In an article in the Globe and Mail on July 13, reporter Dakshana Bascaramurty asked, “What’s worse for Toronto students: Sugar-laden regular pop or diet pop sweetened with the chemical aspartame?”

Yesterday morning while listening to CBC news in bed I heard that the Toronto District School Board had voted to extend its $550,000 contract with Pepsi for another year. The debate involved health concerns of Pepsi beverages.

On July 10 the Toronto Star  reported,

While aspartame is deemed a safe food additive by Health Canada, trustees and staff say they are uncomfortable with only offering artificially sweetened drinks without knowing the long term impact on health.

When I read the following quote in the Globe and Mail yesterday morning I became quite annoyed:

The board report elicited a missive from Refreshments Canada, the company selling Pepsi-Cola’s drinks. It quoted Health Canada’s defence of regulations that classify aspartame as a food additive that doesn’t prompt undue health concerns.

What the…? As a healthy living advocate and someone who reads the books (I’ve been working through Marion Nestle’s Food Politics for about a month and its always at the front of my consciousness) and watches the films, this really gets me going. The approval of aspartame by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was followed by a retraction based on demonstrated public concern over the fact that it produced brain tumors in rats!

This “missive from Refreshments Canada” is exactly the kind of government conspiracy in the food and beverage industry that books and films talk about and it angers me.

As school trustee Cathy Dandy said, “it’s unrealistic to urge students to make healthy choices while offering pop and say, ‘we’re so poor, we want you to be able to buy Pepsi.’” (Toronto Sun, July 25) and as trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher said, “If I am not prepared to serve it to my own grandchildren, I am not prepared to give it to school children,” (Toronto Star, July 10)

I understand that the school board needs money and I’m sympathetic to that. However, I agree with Dandy. It’s hypocritical. I laud the effort to get rid of extra sugar in schools, as there are a myriad of health and behavioral issues surrounding sugar. I don’t think I need to qualify this with a source, but one website does list 146 reasons that sugar ruins health and Google results for “sugar health effects” and “sugar health problems” are numerous. However, as a parent I would not want my child exposed to any of the 92 + side effects associated with aspartame as compiled by the FDA after 10,000 consumer complaints (a figure that I assume is either rounded up or down).

Furthermore, the American Cancer Society confirmed that users of artificial sweeteners gained more weight than those who didn’t use the products, further undermining the supposed “purpose” for the existence of aspartame in the food (Mercola.com). Read the source of that fact, an interesting history of aspartame.

If not soft drinks, what?

How about water? I’d even say that regular juice is better than artificially sweetened fruit beverage, although when I do drink juice I tend to dilute it with water in part because of its sugar content. There are healthy alternatives for hydration. One of my favourite ways to hydrate is cold tea, either regular tea or herbal (tisane). I recently bought Uncle Lee’s Organic Chai in Orange Ginger flavour on sale. Caffeine free, its ingredients are rooibos, ginger, cinnamon, orange peel, cardamom, chicory, cloves, black pepper, stevia and natural orange flavour. I made a pot of two days ago, cooled it and stored it in the fridge. It’s quite refreshing cold! Some days I brew tea at work and either top it off with cold water or let it sit until it cools off. Tasty.

Let’s discourage chemicals in our school vending machines and reinforce the message of healthy living over capitalism.

Sources:

• Pepsi deal extension … or pop machine expulsion? Globe and Mail, July 13.
• Soda pop to stay, for now, Toronto Sun, July 25.
• Trustees to vote on fate of vending machines in schools, Globe and Mail, July 25.
• School vending machines on way out? Toronto Star, July 10.
• Aspartame Side Effects, Healthy Holistic Living
• Aspartame — History of Fraud and Deception, Mercola.com

Other related articles:

• School board mulls aspartame-only drinks, Toronto Star, July 10.
• School board votes to extend Pepsi contract, keep most pools open, CBC News, July 25.

If you read those news articles, read the comments too.