Thanks OP, for the very enlightening evening I had the other day, stemming from Food Babe's vids. I'm sure she blew you a kiss for the extra web traffic she received
.
What was the most starting fact I learned? The man responsible for bringing us the now Monsanto owned Aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet, is none other than Donald
F'ing Rumsfeld, with help from a newly inaugurated President Reagan!
You can check out Aspartame's timeline
here, but to summarise, Rumsfeld was brought in as the new CEO of troubled G.D. Searle, the original discoverers of the compound and patent owners. After years of failed attempts trying to get it approved, in 1981, the FDA was likely going to deny approval once again, so on january 21, the day after President Reagan's inauguration, he issues a Presidential Order that prevented the FDA head from taking any actions, and Reagan's replacement, in July, overrules the Public Board of Enquiry, to get Aspartame approved, for use in dry goods (approval for use in beverages followed in fall 1983, after commissioner's resignation).
Bottom line; if you really want to drink soda, I wouldn't touch the aspartame based diet stuff, and would instead go for the regular varieties, in moderation (as far I know, GAF doesn't disagree with minimizing ones fructose intake). Although I dislike the highly processed HFCS, with a passion, chemically it isn't that different from sugar, with a 55/42 ratio of fructose / glucose, compared to sucrose's (table sugar) equal split.