Believe you me, one of my favorite beverages is a cold glass of sweet tea with a couple packs of artificial sweetener mixed in. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, artificial sweeteners, including aspartame, sucralose and others, likely get a bad rap. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic to humans,” though that product has never been linked to cancer.
That being said, the level of aspartame that must be consumed to reach even the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) approved by the FDA is very high. For perspective, a person weighing 132 pounds would have to consume about 75 packets of aspartame every day to reach the ADI of 50 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day. Or, if you are drinking soda that contains aspartame, a person who weighs 154 pounds would have to drink 9-14 cans each day, just to reach the acceptable intake level.
