Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Put aside the fact that it's dangerous, can cause cancer, blindness and what not.
Is it vegan?
I've always thought aspartame was artificially created in a laboratory using chemicals of some sort, but just now, a friend told me she knows a guy who doesn't eat it because it has animal products in it. She said she wasn't sure if he was right, but that I might want to search around it a bit.

I don't consume that much aspartame, but I do love some sugar free pastilles/breath mints like Läkerol. I'm hooked, and it's the closest thing I get to gelatin free "candy".

Please tell me I can continue eating them!

i got this after a work out



which contains aspartame, so i'd like to know too, if i can continue to make my shake!

yeah, it's man made. the person you talked to probably thinks that because it's made from amino acids that it comes from an animal...or something. or maybe they don't eat it because i think the company that makes it is owned by Monsanto.

I don't think it has animal products in it, but almost everything that has aspartame in it also has a warning that large doses of it cause cancer in lab rats. Maybe the "lab rats" bit is what makes it not vegan?

I mean, obviously that would make it not vegan, but the "maybe" comes from the fact that it may have been a one-time study and/or not linked to the people who produce the aspartame.

I'm just guessing here.

If I remember correctly it can be processed with enzymes from pig kidneys?

Yeah, I thought the problem was in the processing, that it used pig enzymes. I think there was a thread about it on the old ppk, but I don't remember what the final conclusion was or if this was verified anywhere. Gave me one more excuse to kick diet pop, though.

Wow I had no idea about this. Does it mean that diet soda isn't vegan? Or do not all diet sodas use aspartame?

I remember the thread, and I remember the one person who knows anything about science concluding that it was more vegan than sugar and less vegan than having a waiter with leather boots serve you salad. I remember the important stuff.

This is the original thread -

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... =firefox-a



Here's page 2 - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... =firefox-a

The Vegan Society apparently counts it as vegan and it's considered kosher parve.

Thank you for the links and expanations. To me it sounds like it's on the same level as things like wine or beer then. They are filtered with e.g. gelatin, but there is no gelatin in the final product. Still animal products are used.

Thanks for all explanation. I would never thought that aspartam is not vegan. I was avoiding it because I have health concerns but now I'm shocked about those enzymes! That is so wrong on so many levels!