody would have eaten it without realizing how old it was, or where it had been. Of course, I did throw it away, but just imagine how powerful the preservatives in that cookie were; and, I highly doubt that formaldehyde was involved at all. I cannot even remember what brand of cookie it would have been, but do I really want something like that inside my body? The bread that I buy molds in about a week (if I do not eat it fast enough and do not refrigerate it). That is a normal decomposition rate for food. The cookie had been there for months...This kind of begs the question: when aspartame is consumed, how long does formaldehyde stay in the human system? None of the research that I have done so far has given me this answer yet. However, I assume that most people who consume diet sodas, or chew gum do so on a regular basis, just as people who consume regular, sugared, sodas generally do so on a regular basis (as opposed to purely on special occasions--although, there are those who do that as well). Therefore, with regular consumption, I imagine that formaldehyde probably remains in the human body for years before all traces of it disappear. Just think of all the people who drink three or more diet sodas a day, or even just in one afternoon. Think of all the people who drink these beverages like they would otherwise drink water if those beverages were not available for consumption.

To conclude, I would encourage people to think before they consume anything with any sort of artificial sweetener. Just think of the fact that by consuming these drinks, methanol and formaldehyde are also being consumed, because that is the chemical reaction that transpires within the human body when aspartame is ingested. Sugar is not going to kill you, but aspartame has that side effect. Sugar may be known to have more calories; however, aspartame is also noted to cause weight gain.

I also encourage companies, such as Lipton, to offer iced-tea beverage mixes that are sweetened with sugar. Or, at the least, offer an unsweetened variety so I can add my own sugar (like what Kool-Aid does with its products). This would certainly make my summer sweeter. In the meantime, however, I am going to continue brewing my own tea. There are various varieties of tea, such as raspberry tea, or blueberry pomegranate white tea, or blueberry green tea that are tasty as iced teas without adding any sugar to them. This is definitely the healthier choice, but sometimes consumers like convenience. That is why there are convenience stores, or fast food establishments that are so successful. Adding a tea packet to water and shaking is a lot more convenient than waiting for tea to steep or brew.

For further reading about aspartame, methanol, or formaldehyde:

Aspartame
Aspartame Side Effects
The Chemistry of Aspartame
Methanol/Formaldehyde research
Formaldehyde poisoning associated with aspartame consumption
Aspartame: biochemical warfare agent