Aquaponics USA/World
August 2015 Newsletter
#20
Table of Contents
Artificial Sweeteners are Toxic Chemical Brews
What is Aspartame?
Enter Monsanto!
The Confusing World of Artificial Sweeteners!
Do Artificial Sweeteners really aide in weight loss?
There's Sill More To Share. Come back in September for Part 6 of Obesity in America.
What's Happening in our Greenhouse?
Algae growing in the Trough!
Tilapia eat Algae!
Go to our Education Tab to take our Aquaponics 101 Course for FREE!
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At this point, the word is out, Grace is a Food Activist who is doing her best to create more Food Activists because if we sit around and do nothing, we'll all die sooner and lead lives of sickness with Big Pharma's pills flooding our cupboards. 
A Word from our Editor, Grace Sylke
The extensiveness of this Series on Obesity in America is way beyond what we imagined when we decided to tackle this topic; and it looks like it's going to go on for a full half year as Part 6 will be coming in September. 

What we're realizing as we research each of these topics is when it comes to food politics, we are not the land of the Free. 

We Americans have been subjugated to the interests and profits of Big Food; and a Food Revolution is what is being called for. 
Get Links to all of our 2014 Newsletters from our December 2014 Edition. This is also the Newsletter where Obesity in America, Part 1 Starts!
Here they are all in one place. Our fist year of Newsletters full of incredible information about Aquaponics and our Food System.
Here's our July Newsletter in case you missed it. It's Part 4 of the Obesity in America Series.
Don't miss this important information about GMO's. How they've invaded our Food System, why they're bad for us and what we can do to fight against the House of Representatives who just voted to Ban States from demanding labels on GMO's.
Here's our June Newsletter, in case you missed it. It's Part 3 of the Obesity in America Series.
Don't miss this important information about how our Fast Food Nation is ruining our health and our longevity. Read about the history of Fast Food, where it's been and where it's going.
Here's our May Newsletter, in case you missed it. It's Part 2 of the Obesity in America Series.
Don't miss this important information about High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS is in just about everything that's processed and packaged. Beware, it's as bad as alcohol for our livers.
Here's our April Newsletter in case you missed it.
We declared April to be Food Revolution Month in honor of the Annual Food Revolution Summit sponsored by John and Ocean Robbins. Then we gave the history of Earth Day in honor of that day, April 22, 2015.
Here's our March Newsletter in case you missed it.
To honor National Nutrition Month, we look at all of the Food related Programs that we are running in the U.S. including who these programs serve and the costs of those services.
Here's our February Newsletter in case it was missed.
This Newsletter is all about our enclosed growing and fish raising areas, which include our Growroom and our Fishroom featuring our latest evolution in Seed Germination, the SIT (Seed Incubation Table).
Here's our January Newsletter in case you missed it.
This Newsletter features our latest change in the Greenhouse, and it's a real innovation. Our retired Aerospace Engineer turned Aquaponics System Designer, Oliver Duffy, just keeps improving his designs. See what he's up to now in this informative Newsletter.
Be sure to get the Ap for the Aquaponics Digest Magazine!
Catch all 4 Parts of Grace's Series on the FOOD REVOLUTION! To read her Food Revolution Series in Newsletter format, click on the December Newsletter and it will guide you to Food Revolution Parts 1-4.

The Aquaponics Digest Magazine features an advanced digital magazine and publishing and marketing platform for the 21st century; and it's just getting started.

Click on the Link to learn how/where to get the Ap for iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices.

Aquaponics Digest Magazine is a must read for any and all Aquaponics enthusiasts.


It features articles by the field's leaders like:
Sylvia Bernstein
Aaron Woolf
Glenn Martinez
and our own
Grace Sylke
Check Out our TV Channel
We have several Videos on How To Do Aquaponics including two on installing our Food Forever Growing Systems in two schools in Tucson, AZ.
Aquaponics 101 is here and people are loving it! Get it Free on our Aquaponics USA site under the Education Menu Bar.
This is some of the best information you'll ever find about Aquaponics and How to build an Aquaponics System. It's on our website complete with Quizzes and a Certificate of Completion.
Be Sure to Visit our Pinterest Wall
It's full of Original Art by our Editor, Grace Sylke, including the new Pixton Cartoons designs she created for this Newsletter.
Watch for the new Food Documentary THE NEED TO GROW
It's still in production but coming out soon. It features famous food activists like we discuss in this Newsletter including Jeffery Smith and Vandana Shiva and we're in it. Click the Link to Check out the Trailer.
We now have QUICK KITS!
And they're all about saving money on one of our Food Forever Growing Systems and saving money to get it shipped!

"You Build A Little,
We Ship A Lot For Less!"
Obesity in America Part 5
What's in those Zero and Low Calorie Sweeteners? 

Dear Subscriber:

Our original plan was to talk about Aspertame, the substitute sugar sweetener that's been in the American food market since 1981; but we soon realized that we couldn't just talk about Aspertame without talking about the nine other substitute sugar food additives including Acesulfame K, Advantame, Neotame, Saccharin, Stevia and Sucralose and the new sugar alcohols like Mannitol, Sorbitol and Xylitol that are all flooding the market with their uniquely named brands of sweeteners.

If you're not completely tongue tied after reading the above paragraph, you're an advanced scientist because those words that describe artificial sugars are scary and confusing. Not surprising when you realize that many of them are not food at all. They are chemical compounds. The word is still out until Part 6 regarding those new sugar alcohols like Mannitol, Sorbitol, Xylitol and Stevia, which is a plant extract.

Sometimes, we think these scientific food words are made to be mind-boggling just so we all give up trying to figure them out, just eat the franken food and shut up. Well, we're not eating it and we're not shutting up. In fact, we're yelling the truth about these artificial sugars from the roof tops. (If you're not interested in knowing what's in them, scroll down to the last 3 sections of this Newsletter, which are all about our Aquaponics Greenhouse) 

The substitute sugar market is like the wild, wild west during the gold rush with new products continuously riding in on the next promise to be the healthiest no calorie or low calorie answer to the American people's addiction to sweetness.

This Newsletter takes a dive into the underworld of FDA approved sugar substitutes and, unfortunately, we're going to have to go deep into the weeds of chemical compounds and lethal combinations of chemical compounds so please bear with us as this could save your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Let's start with an early sugar substitute, one that's been in our food since 1981--Aspertame. 

 




















These are just a few of the products that contain Aspertame. So let's take a look at what this food additive really is, who created it, who has owned it and branded it, who owns it now and who convinced the FDA to approve it as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe).

Let's start with the origins of Aspertame. Where did this food additive come from? Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965 by James M. Schlatter. Mr. Schlatter was a chemist who was working for G.D. Searle & Company. He created Aspartame as an intermediate step in his goal of coming up with an anti-ulcer drug. He accidentally discovered its sweet taste when he licked his finger to pick up a piece of paper, which had become contaminated with it. (Information taken from Wikipedia Aspartame page)

The Long Convoluted Road Toward the Approval of Aspertame went like this:
The FDA got into the picture in 1975 when a task force team reported "serious deficiencies in Searle's operations and practices". Then In 1979, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) turned the FDA decision around and "concluded, since many problems with the Aspartame studies were minor and did not affect the conclusions, the studies could be used to assess Aspartame's safety". In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between Aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded Aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving Aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats." (Quotes taken from Wikipedia page on Aspertame.)

G.D. Searle was a wholly owned trademark of Pfizer, which is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. Searle  started manufacturing Aspertame for other purposes. They named it and the company manufacturing it NutraSweet. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve it as a food additive. 

Then came the Political Pandering:
Donald Rumsfeld served as CEO, and then as President, of Searle between 1977 and 1985. In November of 1980, President Ronald Reagan was elected into office and Donald Rumsfeld saw his opportunity to change the FDA vote against Aspartame that was now branded as NutraSweet. "One week before the inauguration, he addressed a meeting of the Searle sales force. According to one of those present, he declared that he would 'call in his markers' and 'no matter what,' he would see to it that aspartame 'would be approved' by the end of 1981." Rumsfeld kept his word as he had lots of friends within the Reagan administration; but "most important of all, his right hand man at Searle, was on Reagan's transition team." In that same month, November of 1980, Jere Goyan, the FDA Commissioner who had not approved Aspertame, was fired and "told to write a letter of resignation and to vacate his office on the day of the inauguration". (Quotes taken from the Book, Rumsfeld: His Rish, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy)

"On January 21, 1981, one day after Reagan had taken the oath of office, Searle petitioned to have an inquiry panel's [the PBOI] verdict overruled." By April of 1981, the new administration had chosen its own FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes. "The FDA set up a Board of Inquiry of the best scientists they had to offer who said Aspartame is not safe and causes brain tumors, and the petition for approval is hereby revoked. The new FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, over-ruled that Board of Inquiry and then went to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer [of Aspartame], Burson-Marstellar, rumored at $1000 a day, and has refused to talk to the press ever since." (Quote taken from News With Views Online website article entitled "Donald Rumsfeld and Aspartame"

The way was cleared for Aspartame to be put into dry products, and a new brand, Equal, launched in the United States. Equal quickly became accepted in the U.S. market as a way to enjoy sweetened beverages without the calories of sugar". (Quote taken from the Equal website page About Equal)

The Legal Battles Begin:
"October 15, 1982-- The FDA announces that Searle has filed a petition that Aspartame be approved as a sweetener in carbonated beverages and other liquids.
 
July 1, 1983-- The National Soft Drink Association (NSDA) urges the FDA to delay approval of Aspartame for carbonated beverages pending further testing because Aspartame is very unstable in liquid form. When liquid Aspartame is stored in temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, it breaks down into DKP and formaldehyde, both of which are known toxins.
 
July 8, 1983-- The National Soft Drink Association drafts an objection to the final ruling which permits the use of Aspartame in carbonated beverages and syrup bases and requests a hearing on the objections. The association says that Searle has not provided responsible certainty that Aspartame and its' degradation products are safe for use in soft drinks.
 
August 8, 1983-- Consumer Attorney, Jim Turner of the Community Nutrition Institute and Dr. Woodrow Monte, Arizona State University's Director of Food Science and Nutritional Laboratories, file suit with the FDA objecting to Aspartame's approval based on unresolved safety issues.
 
September, 1983-- FDA Commissioner Hayes resigns under a cloud of controversy about his taking unauthorized rides aboard a General Foods jet. (General foods is a major customer of NutraSweet) Burson-Marsteller, Searle's public relations firm (which also represented several of NutraSweet's major users), immediately hires Hayes as senior scientific consultant.
 
Fall 1983-- The first carbonated beverages containing Aspartame are sold for public consumption. ["This tripled the $200 million Aspartame worldwide market."] (Quote taken from the Book, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy)
 
November 1984--Center for Disease Control (CDC) "Evaluation of consumer complaints related to Aspartame use." (summary by B. Mullarkey)
 
November 3, 1987-- U.S. hearing, 'NutraSweet: Health and Safety Concerns,' Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Senator Howard Metzenbaum, chairman."(Quote taken from Rense Online website article entitled, "How Aspartame Became Legal-The Timeline")

Obviously, nothing happened as a result of that November hearing on Aspartame; and by 1996, "it was approved for use in all foods and beverages, including products such as syrups, salad dressings and certain snack foods where prior approval had not yet been obtained". (Quote taken from article entitled "The History of Artificial Sweeteners" on the monsanto.unveiled.info website)

There was one last Herculean effort to stop Aspartame in at least one state--Arizona where "Dr. Woodrow Monte, a food scientist at Arizona State University, who argued that Aspartame in diet sodas exposed to hot conditions, such as any Arizona summer's day, would degrade into methyl alcohol, a toxic substance capable of inducing everything from dizziness to seizures and amnesia. Searle family checkbooks again pressed into service delivering campaign contributions to relevant Arizona politicians. In no time at all, a law glided through the [U.S.] legislature forbidding any state restrictions of a federally approved food additive. Displaying a fine sense of irony, the measure's sponsors labeled it as a toxic waste bill." (Quote taken from the Book, Rumsfeld: His Rish, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy)

We can't help but see the similarities between what happened in our House of Representatives just last month when they banned States from demanding GMO's be labeled; and it was clear that representatives who sponsored and pushed that Bill ironically called the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015" were the very ones who received the most in campaign donations from Big Food. We wrote about this travesty in our July Newsletter. But this is not the end of the Rumsfeld/Searle Aspartame story. 

Rumsfeld had one more big move to make once he got Aspartame freely on the market in all categories possible. He needed to sell the entire Searle company; and you'll never guess who bought it.
Enter MONSANTO!
From 1985 to 1999, Monsanto owned the chemical sweeteners branded as NutraSweet and Equal after purchasing G.D. Searle, LLC. And now it could take artificial sweeteners to a whole new level because it had cornered the market on two of the chemicals in the most popular artificial sweeteners out there, Saccharin and Aspartame. 

The Monsanto Company was originally formed to produce the artificial sweetener, Saccharin. On November 30, 1901 with a mere $5,000, "John Francisco Queeny founded Monsanto Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri with the goal of  producing Saccharin for Coca-Cola". (Quote taken from the GMO-Awareness website article entitled "Monsanto's Dirty Dozen")

Here is the Saccharin story:
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener discovered. Just like Aspartame, "it was accidentally found in 1879 by a chemistry research assistant, Constantine Fahlberg.  Fahlberg was working on new food preservatives when he accidentally spilled some of the compound he had synthesized on his hands.  When he went back home that night and ate his dinner, he noticed the intense sweetness of the compound.  He named the compound Saccharin after the Latin, Saccharum, which means sugar.  He went back to the lab, tracing his steps until he was able to synthesize Saccharin in bulk." In 1884, Fahlberg got his U.S. Patent to manufacture Saccharin. In that era, U.S. Patents were granted for 17 years with no extentions, so exactly to the year that Fahlberg's Saccharin Patent expired, Monsanto was born to produce Saccharin for the Coca-Cola company. (Quote taken from article entitled  "The History of Artificial Sweeteners" on the monsanto.unveiled.info website. Information regarding Patents taken from the United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Term Calculator page) 

Except for filling orders for the Coca Cola company, the newly formed Monsanto company had to wait patiently until World War I broke out  in July of 1914 before Saccharin could take the world by storm. The war started the rationing of sugar so it could be sent to the troops. "When World War II hit, sugar rationing started again, leading to another significant increase in Saccharin use and a proliferation of products that used the sweetener.  Saccharin use continued upward during World War II and afterwards." (Quote taken from article entitled  "The History of Artificial Sweeteners" on the monsanto.unveiled.info website) 

Then Comes The Attempts to Ban Saccharin, the Politics and the Love/Hate Relationship with this Artificial Sweetener.
"Starting in 1907, the  USFDA began investigating Saccharin as a direct result of the  Pure Food and Drug ActHarvey Wiley, then the director of the bureau of chemistry for the USFDA, viewed it as an illegal substitution of a valuable ingredient (sugar) by a less valuable ingredient. In a clash that had career consequences, Wiley told President  Theodore Roosevelt, 'Everyone who ate that sweet corn was deceived. He thought he was eating sugar, when in point of fact he was eating a coal tar product totally devoid of food value and extremely injurious to health.' But Roosevelt himself was a consumer of Saccharin, and, in a heated exchange, Roosevelt angrily answered Wiley by stating, 'Anybody who says Saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.' The episode proved the undoing of Wiley's career."  (Quote taken from Wikipedia page on Saccharin)

"In 1911, the Food Inspection Decision 135 stated that foods containing Saccharin were adulterated. However, in 1912, Food Inspection Decision 142 stated that Saccharin was not harmful." During this one-year timeline, the U.S. Food Inspectors appeared to be quite schizophrenic when it came to Saccharin. (Quote taken from  Wikipedia page on Saccharin)

In 1945, the Cumberland Packing company was born and started it's company producing tea bags. By the early 60's, "using modified tea bagging equipment, the company was the first to package sugar in packets, breaking tradition with less-sanitary sugar bowls that were common on restaurant tabletops at the time." The patent for Saccharin had long ago expired, so Cumberland was free to invent one of the most popular artificial Saccharin sweeteners on the market today, Sweet'N Low, which they packaged in this new and convenient way. (Quote taken from Wikipedia page on Cumberland Packing Corporation)
 
It wasn't until the 1960's that studies with lab rats suggested that Saccharin could cause bladder cancer; and the FDA made a move to limit its use. At the time, Saccharin was the only artificial sweetener on the market, so there was a backlash from the consumers who were already hooked. 

"Its use was banned in Canada in 1977 after the Canadian Health Protection Branch Study was completed on Charles River Sprague-Dawley rat specimens concluding lymphoma in the blood cells". (Quote taken from Wikipedia page on Saccharin Study and Labeling Act of 1977)  

The FDA also considered banning Saccharin in 1977 based on this animal research.  However, Congress placed a moratorium on the ban to allow for more research on it's safety. This moratorium was extended seven times due to continued consumer demand." Instead of a ban on Saccharin, the Saccharin Study and Labeling Act of 1977 was passed causing Saccharin to carry a warning label. 

The FDA withdrew the ban in 1991, but the moratorium stayed in effect until the year 2002. Products with Saccharin carried the warning label that said it had caused cancer in laboratory animals until that label was removed in 2000. (Quote taken from article entitled "The History of Artificial Sweeteners" on the monsanto.unveiled.info website) 

In 2001, Saccharin was delisted from the California list of chemicals known to cause cancer. It originally got on that list as a result of Proposition 65, which was passed in California in November of 1986 with the aim of listing all carcinogens.
 
Back to Monsanto and Aspartame:
In 2000, Monsanto sold its chemical artificial sweetener company called NutraSweet. By this time, NutraSweet's patents on Aspartame were about to expire so the NutraSweet company had aquired a wide range of patents related to a new chemical they developed which mimics Aspartame but doesn't require the pesky label that must be placed on all Aspartame products (to be explained below). This new chemical is called Neotame (neo, as in new). It's the new Aspartame.

Monsanto sold their NutraSweet company to a private equity firm called J.W. Childs Equity Partners, which also owns the Sunny Delight Beverages company, Fitness Quest, Brookstone, Mattress Firm and several other companies. (Information taken from the Natural News website article entitled "Equity company that helped buy NutraSweet from Monsanto also funds Sunny Delight, Fitness Quest and Mattress Firm")

Then J.W. Childs formed a new company called Merisant from the Monsanto Company's NutraSweet tabletop sweetener business. It's amazing how convoluted the trail became.

Presently, Merisant is straddling two worlds of the sweetener business--sweeteners accepted as healthy, like stevia (more about stevia in Part 6) derived products and Aspartame and Neotame sweeteners, that are not considered to be healthy. In 2009, Merisant Worldwide filed for bankruptcy to restructure and invest in its new stevia-derived sweetener, PureVia, which emerged the following year. In addition to PureVia, Equal and Canderel, Merisant markets its products under 18 other brands in over 90 countries. Canderel is the brand name of an Aspartame sweetener that was first marketed in France in 1979. 

It could be said that our worldwide sugar addiction is what created Monsanto in the first place, fueled its growth and launched it into becoming the monster it is today. If we look at it that way, we the consumer, who is so in need of that sugar taste and rush, are somewhat culpable in our own demise. 
The Confusing World of Artificial Sweeteners!
The demand for no calorie and low calorie sweeteners is huge and the market is now full of products to meet that demand. The aim of this segment is to inform you of what's in the more popular brands and which ones to avoid like the plague. So once again let's start with the artificial sweeteners that contain Aspartame.

The artificial sweetener products containing Aspartame are NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure and Canderel. These are only the products which require you to administer the poison yourself. You put them into your coffee, tea or other drinks you want to sweeten. Aspartame is also put in lots of off-the-shelf products for you as you can see from the picture above with diet sodas, cookies, candy, yogurt and many other processed packaged goods. Deep Roots is a website that lists 50 plus Aspartame containing products to avoid. So why is Aspartame bad for you?

Known in Europe by the E number, E951, Aspartame is made up of three chemicals: aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol. It is an Excitotoxin. Excitotoxins, like aspartic acid, literally stimulate neurons to death causing brain damage of varying degrees. These are chemicals! There's no food here. Was the human body made to ingest toxic chemicals? Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. Big Food loves it because it costs less to sweeten their products due to the intensity of the sweetness. Here's one description of how it's made:

"The deadly artificial sweetener, NutraSweet, is produced by feeding fossil fuel oil to ecoli that are genetically modified to defecate Aspartame as feces." (Quote taken from The Gaia Reports article entitled "How Sweet It is! Monsanto Sells Their Aspartame Business to Pfizer")

And here's another mind blowing quote about Aspartame from Dr. Mercola: "Aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!" We're speechless. (Quote taken from Childhood Obesity News website article entitled "The Unnatural Sweetener")

The list of possible side effects from ingesting Aspartame is too long to include here. Just click this link to read it for yourself. Or read the book by Dr. Russell L. Blaylock called "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills". Dr. Blaylock says this in his introduction: "Suppose evidence was presented to you strongly suggesting that the artificial sweetener in your diet soda may cause brain tumors to develop, and that the number of brain tumors reported since the wide-spread introduction of this artificial sweetener has risen dramatically?" (Quote taken from Dr. Blaylock's book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills")


So why does Aspartame have to be labeled? We'll make this as brief as possible. Some people are born with a condition called PKU. "The absence or deficiency of certain enzymes responsible for processing the essential amino acid phenylalanine is the primary characteristic of PKU in human beings. With normal enzymatic activity, the body converts phenylalanine to the amino acid tyrosine, which is then utilized by the body. However, when the phenylalanine hydroxylase enzyme is absent or deficient, phenylalanine abnormally accumulates in the blood and becomes toxic, typically lethal, to brain tissue." 

People with this condition are subject to mental retardation if their diets aren't carefully monitored and they are called "Phenylketonurics". Treatment for PKU consists of a carefully controlled and restricted diet started during the first days or weeks of life. One of the main things to avoid is Aspartame because it contains phenylalanine, which is exactly what PKU people need to avoid. That's why diet soda labels carry the long, difficult to read warning: Phenylketonurics-contains phenylalanine. If you see this warning on a label, you know Aspartame is in the product. (Quotes taken from the Dr. Janet Starr Hull's website article entitled "Warning Phenylketonurics: Contains L-Phenylalanine")

Not true with the new Aspartame, called Neotame and its brand Newtame. Known in Europe by the E number, E961, Neotame is considered even more toxic than its Aspartame brother. Neotame is 7,000 to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar and was based on the Aspartame formula. "Neotame is essentially aspartame plus 3,3-dimethylbutyraldehyde--the presence of which ends up reducing the production of phenylalanine, which allegedly makes it safe for those suffering from phenylketonuria (PKU). That means Neotame does not have the identifying warning label on it. That's right. Neotame is NOT labeled and "the FDA has decided that the public shouldn't be informed when Neotame is included in any product". (Quote taken from Gaia Health Online article entitled "Neotame, New Neurotoxic Sweetener")

Right now it looks like Neotame is being added in many processed and packaged products just like Aspartame but without a label. It's also being used in animal feed to replace the more expensive molasses. That animal food product is called Sweetos. It seems that the only way to avoid Neotame is to avoid processed foods altogether. The Merisant company, which now owns NutraSweet has ear marked India as the first country that will be honored with Neotame in self administering poison packets.

"Unfortunately, it may actually be an even more potent and dangerous neurotoxin, immunotoxin and excitotoxin than aspartame. Neotame is like Aspartame on steroids, so while you want to avoid both, Neotame appears to be more toxic. One way of avoiding all artificial sweeteners is to purchase foods bearing the USDA 100% Organic label." (Quotes taken from Dr. Mercola's website article entitled "Neotame: Is This More-Dangerous-than-Aspartame Sweetener Hiding in Your Food?")

Saccharin is also called Ortho-sulfobenzoic Acid Imide. There's that word, "acid" again. Saccharin is about 200-700 times sweeter then sugar and has a slightly bitter and metallic after taste. It's dominant artificial sweetener brand that is self administered is Sweet'N Low. 
There have been over 500 Billion  Sweet'N Low packets produced. "In toxicological studies, Saccharin has been shown to induce a greater incidence of bladder cancer in rats that have been fed the  sweetener at high levels." These studies caused Canada to ban its use in 1977. (Quote taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica website page on "Saccharin, Chemical Compound") Oh, and YES--it's a Chemical Compound, not a food.

Here's a quick summary of what we've presented so far:

                   AVOID:

ASPARTAME: Watch for the warning to Phenylketonurics (PKU) people to identify its presence in products like: NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure and Canderel and lots of other processed, packaged foods.

NEOTAME: So far Newtame is the brand to avoid but more are coming.

SACCHARIN: An entire country, Canada, banned it after studies on rats concluded there was lymphoma in the blood cells. Don't use Sweet'N Low.


These dangerous products are being marketed as aides to weight loss; but it very well may be that they are actually fueling the Obesity Epidemic!

A group of scientists who decided to test this assumption [that AS (Artificial Sweeteners) assist in weight loss] assessed long-term weight change among participants in the San Antonio Heart Study who reported using these products, compared with those who did not; and they came up with a startling conclusion: "We observed a classic, positive dose-response relationship between AS beverage consumption and long-term weight gain."  The last two words in that statement are "weight gain" NOT "weight loss". These researchers went on to say:

"These results, together with findings of increased lymphoma and leukemia in young rodents exposed to Aspartame, should be carefully considered when policy recommendations to deter the development of obesity in children and adolescents are being formulated-particularly those recommending increased AS consumption." (Quotes taken from the World Natural Health Organization website article entitled "Fueling the Obesity Epidemic? Artificially Sweetened Beverage Use and Long-term Weight Gain")

In July and August, we've covered two of the culprits in this cartoon depiction of Big Food's underground cesspool of poisons--Aspartame and GMO's. But we're still working on the artificial sweetener group (Aspartame being just one of them), and there are several to still look at including Sucralose, Acsulfame-K, Advantame and any others that show their ugly heads. 

Those are the bad guys; but there's an emerging market of good sweeteners, too, like the stevia-derived products and then there's the new sugar alcohols (we'll let you know if they're good or bad). 

And we haven't addressed MSG yet either, so it looks like there's going to be a Part 6 of this Series on Obesity in America. 

In closing this section of the Newsletter, let's just look back to our July Newsletter, which was all about GMO's. Suddenly it makes sense that Monsanto actually believes they can get away with not labeling GMO's in the U.S. They've gotten away with it before. They got Aspartame approved in all products in spite of the push back for so many years. They got Neotame approveded without any labels. Through revolving door policies, they have positioned themselves within the FDA in such a way that they appear to be and feel impervious to the needs, wants and health concerns of the people of America. Right now in our country, we, the people, are Big Food's subjects. There is no Food Freedom in the U.S; and that's a really sad state of affairs. But help is coming!
Watch for this up-coming List of all the great angelic ones who have created websites that are out there to help us figure this all out and get one step ahead of the Sharks in our Food System.
So What's Growing in our Greenhouse?
Here comes another Lettuce Wall! This one is demonstrating staged growing. Notice the middle ducts have younger plants than the first ducts. That's because they were placed in their ducts about 3 weeks after the first and last group. This is going to help us with the harvesting. 

In the past, we planted everything at the same time so everything needed to be harvested all at once. We found it difficult to use all those vegetables that came out at the same time. Now, we're going to have an easier time dealing with the big question of "What are we going to do with all this lettuce?"
What's the Lettuce Wall draining into?
In building our 80ยบ Vertical System, we first built this trough, which serves to catch and recirculate all the water flowing through the ducts that make up the lettuce wall. But recently, we ran into a big algae problem as algae started accumulating in the trough. 

We originally decided to keep all of our fish in their tanks in the fishroom; but once this algae problem bloomed, we needed to rethink that decision. 
Tilapia are great pond (in our case, Trough) cleaners!
We sell live Tilapia Fingerlings on our website; and some people buy them for the expressed purpose of cleaning their ponds that are overgrown with algae. So to solve our algae problem, we went fishing in one of our 120 gallon tanks and pulled up 3 of these guys to place in the trough in the Greenhouse.

It was amazing how quickly they did that trough cleaning job. No more algae in the trough. So every now and then, we'll be placing a threesome of Tilapia in our Greenhouse trough and give them a nice change of scenery.
Don't miss our Aquaponics 101 Tutorial!
You'll learn everything you need to know about how to build or purchase and run a Deep Media Grow Bed Aquaponics System. This is a 7 Part Tutorial complete with Quizzes and a Completion Certificate. And it's FREE. Just pull down the Education Tab on our Home Page. This Course offers some of the most detailed and accurate information available about Aquaponics on the internet.
It really is time for a FOOD REVOLUTION in America; and learning Aquaponics is a big part of taking a stand for REAL Food. Be sure to check out our Aquaponics USA website and access our 7-Part Tutorial on Aquaponics complete with Quizzes and a Certificate of Completion all for Free if you really want to learn how to be an Aquaponics farmer.

Please FORWARD this email to your colleagues, friends and family who need to become aware of the dangers of toxic Artificial Sweeteners. We can't make the changes we need to make without first understanding why the changes are so important. We can save lives with this information.

Thank You for following our Newsletters. We so appreciate your interest in our two cutting edge Aquaponics Companies, Aquaponics USA and Aquaponics Wold, LLC. We'll continue to bring you important information about Aquaponics, our Food and our Food System, which, right now, is broken and has turned us into subjects of Big Food.

Please help us turn the tables around so we can declare our Food Freedom again and become the healthiest country on the planet instead of the sickest.

Sustainably,

Aquaponics USA/World
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