Sweet Poison: How the World's Most Popular Artificial Sweetener Is Killing Us--My Story

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Summary: Genetic Engineering is killing us all
Review: Aspartame is nothing but genetic engineering at it's prime, and all for a buck. There is lots of money in GE Read this book about how we are being slowly killed by GE in food production(missing chromosomes)and synthesized nutrients. You will never ingest this stuff again. Good book, go get it!

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Summary: someone who did undergraduate research on aspartame at ucla
Review: Hull bases her anti-aspartame work on her own personal experience with aspartame. Already, red flags should arise when personal cases are regarded as scientific fact. While Hull's website boasts of her Doctorate Degree in Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health, and Certified Nutritionist (CN) degree from the American Health Science University and National Institute of Nutritional Education, one must consider how these truly qualify her to contradict the AMA, FDA, CDC, and numerous highly regarded universities based on mere case studies. Clearly, Hull's monetary motive to sell books is identical to that of H.J. Roberts. But, Hull goes further in the quest to profit from public paranoia in her "Ten Steps to Detoxification." With her questionable professional background and testimonials as her own certification, Hull markets her Detox Program designed to combat radiation, aspartame, pesticides, etc. One may download her program for $25.00 or order an autographed copy for $34.50. The most informative aspect of her entire website is the disclaimer which reveals, "Statements about the product efficacy have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration nor has the product been evaluated to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

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Summary: SAVING LIVES
Review: I WANT TO THANK JANET FOR WRITING THIS BOOK. BY DOING SO, SHE IS SAVING LIVES! PEOPLE NEED TO BE INFORMED ABOUT THE EVILNESS OF THE FOOD INDUSTRY. AND MSG, ASPARTAME/NUTRASWEET ARE ABOUT AS EVIL AS THEY GET MY FRIENDS. IT IS MY MISSION IN LIFE TO INFORM PEOPLE ABOUT THE POISONS THEY ARE INGESTING. I AM THE OWNER OF T SHIRTS AND SWEAT SHIRTS THAT HAVE JANETS WWW.SWEETPOISON.COM WEBSITE ON THEM. I WEAR ONE EVERYTIME I DO MY GROCERY SHOPPING. I ALSO HAND OUT PRINTOUTS FROM HER WEBSITE. I WILL STAND IN THE SODA ISLE FOR SEVERAL HOURS IF I HAVE TO. I HAVE LITERALLY EDUCATED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE SINCE JANURARY OF 2004, AND I WILL NEVER STOP! EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK AND BECOME INFORMED!

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Summary: Sweet Poison
Review: Janet Starr Hall's doctors expected her to die, but she defied them and lived to tell her story in Sweet Poison: How the World's Most Popular Artificial Sweetener is Killing Us--My Story. Rather than suffering from Graves' Disease, a deadly thyroid disease, Hull had been poisoned by the food and soft drinks she had consumed.

A working mother with little time, Hull relied on prepared foods. She counted on diet drinks to help control her weight. She didn't realize how much aspartame (Nutrasweet) she was consuming, and she didn't know until almost too late that it was toxic to her system. After her recovery, she devoted her spare time to researching the history of aspartame in food products. Her book is the result of those years of research.

She "uncovered hundreds of documents contradicting the NutraSweet Company's claim of product safety." She quotes statistics from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) indicating that "aspartame accounts for over 85% of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA." Those reactions include headaches, depression, dizziness, seizures, and weight gain. Several deaths have been reported. There is also evidence that aspartame contributes to birth defects.

Her book details how the FDA first determined that aspartame was unsafe for humans, then later reversed itself. She obtained documents revealing the chemicals that constitute aspartame and how those chemicals behave in the human body.

Sweet Poison is a must-read for anyone consuming food or drinks containing aspartame. At the least, it will open your eyes to what you're putting in your body. It might even save your life.

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Summary: 100% fear mongering - and badly written!
Review: Just finished reading "Sweet Poison: How the World's Most Popular Artificial Sweetener Is Killing Us - My Story" by Janet Starr Hull. It was truly horrible, the worst sort of fear mongering. Worse than I could have even imagined.

First off, Janet is maybe an 8th grade level writer, and on top of that much of the book read like a cheap romance novel. She devotes many largely content-free pages to telling us what is going on inside her relatively empty head. The book often reads like a comedic essay by S. J. Perelman, in which the main character gives the reader many clues that he is a buffoon, but is clearly unaware of it himself.

Her peculiar form of logic is on display in the section where she traces her genetic background. Before the contact with her birth mother, Janet wonders if there might actually be no connection between aspartame and her Grave's Disease. This is maybe 3/4 of the way into the book, after she has laid out what she considers to be iron clad proof of the evils of aspartame. Post contact, where she learned that there is no history of Grave's on her mom's side - but without checking into her real father's side of the family - she jumps back to the conclusion that it was aspartame all along. Inane. With logic like that, how can you trust anything that she writes? Just about had me banging my head against a wall.

In the fine tradition of other self help books, the symptoms she lists for aspartame toxicity range from brain tumors to bedwetting (I'm not kidding) and virtually everything in between. Her evidence is thin and almost entirely anecdotal; and most of her facts are flat-out incorrect. The scientific underpinnings of her argument are weak at best, dazzlingly wrong at worst. After researching this issue on the web, it is clear to me that her negative claims regarding aspartame not only border but enter the area of innuendo and slander.

Rather than convincing me of any bad health effects of aspartame, or the existence of a conspiracy to cover up said bad effects, I instead wonder if this is a metaphorical mortar lobbed at the aspartame industry from the maker or makers of a rival sweetener. Stranger things have happened. I am the last person to be an industry apologist, and can sport a tinfoil hat with the best, but aspartame has been researched to death, and I know of no studies that show that it is dangerous for anyone but those with phenylketonuria (1 in 15,000), hence the mandatory labeling. Drink a beer or fruit juice you will end up with more methanol in your body than from a diet drink. Ingest an egg, a hamburger, or a glass of milk and you will have much more phenylalanine. But Janet says these foods are just fine. It just doesn't follow.

She rags on her poor ex every chance she gets - very tacky. Of course, she is busy being a mom (she beats the mom thing to death) and a Grave's "survivor" and a self proclaimed aspartame investigative reporter and lecturer, and admits that she neglected her marriage through all of this, but their breakup was due to his "distance" - uhh, OK. And towards the end of the book she relates how she became a volunteer fire fighter - absolutely no connection to her aspartame harangue (and, quite frankly, who cares?). There are a lot of these "look what I can do" moments in the book where the author is seems to be angling for a pat on the head or something.

I could go on and on about this book and author. It's hard to believe it took her years to write it. I could bat out something equally feeble in a weekend or two, but it would be a challenge to even approach the blindingly idiotic levels reached within it pages. It's that bad.

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Summary: Some worth while information covered in sloppy writing.
Review: One of my friends has changed her eating habits after reading this book so I thought it might be interesting to find out more about it. I am no doctor or scientist so I can not vouch for the accuacy of the information but even if it is not completely correct do you really want to bet on your health unnecessaraly? I never made it a habit to eat sugar free stuff because I do not like the idea of replacing chemicals for natural ingredients. This book solidified my opinion.
Overall though, I did not really enjoy reading the book. I thought that since it was not wrote by a doctor it might be more interesting and perhaps easier to read but that was not the case. I found the writing style poor and distracting. When she was discusing scientific information it was choppy and skipped around a lot.
So in my opinion, this is not the best book out there but I found the information interesting and important. It is worth checking out from the library.

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Summary: sweet poison
Review: Shorty after going on a high protein low carb diet, I began to experience health problems such as joint pain and severe vertigo. I ran into this book by accident in a used book store in Manhattan and I am so greatful I did. I found many of my symptoms in the book and immediately discontinued my use of all diet products, while continuing my diet. Within a couple of weeks most of my symptoms were gone. I attempted to incorporate some diet soft drinks into my diets shortly after, thinking that perhaps just a little would do no harm. Again, within a few days I was plagued with dizzy spells and general malaise.
I do not know much about bio chemistry, however I do know that my symptoms were depicted in the book and that they ceased whenever I discontinued my use of diet foods and drinks.
I found the book informative, well written and easy to read. I would recommend it to anyone who consumes any diet products.