This is the final part of my interview about the dangers of artificial sweeteners.

Diana Walker: Now Laury tell me why do doctors let their people or even recommend that they use Splenda?

Laury: I just believe that doctors aren’t really primarily educated in nutrition. If you want to see, not that all doctors are this way but if you want to see the basic mentality and makeup of what doctors think of nutrition I recommend for people to watch Super Size Me. Because when I watch Super Size Me, you know that documentary of the guy who decided to see what would happen if he ate only McDonalds for 30 days. I just had to sit there and crack up laughing towards the end of it or half way through it, I think it was half way through it when he was submitting himself to the blood tests and the doctors were taking his blood. The medical doctors were so shocked they were just like I don’t believe it. I can’t believe that eating has affected your liver this way. If you finish this study you are going to die.

Diana Walker: I know. I know. It is like a comedy.

Laury: It just kind of, I had to sit there and laugh because seeing was believing. He was in perfect health, dating this Vegan raw food chef woman who was fixing him all this healthy food all the time and he decides to eat McDonald’s for 30 days and of course you are going to say who’s going to do that? Well nobody.

But because he used himself as a guinea pig if you will just to prove the food was toxic (and it did prove that) even to the doctors who he was submitting to for the blood tests and blood work and getting his blood pressure taken and all that. They saw first hand in a dramatic kind of setting that what you eat and drink every day really matters.

That’s my message if I’m sharing Sunrider with people is that Sunrider is such a wonderful tool because as I’ve started to eat and drink the foods; and you hear about that philosophy of regeneration that if your body is given the right combination of whole foods and you are able to cleanse the toxins out your body can come into balance. What you eat and drink every day absolutely determines the course of your health.

You don’t just wake up one day with Crones disease. You don’t just wake up one day with a brain tumor. You are not just a victim; I mean you are because the agencies out there aren’t protecting us the way they should be but when you wake up one day and you’re given this information like we are giving you right now you have to take responsibility for your own health because nobody is going to do it for you.

Diana Walker: Well said.

Laury: That’s why I’m passionate to tell people. And sometimes its comical because we’ll be in the store and I’ll have my two little kids with me and they’ll see that I’m behind a lady that has a big huge thing of Diet Coke in her cart and they’ll just be looking at me like, “Oh mom, don’t say anything, are you going to talk to her?”

Because most of the time I will say something or give them my card or whatever and people are a little taken aback but you know what I think if you have a sincere heart and you are just really showing them you care then a lot of people, most people are very gracious and oh thank you for telling me. You just wonder what they are thinking as they are checking out with that Diet Coke and you just told them.

Diana Walker: Have you in fact had some people that have in fact switched over to like the Sunrider Stevia and using that?

Laury: Oh absolutely. I just had lunch with a friend last week and she used to be a diet pop drinker and I had lunch with two girlfriends and we were sweetening our tea and she got out a bottle of Stevia and she goes look this is what I’m using. So yeah. I mean it feels good to help people.

The number one symptom on the list of 92 symptoms that the FDA has come up with because they get more complaints about Aspartame than any other food additive they’ve ever had. The number one symptom is headaches. I’ll have to email you that list too because I have the list of 92 symptoms. It’s headaches, dizziness, nausea, stopping of menstruation cycles, hives, rashes and the list just goes on and on actually. It’s hard to believe that they could come up with a list of 92 symptoms but the FDA compiled the list from the complaints they get. So there you go.

Diana Walker: What would you recommend – should people stop cold turkey? Of course I know that everyone I know uses the Sunrider Stevia but are there other options even from the health food store and is it dangerous to stop all of a sudden?

Laury: I don’t think it’s dangerous to stop all of a sudden.

If you are drinking crystal light or eating light yogurt or eating your light ice cream, let’s talk about that for a minute. Anything with the word light on it is diet.

We had a good friend who has had three brain surgeries and they can not figure out why her brain tumors keep coming back. I was on the phone with her husband one day and I just said you’ve got to think about what you are buying that has Aspartame in it because she keeps getting brain tumors. I just really have to believe that she is consuming that in her diet somewhere. No no she’s not a Diet Coke drinker. How about crystal light? I’m just kind of going down the list. How about those popsicles that only have 35 calories that have aspartame, now I’m just thinking of everything I can and I said what about light yogurt? He goes oh my goodness hold on a second, ran to the refrigerator, and came back on the phone yep she buys the light big packs of yogurt at Costco.

Diana Walker: Oh my gosh.

Laury: So a lot of times people are just innocently buying yogurts in bulk and they are not even necessarily trying to buy the diet yogurt they just accidentally are.

Diana Walker: So the words on the container will be sucralose, usually is that right?

Laury: Sucralose is what it is going to say most of the time. A lot of times it doesn’t even say Splenda. They are putting sucralose in a lot of breads now. I know that here in the states almost all of the good Thomas English muffins that have been around forever they’ve got sucralose in their dough. So yeah you have to look for that sucralose.

Diana Walker: You have to read it. Where I’ve really noticed it because I’m very big on trying to get people off all the high protein drinks that are in the sports shops and everywhere and I’ve read a lot of those labels and they’ve got sucralose in it.

Laury: Yeah sucralose is a biggie. It’s huge. All the people that are into working out and buying the protein powders and everything at GNC here in the states and the vitamin shops they are buying those protein powders and they all have sucralose. Most of them have steered away from the Aspartame because people aren’t buying the Aspartame products like they were.

Diana Walker: Right but they are not aware of the sucralose. People are not aware of that.

Laury: No because there is massive advertising that Splenda is natural because it’s derived from sugar. But sucralose delivers chlorine directly into yourself just through the natural metabolization of you drinking it.

Diana Walker: Unbelievable.

Laury: It’s just very scary for people to be using that heavily in their diets because they think well it’s derived from sugar so it’s natural. It’s not natural. It’s very dangerous to your immune system.

I would love to read a letter, a short letter from my friend Betty Martini. She gets thousands of letters every day. Hundreds of thousands of letters and she tries to answer all of them and so I would like to read this letter because I just think that a lot of people will be able to relate with Lisette’s symptoms.

So this woman writes into Betty Martini.

I live in the UK and although we have a government body food standards authority they seem to have the food manufacturer’s interest at heart rather than the general public. My friend gave me details of your link and problems with Aspartame. I was shocked. The more people who are aware of this the better. My own circumstances are as follows: I have always been in good health until four or five years ago when I started having terrible headaches which I had never suffered from before, numbness and tingling all over my body but mainly my face, on rare occasions dizziness and a couple of incidents while I was at work. I get bouts of extreme tiredness where I have to sit or lie down but worst of all since this started I have had terrible sudden palpitations like an irregular heart beat.

I’ve seen both a cardiologist who was unable to find a cause and have also had to endure an MRI and lumbar puncture. The neurologist originally thought I had MS but then concurred it may be migraines that don’t often appear as headaches.

After seeing your list of 92 symptoms for sweetener poisoning I’m beginning to decide whether this is the reason. Why aren’t consultants worldwide made aware of these facts that we can be poisoned for profit? I have always drank diet drinks as a woman to help keep the weight down and I always sweeten my tea with artificial sweeteners but I didn’t realize to which extent this product is in food stuff.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I hope that you successful in bringing those responsible in introducing these chemicals to everyday life to court.

I think that a lot of people may be able to relate with her symptoms.

Diana Walker: Absolutely. Oh my gosh when people hear other stories it helps a lot. Wow so you’ve got several websites that will help people do more research.

Laury: Yes I do. I have wonderful websites and I’d like to read those to everyone right now. I also want to address something very important that you and I haven’t talked about Diana and that is the fact that people go to www.snopes.com to look up whether things are a hoax that go around on email or not.

Betty Martini, for years has been telling Snopes and giving them the facts about that Aspartame timeline and the battle that raged, everything that we’ve discussed today, the brain tumors, all of that. She is absolutely convinced that the owners of Snopes must be tied to the drug industry somehow because they have it on there that it is a hoax. That Aspartame poisoning is a hoax. So there is another website called www.truthorfiction.com that people can use instead of Snopes and at least on their website it says unproven or unknown or something like that.

I have emailed Snopes as well and kind of blasted them and let them have it and they never respond to my emails. They don’t care but I have said why can’t you just put unproven because people are going to you to look for the truth that you’ve done the research that they don’t have time to do themselves because we all lead busy lives and they’re looking to you for truth, oh am I really drinking a poison and you are telling them that they are not and that this whole Aspartame disease thing is a hoax and it’s wrong. They absolutely will not write me back but they’ve written Betty back and they absolutely refuse to change their stance on it. She can’t figure out really why unless they have a tie to the drug industry.

So there you have it. I knew that people would go to Snopes and I just wanted to address that because it’s to the point where people will email me back stuff from Snopes on Aspartame because they know I’m an advocate against it and I’ll be like well who is Snopes? Who died and made them God? I don’t care if they say it’s a hoax or not I have people that I know that were having seizures and were having fainting spells and had been diagnosed with MS and they quit ingesting Aspartame and they don’t have any of those symptoms anymore. So you do the homework.

Diana Walker: I do really love that. I really think we all need to take responsibility for ourselves. I remember when I studied with Dr. Paul Bragg how he was even then about coffee. He would lecture about coffee for an hour and he would say everybody gets up in the morning and that’s what they are having, they gotta have my coffee and even now you’ll see tests and studies done oh coffee is good for you.

Laury: Yeah. There is such a war and debate about things that are obviously not good.

Diana Walker: We really have to experiment with our own bodies and we have to use our own common sense. We have to listen to people like you and I right?

Laury: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s go over these websites.

The first one is www.dorway.com.

The next one, and this is an excellent website to do research of all kinds not just aspartame. If you want to know the truth about fluoride you are going to find it on World National Health Organizations website and that is www.wnho.org.

Then of course Dr. Blaylock, I have so much respect for him. He’s the neurosurgeon we were discussing. His website is www.russellblaylockmd.com.

I guess Dr. Joseph Mercola has written a whole book on aspartame. I’ve never bought it because I’ve got Russell Blaylock’s but his is www.mercola.com.

Dr. H. J. Roberts, I gave that one before but again that’s www.sunsentpress.com.

And then the Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com; that’s the title of their website, the Aspartame Toxicity Center

Diana Walker: Great.

Laury: I really recommend for people to get onto Cori Brackett’s website and buy the movie Sweet Misery A Poisoned World and learn about the people and spread it around.

Diana Walker: Spread the word.

Laury: Spread the word.

Diana Walker: You are doing a great job of it. It’s been wonderful for me to hear it right from beginning to end because I haven’t had a Diet Coke in 12 years. I used to have one every evening. I was actually addicted but in total denial because I knew everything right. Because I studied with a naturopath and I had all this training so it was like I just have one a day. It was usually at night time, I would go down about 10 o’clock and I’d have my chocolate bar and my diet coke. That was something I got off along with my 8 cups of coffee. I’ve been there done that. I know that it’s addictive.

Laury: It is. I have a friend that is trying to get off it right now but he was drinking them all day long like water and so he told me I just tried to go cold turkey and I felt horrible so I am weaning off and my goal is I will be off of them. But he just had to do it in moderation because he was drinking 8, 9 cans a day of soda, diet soda, it was his water.

Diana Walker: That’s the other thing; it leaches the calcium out of your bones so having all of that as well as not even diluting it with some water. It’s so acidic. It makes your body so acidic.

Laury: It’s just full of chemicals. It’s a no brainer that if your body is made up of 70% water roughly 70% water, that’s a percentage of what we are made up of we need to be drinking water or of course the wonderful Sunrider teas. Those can count as your water.

Diana Walker: Fortune Delight and Calli . Love them. Drinking some right now.

Laury: It’s just wonderful to have alternatives that you can drink that has; Calli tea has zero calories and the Fortune Delight has very little I think like 15 calories.

Diana Walker: Oh I didn’t even know it had 15. I always just say zero. But it’s so little.

Laury: When I did Weight Watchers the calories were so minuscule that you would still count it as zero points because it didn’t have enough calories in it to even count it.

Diana Walker: Yeah exactly. That’s great.

Laury: I’ve enjoyed speaking with you. I hope there is some people that heard the information today that will really take it to heart and just really do their research and if they don’t have the time to do the research then they will take our little class today on the phone seriously and just give it up.

You know your health is everything. If you don’t have your health what do you have? I mean do you know what I’m saying?

Diana Walker: Exactly. It is everything.

Laury: It’s so sad that some people aren’t willing to take their health seriously until they get a diagnosis. I mean I’ve seen it so many times and then all of a sudden their willing to spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to go to Mexico to get treatments and all of that and they didn’t want to spend the money to invest in some Sunrider or some alternative method to keep themselves health. I think that preventive medicine is the best approach you can take.

Diana Walker: Incredible. And it’s wonderful to just feel vibrantly healthy.

Laury: Exactly. Wake up feeling good, have energy for your day.

Diana Walker: It really is Laury. You are such a good example of it. I can’t wait to see you again.

Laury: That will be wonderful.

Diana Walker: It was so fun seeing you in Hawaii and have a great time in California. You live in California so what am I talking about but have a great time next week.

Laury: I’ll be going to the Sunrider convention. It will be fun. I wish you were going but next time.

Diana Walker: I will next time. Ok sweetie thank you so much. You are just a bright light and I know this will make a difference for everybody.

Laury: Thank you. You too Diana. I enjoy your podcast and your newsletter. You are doing such a wonderful job to educate people on their health and I just appreciate all your work.

Diana Walker: Thank you. Awesome. Ok bye.

Laury: We’ll talk soon. Bye bye.

Here are some additional resources mentioned in these interviews so you can do your own research about the dangers of artificial sweeteners:

http://www.dorway.com
http://www.wnho.org
http://www.russellblaylockmd.com
http://www.mercola.com
http://www.sunsentpress.com
http://www.holisticmed.com
www.MPWHI.com

If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a comment below.

Diana Walker, The Cravings Coach

photo credit: TheTruthAboutMortgage.com