this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
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Was my initial stance of "never found anything" a hyperbole? Sure. Not much of one though.
But your stance of "there are a hundred studies saying X for every one saying Y, but because there are a small handful saying Y we shouldn't rule Y out" probably isn't the hard scientific truth you think it is. It's basically the same logic as being anti-vax.
And much like being anti-vax, it's examining aspartame in a vacuum, ignoring the fact that it's an alternative product to something that is factually shown to be more harmful, even in the best case scenario.
E.g.: Are vapes bad for you? Sure. Are they worse than cigarettes? Absolutely not. So even though the ideal is to probably use neither, I'd much rather somebody vape.
So this idea that "aspartame has, in a handful of studies (that go against the grain of the majority of studies) sometimes been shown to have negative effects, therefore artificial sweeteners are worse than sugar," is a braindead take.
....?
I think you should scroll up and read my original comment.
Your original comment is, "Artificial sweeteners are arguibly often worse than sugar." Literal copy and paste.
I suppose you could be pedantic and say "arguably" is doing a ton of heavy lifting (the same way that it would be in "vaccines arguably cause autism"), but I hope you'll forgive me for reiterating that it's a braindead take.
And a word often. Your comment re-frames as if I said all are worse, without an argument. That is VERY different from my original point, which was essentially "I understand why governments wants us to intake less random artificial sweeteners along with sugar, so this does not feel very onion-y"
If this is true, wasn’t testfactor’s initial reply agreeing with you? Why did you spend so much time attacking aspartame, the most studied food additive ever?
Because I disagreed with the claim "we have never found anything negative". Literally anything can have negative consequences, even drinking too much water. I never denied it's likely the safest one, along with stevia, but saying there is zero risk, zero negative findings, ectera is just factually, scientifically wrong.
Sorry, I tend to be pedantic.