Giving Up Formaldehyde

Last week, my husband and I made the choice to cut down on sodas as we work towards giving them up completely. I have to be honest, I did not do so well with it for the first week. The migraines were nothing compared to the lethargy. I had the most difficult time getting anything completed. Water, juice, tea, and tea with juice were my liquid companions all week long. I even joked with my husband that I pretend I'm drinking a mixed drink.

Of course, it's always easiest during the week. Especially since husband had my cards and my money so that I couldn't go and buy sodas during the day. That alone made it possible for me to have just one soda per day, but once it hit Saturday, all bets were off. I think I had four 44 ounce cups of Diet Dr. Pepper on Saturday alone.

Sunday, as I was enjoying my third 44 ounce serving of Diet Dr. Pepper, I read a posting on Facebook. It was some outrageous claim about how horrible aspartame is for you. I forget what the claim itself was, but I do remember researching it for myself. I did not find one credible source that backed up the now forgotten claims, but I did find out something else.

As I was searching Snopes, I found a statement by an FDA official stating that the FDA has long known that the human body turns aspartame into ethanol, which the body then turns into formaldehyde. Now do you know what formaldehyde actually is? It's used in the embalming process to preserve bodies for burial. It should, of course, be noted that this process also occurs with other foods such as fruit juice. However, these aren't consumed in quantities nearly as often as aspartame is.

So, all this time, I've been enjoying my Diet Dr. Pepper only to discover it was really Diet Death. Are you, like me, grossed out now? I've never been big on artificial sweeteners and in fact, only my sodas contained them. Being too much of a caffeine addict and yet also a diabetic, I couldn't give up soda completely or switch back to the sugared ones. Discovering that I was encouraging my body to embalm itself while I was still alive definitely changed that!

After the gross out factor finally passed, I told my husband I was done with sodas and would have no more. He didn't quite believe me and I can't really say I blame him. Today, however, when he came home and offered a soda refill, he was quite surprised to hear me say no.

Cigarettes last year. Soda this year. I may wind up becoming a responsible adult yet!

What vice have you given up recently, and what was your motivation to give it up?