Message in a Bottle

I sit here this morning, typing and drinking a Diet Coke. Yes, I know. Horror of horrors. I'm a soda junkie. Not only am I a soda junkie, but I hated the Coke with Splenda, which I thought had a strange citrus-y taste, and am addicted to plain old Diet Coke with--eek--aspartame.

I've studiously avoided all the proclamations about the poisonous effects of aspartame, being old enough to remember the huge public outcry against the carcinogenic effects of saccharine in the 1970s. Which makes me old indeed, but that's another story for another day.

So now here's this new study from Environmental Health Perspectives, where the group of Italian researchers who did the initial damning study of aspartame--irritated that the FDA and European food regulatory agencies say aspartame is safe regardless of how much cancer their little aspartame-fed rats developed--have repeated their study. Results confirm an increase in lymphoma and breast cancer among rats fed a daily aspartame ration equivalent to average human ingestion.

Jeez Louise.

So, what's a girl to do? Well, right now, this girl has a meeting to go to. But I do think I'm gonna have to find a new soda to drink. What do you folks drink? (And if you say "water is all you need," well poo to you. I need SODA!)