Review: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World

I’m sharing this review here because many of the symptoms represented in this documentary are those we deal with daily. In fact, some of those who were talked to had been diagnosed as having Fibromyalgia, Lupus or even MS only to find it was a reaction to Aspartame (equal, sweet n low). Aspartame is also one of the list of 7 “foods” that those of us with Fibromyalgia are recommended to avoid, as it can exacerbate our pain and other symptoms.

The idea behind this documentary is to uncover the hidden downsides to regular Aspartame use. How repetitive use of this product (most often found in in diet sodas) may very well be the cause of an increase in neurological disorders within our country in the last 25 years. I found the documentary to be quite interesting but not really anything new that I hadn’t run across before. It does detail a bit of a timeline of the various studies and controversies regarding Aspartame. Little has changed since 2004 when this movie was made. Really about the only thing has changed is the marketing for Stevia (which at the time was not allowed to be marketed as a sweetener), and the increase in other alternative sweeteners, both generally and in diet drinks.

If you use Aspartame it may be something to think about changing just to see if you find an improvement in your symptoms. Whether you use it or not, I’d say at least check out this documentary. It’s only about 90 minutes and, like I said, pretty interesting overall. This video is available for download and rent on Netflix, and you can watch pieces of it on Youtube. Below is the trailer for the movie.