Questions & Answers about Aspartame

(The main ingredient of Sugar Match)

Aspartame is a low calorie sweetening ingredient. It is made from two building blocks of protein just like those found naturally in many everyday foods such as meat, fish, cheese, eggs and milk. Aspartame is digested to very small quantities of common dietary components and so does not bring anything new to our diet.

Aspartame is a unique sweetener in that its taste profile matches that of sugar; it has no bitter aftertaste. This means that foods and drinks containing aspartame enable people to enjoy the same sweet taste as sugar, but without so many calories.

Aspartame is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar. As a result, only very small quantities are required to ensure an excellent sweet taste. A 330ml can of soft drink sweetened with sugar contains between 100 and 150 Calories, compared to only one or two Calories in a can of soft drink sweetened with aspartame.

Aspartame is the ideal alternative to sugar. It has exceptional sensory, nutritional and safety characteristics which make it of unique value to food and drink manufacturers who want to meet the rising challenge of overweight and obesity. Some of the benefits are:
  • Unique sugar-like taste
  • No bitter aftertaste
  • Made from building blocks of protein
  • Naturally digested and metabolized
  • Low in calories
  • Tooth-friendly
  • Approved by health and regulatory authorities in more than 100 countries
  • Highest acceptable daily intake of all low calorie sweeteners
  • Excellent performance in blends with sugar, other low calorie sweeteners and flavors
  • Suitable for use in a wide range of product categories
  • Very low environmental impact

Aspartame is used in thousands of products. It can be found in a wide variety of soft drinks, hot and cold beverages, table-top sweeteners, confectionery, desserts, dairy products and medicines.

Aspartame has a history of over 40 years use and is one of the most thoroughly tested ingredients in our food supply. It has been approved by health and regulatory authorities in over 100 countries. Numerous respected organizations, including The Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union's Scientific Committee for Food (SCF), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have approved the use of aspartame in food and drinks.
Aspartame is safe for the general population, including pregnant women and nursing mothers, children, diabetics and slimmers.

The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) is the amount that can be consumed daily from any food for life and is set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of aspartame is 40 mg / kg of body weight, which is equivalent to 80 bags of Sugar Match (2 Spoons) or 160 bags of Sugar Match (1 spoon) per day.
It is also equivalent to consuming 40 packs of low-calorie food drinks (diet) consumed daily by a person weighing approximately 70 kg, or the equivalent of 40 cups of tea or coffee or any sweet drink, equivalent to 2 tablespoons of sugar match per day. It is worth noting that the most people who consume aspartame consume it at an average Less than 10% of the daily allowance.

Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid (that is, an amino acid which our bodies cannot make and which we must obtain from our diet). It is also one of the amino acids, which are used to make aspartame. Phenylalanine is found in all protein-containing foods including milk, cheese, eggs, meat and fish.
Products which contain aspartame have a label which says 'Contains a source of phenylalanine'. This label is there to help people with a rare inherited genetic disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU). These people cannot metabolize phenylalanine from any source and need to control their intake of this amino acid. The disorder affects approximately 1 in 10,000, and is identified by screening shortly after birth.

AMethanol is a natural and harmless by-product of human metabolism and of the digestion of many commonly consumed foods. Traces of methanol also occur naturally in our blood, in our saliva, and on our breath. The methanol produced when aspartame is digested is identical to that which is provided in larger amounts from fruits, vegetables and their juices. A glass of tomato juice provides about six times more methanol than the same volume of an aspartame-sweetened soft drink.
The small amount of methanol produced by foods in a normal diet is safe. A person would have to drink an impossible amount (between about 240 and 600 litres of an aspartame-sweetened soft drink at one sitting) to reach a toxic level.

Eating aspartame provides maximum safety for diabetics because it is sweetened without adding any calories or increasing blood sugar, and therefore it gives diabetics the opportunity to choose between many foods and drinks while enjoying many foods that taste good. Therefore, about 90% of diabetics in the world use the products. Sweetened with aspartame. Therefore, the American Diabetes Association approves aspartame as an approved sugar substitute and considers it an integral part of any diabetic diet.

Eating aspartame is completely safe for pregnant women and their fetuses, according to what was issued by the Scientific Affairs Council of the American Medical Authority, the American Academy of Pediatric Nutrition and the American Nutrition Authority, as it is digested in the body like any of the normal diets that pregnant women eat. And because it is very important during pregnancy to obtain the required calories from a healthy, balanced diet that does not cause any abnormal increase in weight, foods and drinks sweetened with aspartame are considered a necessary factor in satisfying the desire of pregnant women to eat sweets without adding calories.

Health experts agreed that proper food and exercise are the keys to a healthier life and to reduce the increase in the spread of chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. The World Health Organization has also recommended many nutritional guidelines, and one of these recommendations is to reduce added sugar in food and beverages. Therefore, aspartame as a sweetener is considered a way to reduce and reduce calories in food and beverages while maintaining the same natural taste, which helps millions of people reach healthy diets. For example, replacing 2 tablespoons of sugar three times a day with a zero-calorie sweetener provides about 100 calories per day.

More than 250 million people around the world use calorie-free sweeteners as part of their weight loss diet, as they enable the consumer to lose weight and stabilize it and reduce the risks associated with obesity because the main key to reducing weight is to burn more calories than you consume by increasing activity muscle, consuming fewer calories, or both. Therefore, calorie-free sweeteners such as aspartame provide a means to control calories, and researchers at Harvard Medical University have concluded that aspartame is an essential and important component of any weight loss regimen that includes balanced diet, exercise, and changing inherited eating habits.

All sugar substitutes containing aspartame can be used in many recipes, as aspartame can withstand temperatures up to 120 degrees Celsius and is therefore used with hot drinks (which cannot exceed 100 degrees Celsius, which is the boiling point). Aspartame is included in low-calorie dairy products pasteurized by (UHT) method, which are treated at very high temperatures.
Some recipes that need heating for a long time or need baking may lose part of their sweetness and this does not constitute any concern about their safety, but simply the product will not have the desired sweetness, so aspartame can be added in such recipes after the heating process is completed to maintain the desired degree of sweetness.