Sorting Through the Sweetener Scene

(ARA) - With all the information - and misinformation - about sweeteners in the news and online, it's very possible that you are one of many Americans who is confused about which ones are the healthiest to use.

From table sugar to honey to aspartame, there is no shortage of views about the safety and benefits of sweeteners. Although sorting through the maze of facts and myths about sweeteners may be daunting, three new online resources are designed to take the mystery out of one popular sugar substitute, aspartame. The tools are available at www.aboutaspartame.com, the Web site of the Aspartame Resource Center (ARC).

"With the advent of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, consumers are bombarded with more nutrition information than is humanly possible to process," said Page Love, a registered dietician from Atlanta. "These new online tools are featured as part of a one-stop shop for those who are interested in receiving accurate information about aspartame in a fun and interactive format."

Found in more than 6,000 products around the world - including carbonated soft drinks, chewing gum, gelatins, dessert mixes and even some pharmaceuticals such as vitamins and sugar-free cough drops - aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar and has been used safely by millions of consumers in countries across the globe for more than 25 years. In addition, contrary to popular belief, aspartame is a very simple ingredient that is made from amino acids, building blocks of the same protein we eat every day.

The new online tools include an interactive flash animated movie, "The Lowdown on the Breakdown." The viewer picks from a variety of popular items like chicken, bananas and milk and watches a character eat and digest those foods. The viewer then directs the character to drink a beverage sweetened with aspartame. The digestion processes and products are compared visually on the screen to reinforce that the body breaks down aspartame naturally in the same way as other foods. Charts and bar graphs round out the movie's messages.

Another of the online tools is the "Calorie Calculator," a weight management aid that demonstrates how small dietary changes add up to "lost pounds" over time. This tool gives Web site visitors an opportunity to determine calorie savings over the course of a year based on a number of possible modest food substitutions. The calculator allows an individual to choose those dietary changes that are most desirable, along with frequency per week, and tallies the impact over a one-year period. The results are both surprising and motivating, especially when applied as part of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.

The third tool is a downloadable brochure, "Aspartame: Sweetness From Nature's Building Blocks," which answers frequently asked questions about the popular sweetener. Each of the three resources is designed to help give American consumers a jumpstart in navigating the world of information about aspartame, starting with the facts!

To check out these tools for yourself, and for more information about aspartame, visit www.aboutaspartame.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent