Aspartame - diet drinks...views please...

[Emmiedarling]

I have always drunk 7up free (diet lemonade)

I LOVE the stuff and consider it my only vice. (I eat clean foods, dont drink/smoke)

But since being pregnant (im 25 weeks) I have become concerned about the artificial sweetener in it, but only recently did I look into any research.

It was scary reading.

I have managed to go cold turkey from it for about two weeks now (I realllllly miss it) but drank about 1 can per day before and even more when not pregnant.

What are your views? Are you all drinking diet drinks or avoiding them like the plague?

Personally, I stopped artificial sweeteners when I got pg. I have had the odd real Coke though which is probably no better as it's full of s**t

Also, lots of fizzy drinks have phosphoric acid in them which actually leaches calcium out of your bones!

I avoid any drink with artificial sweetners ever since I figured out they go straight through me.

What really pisses me off is that a lot of "full fat" drinks have sweeteners as well as sugar.

I avoid them and won't give dd them either. I'd rather she had a small amount of sugar, made from a vegetable (sugar beet) than chemicals. I make herbal tea then chill it for both of us. Twinings strawberry and mango is lovely. You can make it really strong (5 teabags to one cup) then add sugar if you want then dilute with sparkling water. It's lovely in the summer.

Bottle green cordials with sparkling water are nice too.

I did have the odd diet coke when pg...I drank no coffee/alcohol/ didn't smoke (that's how I justified it to myself).

My DM and Dsis were .

Googling will probably put you off drinking it though(I hadn't googled at the time). 7up is nice, but not addictive, so I would advise going for something like Appletise

It's just the bloody calories! I don't do real sugar as I've had a past history of anorexia so freak out about it...

In the great scheme of things, personally a can of diet 7 up a day, IMO, is not too bad.

Whilst I had horrendous ms with ds2 I could just about stomach lucozade original and I drank it every day for four months.

All the chemicals in diet drinks are not good for you or baby, but it won't make you a bad mother if you drink some now and again! Personally, it's not worth worrying about - as long as you're eating well and eating nutritious food for you and baby, the odd can will be fine.

How are you coping being pg with past anorexia? Do you think you're eating well etc? I know it's not healthy to be eating like a ravenous buffalo 24/7, but calorie counting is prob not the best thing to do whilst pg.....

Sounds like I'm preaching......I'm really not

I was underweight when i fell pregnant. Then i discovered food and gained a really silly amount of weight in a short space of time - just under eight to 11 stone. Im only 25 weeks.

About two weeks ago I started panicking and have put myself on a strict calorie controlled diet and Im now 10 stone 5. I feel enormous.

I am not eating less than 1100cals a day and am literally doing no exercise (bed rest as I'm high risk preg)

It is hard! I thought i was fat at 8 stone!

Funnily enough I had this discussion with my boss the other day after another mum refused their child a bottle of Fruit Shoot her daughter was drinking. The evidence that shows problems with aspartame appears to be at best shaky, at worst in the same category as the MMR jab causing autism.

I think an occasional can would not do any harm. I had a can of Dr Pepper today which was SO good - but that is only the 2nd drink like that (i.e. caffeinated fizzy drink) I've had in the past 12 weeks. I think one a day does sound like a lot.

You could try fruit juice diluted with a lot of sparkling water instead? Maybe make real lemonade with lemon juice, soda and something sweet?

Try agave syrup rather than sugar perhaps?

I used to drink diet 7up like water too before I got pregnant. I stopped it totally though and have the odd ordinary 7up or white lemonade instead. I don't like the idea of the sugar either but sometimes nothing else kills the thirst.

Maybe try having loads of ice cubes in chilled water on hand also.

I have always been concerned about the aspartame horror stories being a prolific diet coke drinker. That's until I fell pregnant and I went right off the stuff and haven't drunk it since. Looks like nature decided for me!

Sainsburys diet Lemonade and drinks in general contain sucrolose (sp?) I've been drinking that instead.
I completely understand the need for fizzy drinks!

I gave up aspartane for several months before we even TTC

i dont buy anything with aspartane in and try to ban it from my house

i will not allow DD to have anything with aspartane in

i just dont trust the stuff, and every 6 weeks or so do a sainsburys shop where i stock up on there own brand drinks.

It also irritates me how more and more often even the non diet drinks have sugar and aspartane in

i even found it in a packet of crisps!

Hate it, it's really bad for you, and it's in everything! I'd cut it out long before I got pregnant. Bad stuff.

But then they all are - fructose, agave nectar, aspartame - it's all really, really bad for you. Agave nectar - you are actually better off having maple syrup than you are having agave nectar. It might be low gi but it's incredibly high in sugars.

And it's not even the calories or the weight gain. It's what it does to you - to your make up. The sugar levels fuck with your insulin levels, which fuck up your hormone levels.... Believe me, if you read up on what all those things do, you'd never have another sugary drink in your life. Including cordials and fruit juices.

It always makes me laugh when people think they're being healthy having tons of fruit juice. You would never eat the amount of oranges in one sitting that have made up that big jug of orange juice. So you've just had a huge intake of sugar, without any of the benefit of eating an orange which is the fibre.

When trying to work out if to take a prepreggo vitamin or stick to berocca as there wasn't a huge amount if difference aside the iron (which in the past made me puke) I asked a pharmacist, the main thing she worried about was the aspartame. She said she wouldn't be taking the stuff if trying to get pregnant. I relayed this to a friend struggling ttc who loves her diet coke then tried to check online (dr Google I know!) But I found that really theres more risks with caffeine (even more in diet) and couldn't find anything on the asparteme that I trusted as a source. Whatsoever, I think you mean re the mmr and autism link that its poppycock and was proved 'bad science' - just checking!

I've never really liked the stuff and only ever had in in berocca but also recommend those cordials!

Totally second bettybat, there's a good 3 part series on all that called 'the men who made us fat' on at the mo that is scary stuff. Fruit juice isn't massively healthy, nor eating tonnes of fruit. Veg should outweigh fruit. I think next weeks prog is on that.

Oh Clarella I didn't watch that but I read Fat Nation years and it frightened to life out of me! And then I watched a series of nutritional videos from the Healthy Skeptic called Eating for Fertility, and his section on sugars - particularly about agave nectar - was so worrying. I had always thought agave nectar was alright, was good but it's so not. And when you look at the effect of sugar on hormone levels, anyone TTCing needs to take notice - it's completely working against providing a healthy hormone-balanced environment.

I'm diabetic so it's that, water or death. Think 'll stick with the artificial sweetener

Betty: what you've said about fruit juice is absolutely spot on. As well as the effect on the rest of the body, I see a lot of dental problems caused by fruit juice. It really isn't a healthy choice.

That's really interesting about agave, thanks - I only have it occasionally but thought it was better than sugar as you use less of it to get the same sweetness.

I do eat too much sugar but fully believe it's the enemy of being slim and healthy in all its forms. When I have fruit juice it's either diluted like squash or served in tiny glasses. Now I just need to kick my love for cake and pasta...

I was devastated about agave nectar, cos I really thought it was alright.

I'm not a purist by any stretch of the imagination, and am currently battling a chocolate croissant addiction which completely flies in the face of all my beliefs about gluten, wheat and sugars :( And I do semi-regularly eat ice cream or a slice of cake or whatever. But I try to implement the 80/20 rule and make "paleo" style alternatives. And hardly ever have fruit juices, and NEVER have fizzy drinks or cordials. The relationship between sugar and hormone imbalance just frightened me too much :(

Aspartame is bad stuff. DD is allergic to it - severe stomach pains and eventually D&V. Now buy sainsburys drinks as they have removed it from all their drinks - they still do diet stuff but with sucralose which is considered much safer.

Never touch the stuff myself. It gives dyspraxic DD1 the shakes.

I think it's just the whole synthetic thing for me - I think that's my main issue with diet versions of sweet drinks. Fructose, sucralose, aspartame, saccharin, etc - they might not be considered "bad" for humans from the perspective of health committees in that they don't make you ill. But you're still putting crap, synthetic versions of things in your body - which is my main beef with our addiction to sugar.

"I avoid any drink with artificial sweetners ever since I figured out they go straight through me.
What really pisses me off is that a lot of "full fat" drinks have sweeteners as well as sugar."

Same here. Our local pub doesn't even stock any non diet mixers. So a G & T at the local is out .

The problem with artificial sweeteners is that they are said to encourage a sweet tooth, but I wouldn't know that as I loathe the aftertaste (and the after effects)

However, there is a place for them as SpottyTeacakes has pointed out. Also, given your previous eating issues Emmidarling it might be better to stick with the artificial stuff or go cold turkey. Congratulations on your pregnancy BTW.