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You should get rid of the sugary and aspartame filled drinks alltogether. Also fruit juice is bad as it has no fiber anymore and will just make you obese. Sugar based stuff just gives you a "high" and the aspartame stuff is really disputed.

There is really nothing wrong with water or tea. Try especially a nice green tea or some other good chinese flavors.

If you must how about use stevia in low amounts for sweetening. It is also not without issues but time has shown that is ok when not consumed overly.

* You should get rid of [...] aspartame filled drinks alltogether.*

But, why?

Except for a few periods of a few months, when I chose to go off caffeine or limited my intake for other reasons, I've been drinking several liters a day of aspartame-and-caffeine-containing drinks since 1996. I've yet to identify any related effects: my teeth aren't great, but haven't been eaten away by acid; I'm overweight, but less than I have been at times since 1990; I don't find dehydration to be a problem. Some of my friends drink similarly large quantities, and none of them have shown any apparent effects, either. This, of course, is mere anecdote, but surely if there were really a serious problem then there'd be an epidemic of some problem easily traced to aspartame, given that millions of people drink liters per day of diet colas and other drinks?

While I agree completely with what you are saying the one thing we don't know about is long term effects. When I say long term I mean drinking several litres a week consistently from age 15-60.

As I am falling into that category (so far drinking diet soda regularly from 16-32 with no noticeable side effects) I do wonder what, if any, problems may come about in later life due to aspartame intake.

I sigh a bit with relief when I read these articles debunking the claims of how bad this stuff is for you. But the doubt still nags at me that there is something not right about taking in so much of this stuff. But then I have the same doubts about too much sugar intake.

isn't it ironic that someone is being upvoted for warning against aspartame drinks on an article debunking any negative effects of aspartame? If there are no safety concerns from the breakdown and there are no calories in it then could you summarise your reasons for the advice?

The main reasons to avoid sugar from reading I've done in the past are to do with insulin spiking which is indeed a very bad issue, though eating polished rice (white rice), bread etc are all just as bad for that (bread is worse as it also contains sugars). Negative effects on teeth being attributed to sugars are largely false and are more to do with the acidity of the carbonated water used.

I quit drinking soda a few years ago, and instead switched to carbonated mineral water. Recently, I bought a soda stream and make my own instad. Just carbonate tap water, add some concentrated flavour, and there you have something that isn't as boring as plain water. A can of CO2 lasts about a month, and it's so nice not to have to carry all that damn drink home everytime you shop.

Please be careful with the plastic bottle, after some time it will contain alot of bacteria if you don't wash it properly.

Excellent tip, carbonated water with a little flavouring may be a nice alternative.

I'm in the same boat. Right now I drink diet soda with aspartame (max 2 cans per day) but I'm not convinced it is without risk. I try to avoid HFCS as well as limit my sugar intake.

I've done a bit of research on various sweeteners and have been trying to find the "perfect drink" but so far, no luck. I want something fizzy and sweet with caffeine but not sweetened using HFCS, sucralose, aspartame, etc.

I use powdered stevia on my cereal and in my tea. There is a soda out there sweetened with stevia but the cost is prohibitive. I have mostly replaced coffee with hot tea and will drink iced tea once in a while but the hassle is usually not worth it to me. Same with the carbonated water mixed with syrup route. Sparkling water does not taste good on its own.

For now, I guess I'll stick with Diet Sunkist until something better comes along.

I find cinnamon tea (with no actual tea) to be quite tasty.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/health-benefits-cinnamon/

OK this study has some perspective to aspartame converting to formaldehyde.

But what about the excitotoxic effects? I've heard aspartame excites nerve cells in the brain in unusually increased levels which eventually causes the cells to burst and die. How about the truth on that?

I touched a bit on excitotoxins in the article, but decided to leave that for another one if there was enough interest. The major issue is that the biggest proponent of the excitotxin theory is Blaylock (based on some initial ideas from JW Olney). I do not see Blaylock as being at all credible and it was actually during the research for the article that I first stumbled on upon that idea.

By far most people are worried about the formaldehyde and mood/headache effects, so that's what I ended up reducing the article to.

Read the whole article.

Probably not. Human and animal tests have been conducted with enormous doses and no obvious brain damage turned up. It does cause neurological changes, including migraines, in some people, but that is probably because the molecule resembles several neurotransmitters. That's quite common with molecules that resemble neurotransmitters.

Diet coke is almost or just as acidic as regular coke. It will erode your teeth. Unfortunately, definitely not something you can drink all day without any real side-effects.

Neither coke or diet coke will erode your teeth:

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/tooth.asp

(Sorry, I only now saw your response). Of course coke will not erode your teeth overnight, but I never said that. It will cause dental erosion though, irreversible loss of tooth caused mostly by drinking acidic drinks like soda and apple juice. The Snopes article is too optimistic about the protective effects of enamel and saliva. See (the references at) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_erosion

Rooibos tea?

What about cold drinks? Tea is fine, but I would also like a cold drink alternative.

Ice tea?

Actually simply making a large pot of tea and then cool it and put it into the fridge for some time results in a very nice drink.

thanks tomjen3, I may give that a try

You should not drink so much aspartame drinks on such regular basis.

The biggest reason is it is unnatural material that your body is not used to. These people who study the effects are mere scientists. They have no way to know how your genetically evolved body processes things at a detailed level, they can only look at it at one tiny narrow perspective. To be safe its generally best to avoid unnatural food and drinks completely.

The biggest reason is it is unnatural material that your body is not used to.

Irrelevant, our bodies are capable of handling quite a lot.

These people who study the effects are mere scientists.

And the only people qualified to study these effects are then... what? High priests? Quacks? Astrologers?

They have no way to know how your genetically evolved body processes things at a detailed level, they can only look at it at one tiny narrow perspective.

Uh, science has mapped the biochemical pathways of a lot of substances, and science learns more each day.

To be safe its generally best to avoid unnatural food and drinks completely.

How about perfectly natural toxins, then? Should we avoid those? Or are they safe because they are "natural"?

To argue that something is natural or unnatural is a sure sign that you don't really know what you're talking about.

You are missing my point. I specifically said food and drinks. Lets define natural if you find it vague. I call it natural when it is within the normal diet of humans throughout their evolution. I am not talking about natural mercury being good to your health, for example. That was pretty clear.

You can simply answer this, is it in human's natural diet to have lots of aspartame intake each day?

Furthermore, you are overestimating the power of science. If you think humans have the power of understanding human body so well in a mere 200 - 300 years of scientific past, in comparison to the millions of years of evolution complexity, and the complexity of living organism, you are disillusioned by a great magnitude - that would be a godly power if it was true. I am all with science, and great scientists know to value their experiments humbly.

All I am saying is avoid irregular diets for full safety since humans can't know for sure with narrow angled experiments.

I call it natural when it is within the normal diet of humans throughout their evolution.

Most of the food we eat every day today has not been part of the normal diet of humans throughout our evolution.The vegetables, the fruits, and the animals we eat have been bred and refined and genetically modified, and most are less than a few hundred years old.

You can simply answer this, is it in human's natural diet to have lots of aspartame intake each day?

No, but so what? If scientific consensus says that aspartame is perfectly safe to eat, I'll trust that. I avoid aspartame because I think it tastes like crap. That's a perfectly valid reason not to eat it.

"Because it's not natural and I don't trust those so-called scientists that say it's safe" is right up there with astrology and homeopathy.

Hey, quit with the trolling. Unless that comment is serious, in which case there's no helping you :p