Dairy industry petitions FDA to approve aspartame as a hidden, unlabeled additive in milk, yogurt, eggnog and cream.
The integrity of our food supply is poised for another blow with an FDA petition submitted by the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). These industry groups are asking the FDA to alter the definition of “milk” to include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose without listing these additives on the label.
While aimed principally at replacing sugar in flavored milks served to school children, the petition also asks for the right to put hidden artificial sweeteners in a host of dairy products including nonfat dried milk(always added to reduced-fat milks), yogurt, cream, half-and-half, sour cream, eggnog and whipping cream. Truly, no conventional dairy product will be safe if the petitioners get their way.
To read the petition, click here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/02/20/2013-03835/flavored-milk-petition-to-amend-the-standard-of-identity-for-milk-and-17-additional-dairy-products
ACTIONS TO TAKE
- Please file a comment at http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=FDA-2009-P-0147-0012
Even if your comment is very short, we need thousands of people letting the government know that granting this petition would be a disaster to our food supply, especially for children. It’s best to compose your comments before submitting them. Comments 2000 words or less can be copied and pasted into the comment box. Longer comments can be attached as a letter.
For the required field “Organization Name,” please enter “Citizen.”
For “Category,” you can use “Individual Consumer”
Remember to hit “submit comment” when you are done. You should be taken to another screen that includes a confirmation number for your comment, which is how you know your comment was successfully submitted.
The comment period ends on May 21, 2013
- A petition from a consumer group, SumOfUs, has gathered almost 100,000 signers to oppose this move. To sign this petition, go to sumofus.org.
- Please circulate this Action Alert to other email groups.
TALKING POINTS
- Adding hidden artificial sweeteners to dairy products would hurt the dairy industry by further reducing the numbers of people who could safely consume dairy products.
- Adding hidden artificial sweeteners to dairy products would generate severe consumer backlash to all conventional dairy products.
- The FDA lists more than ninety documented symptoms of aspartame toxicity, including abdominal pain, anxiety attacks, brain cancer, breathing difficulties, chronic fatigue, depression, headaches, migraines, dizziness, marked personality changes, memory loss, panic attacks, rapid heartbeat, vision loss and weight gain
- Aspartame releases methanol upon digestion, and methanol poisoning causes headaches, behavioral disturbances and inflammation of the nerves. Another breakdown product of aspartame is poisonous formaldehyde.
- Thousands of adverse reactions to aspartame have been reported to the FDA, mostly concerned with abnormal brain function, brain tumors, epilepsy and Parkinson’s.
- Children’s brains are four times more susceptible to damage from excitotoxins like aspartame than those of adults and react with ADD ADHD type symptoms, impaired learning, depression and nausea.
- Sucralose side effects include rashes, panic attacks, dizziness, numbness, diarrhea, swelling, headaches, cramping and stomach pain.
- People who are sensitive to aspartame can have life-threatening reactions to it.
The proposed regulations restrict our freedom of choice. Industry players who oppose consumers’ ability to choose raw milk are now trying to force consumers to consume artificial additives without their knowledge or consent.
I read it over, and while it’s a crappy idea, I don’t think they are seeking exemption from labelling altogether. There’s a lot of verbage to muddle through, but it seems they are seeking to keep the terms “artificially sweetened” or “reduced calorie” off the front of the package. You know how chocolate milk will have “artificially flavoured” as a subtitle? They don’t want to have to do that with their sweetener.
We need to teach out kids to read ingredient labels all of the time, no matter what. There is aspartame in all sorts of products that aren’t titled “diet.” Yogurt comes to mind. Whether or not this goes through, aspartame has to be listed on the small-print ingredients list for the benefit of people with PKU.
Isn’t it sick how these manufacturers are trying to find a back door for their products back into the school lunch program? Chocolate milk has been taken out of a lot of schools due to the sugar, and plenty of kids won’t drink the white stuff. It will get re-approved and shoved onto trays of kids all across the nation. As it the rBGH wasn’t bad enough.
They want to be able to include aspartame in the product without listing it on the lable or in the ingredients listing. This is wrong! As consumers, we need to make sure the FDA knows that we do not want this. Perhaps they will not listen, but we know they won’t hear if we don’t speak.
Already MSG can be added without listing it on the ingredient label. No wonder so many people have neurological problems. Adding aspartame to milk is not going to improve anything for anyone. 🙁