Green Options

Due to the great popularity of “Can Diet Coke Kill You?” combined with a lot of controversy over it, I have decided to write this follow-up post.

Most of the controversy over the last article was around the fact that the documentary I referenced cited data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) but that organization itself claims there is no proven link between aspartame and cancer.

What was presented previously was a short explanation of why aspartame is expected to cause cancer and other health problems and a summary of some information presented in Sweet Misery, including findings from analyzing NCI and other data. This article, however, cites other scientific findings and discusses the economic-political history of this topic a little bit as well.

I can’t tell you how many times I have broken a sweat in a restaurant. I’m not talking about a girly glow. I’m talking about sweat pouring off of my face and dripping onto my plate. The kind of sweat that makes people stop and stare and wonder if perhaps I am some sort of drug addict.

Surely after so many embarrassing meals I would have learned not to order the spiciest thing on the menu by now, but there’s something about a chili pepper that I can’t resist.

That something, it turns out, is capsaicin, a chemical compound produced by chilies to ward off unwanted consumers. The higher the concentration of capsaicin in a chili, the hotter it is.

Toddlers in the UK could be screened for speech problems because many are so addicted to TV and video games that they fail to learn basic communication skills.

According to an article in the Telegraph, “barely a 10th of children in some areas can repeat even one nursery rhyme and, in extreme cases, some do not even know their own name.”