I may be a little slow ... but eventually I get it

I've been reading, hearing, and thinking a lot the past week or two about artificial sweeteners and how they may not be as safe as we thought they were.

Of course, I have heard the rumblings through the years about aspartame and how dangerous it is ... "it causes cancer" / "no, it's safe" / "NO, it's dangerous!" (After all, I haven't been living under a rock, for Pete's sake!) But I have to admit, I have been firmly in the camp that believed if the FDA approved it, it MUST be safe. (I know, I know ... I'm part ostrich.) After all, that's the FDA's job ... to protect the American people, right?

Wrong. I am in the middle of a book by Drs. Joseph Mercola and Kendra Pearsall called Sweet Deception. At the beginning of the book, I was just blown away by some information given about the Food & Drug Administration and their fearless leaders.

Silly me, I always thought the FDA was here to protect me, that they have my health and best interest as the foundation of all they do. Come to find out, though ... the FDA's clients are not the American people; they are the giant food processing corporations and patent medicine companies. That's who the FDA exists to protect.

Way back in 1970, the then Commissioner of the FDA, Herbert Ley was quoted in print: "People think the FDA is protecting them--it isn't. What the FDA is doing and what people think it's doing are as different as night and day."

In testimony before Congress, FDA Commissioner Charles Edwards said, "[It is] not our [FDA] policy to jeopardize the financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies."

This has just blown me away. Then, on top of that, last night I watched the documentary Sweet Misery.

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-566922170441334340

Whoa!!! Talk about an eye-opening film. It is well worth an hour and a half of your time. In fact, I plan on watching it again.

You know, I am just w-a-y too naive and gullible. I still tend to believe what I see in print, say, a label on a food, for example, that makes claims of one type or another. I've got to stop that. People are sick and dying with unexplained autoimmune diseases that didn't even exist before the mid-seventies. Plus, brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, autism ... how many horrible diagnoses could be truly traced back to a food additive? Something touted to be "safe", and "healthy" for us? Scary, indeed.

I've been feeling so lousy for so long, and I don't understand why. I mean, I've lost a LOT of weight in the last year ... I should be feeling way better than I do. But my energy is through the floor, my back constantly hurts, my knees are messed up, my brain feels foggy, I can't sleep without taking a sleep aid, and I'm tired all the time, every day. What the heck is up with that?

So, I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to try to wean myself off aspartame, NutraSweet, whatever you want to call it, and just see how I feel. I'm concerned about Splenda (Sucralose) as well, but I know I can't do it all at one time, so for now I'm going to concentrate on aspartame and ridding it from my diet. I suspect it's going to be harder than I even think it will, because aspartame is in so many food items. Reading labels needs to be my new hobby. I already read them a lot -- for carb counts and such, but I'm going to get tough ... my health is worth that.