A few days ago respected environmental campaigner and organic grower, Robert Baehr, shared some of his views with us, on the use of additives in our food. Since then a number of readers have commented upon one such additive - a “sweetener” widely marketed under the name of Aspartame.

For the benefit of our readership, we draw your attention to an article that begins:

“Today we have “Nutra-Sweet”, which is widely used in a plethora of consumables, despite a demonstrated neurological reaction in some people. In February 1996, it was decided to also use the product name “Benevia”. It is estimated that as many as 20,000,000 people cannot metabolize phenylalimine, and this inability is genetically inherited by children. The inability to metabolize phenylalinine can lead to mental retardation in children. This means a risk of retardation for millions of children. A multi-billion dollar enterprise, this substance is said to be “refined” from “natural” substances. Like other “refined” substances, it represents a health threat to the general public. No long term studies have been performed to evaluate the physiological effects of this substance, yet the public is lead to believe it is absolutely safe. Technically, the chemical is called aspartame, and it was once on a Pentagon list of biowarfare chemicals submitted to Congress. [1] Aspartame is in over 4,000 products worldwide and is consumed by over 200 million people in the United States alone. What follows is a skeletal examination of the chronology related to aspartame. A more detailed chronology is given later in this chapter based on information provided to us by the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network.

Aspartame is produced by G.D. Searle Company, founded in 1888 and located in Skokie, Illinois. Searle is now owned by others. It is about 200 times sweeter than the refined sugar that it is meant to replace, and it is known to erode intelligence and affect short-term memory. It is essentially a chemical weapon designed to impact populations en masse. It is an rDNA derivative made from two amino acids, L-phenylalanine, L-aspartic acid and methanol. Originally discovered during a search for an ulcer drug in 1966, it was “approved” by the FDA in 1974 as a “food additive”.

Approval was followed by a retraction based on demonstrated public concern over the fact that the substance produced brain tumors in rats. According to the 1974 FDA task force set up to examine aspartame and G.D.Searle, “we have uncovered serious deficiencies in Searles operations and practices, which undermine the basis for reliance on Searle’s integrity in conducting high quality animal research to accurately determine the toxic potential of its products.” The task force report concluded with the recommendation that G.D. Searle should face a Grand Jury “to identify more particularly the nature of the violations, and to identify all those responsible.” [2]

The remainder of this article may be found here .

A further point of interest within the article is mention of the American bio-tech giant Monsanto �“ a company that came to notoriety through its manufacturing of a “safe” dioxine herbicide know as “Agent Orange” �“ used as a tree defoliant by the US military in Vietnam and subsequently responsible for genetic defects and cancer amongst hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, pareticularly newborn babes. More recently Monsanto has been seen promoting its GM products in both Britain and Europe �“ products it, of course, claims to be “safe”!

In researching a suitable image to accompany this story we have come across several too appalling to publish on a site catering for family viewing �“ please take our word for it that the image above, alleged to show a five-year old victim of “Agent Orange”, is mild in comparison!

Robert Baehr, respected environmentalist campaigner and organic grower, provides a personal opinion on food additives and on those who profit from their inclusion in our foodstuffs.

If I could live my life again I would pay more attention in school. History and geography were the subjects that I enjoyed, but I doodled or daydreamed my way through the physics, maths and chemistry lessons. I was a little contemptuous of anyone interested in science, but now recognise that this attitude was born of arrogance and snobbery. It was only later in life that I realized just how fascinating these disciplines really are.

My early disdain for the physical sciences and imagined superiority to the students who showed interest or ability in the field had one beneficial side effect, however. Distrust of scientists was something that has always influenced my thinking. While most people unquestioningly accepted all discoveries and inventions as beneficial progress, I have often, if not usually, had my reservations.

As a result, as soon as I noticed that the food we were expected to feed to our children was full of chemicals I was troubled, to say the least. It was immediately obvious that our children were being poisoned by the chemicals that farmers were spreading on their fields and orchards, and by the colourants, flavourings and preservatives added subsequently by the processing industry.

That food should be natural and unadulterated seemed self-evident but nobody appeared to notice or to care. Everyone trusted the scientists and the regulators. Everyone trusted the government to protect us.

I was far from being a perfect parent, but at least I never fed my children the crap that was dished out to their peers. Despite our relative poverty we always bought organic when we had the option and used unprocessed food to prepare wholesome meals. While our friends saved money and effort at the supermarket we shopped at ‘Earth Foods’, our local wholefood store, spending more on nutrition than we could afford, and spending less on appearances and entertainment in order to fund our unconventional eating habits.

It was not until recently that it occurred to me that this calculated contamination of our food was more than merely an exercise in profit maximisation. It was always obvious that the authorities were not unaware of the disbenefits of chemicals in our food, especially as some additives banned as carcinogenic or behaviour modifying in the US were not only perfectly legal in the UK, but were almost ubiquitous here, especially in the sort of food that would be fed to children. In my innocence I put it down to human folly driven by capitalist greed, no more, no less.

I am a wiser man today, and I know now that there was more to it, something far more sinister than plain, mundane, run-of-the-mill avarice. The food processors, owned as they are by multinational business interests, were already involved in the conspirational programme of genocide-by-stealth that is currently being conducted against the native British peoples, the English, the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish. The multi-nationally owned food processors, the suppliers of ready meals, convenience food, breakfast cereals, soft drinks and almost everything found on the supermarket shelves actually WANTED to poison our children, to shorten their lives so as to facilitate more expeditiously the cleansing of our country of the indigenous population. The contamination of our food has been a deliberate act, chemical warfare under the radar. Poisonous chemicals are another weapon in the armoury of the Multiculturalists.

I expect that many will find this very hard to believe, and will consider me a bit of a fruitcake. To be scorned and derided for my beliefs and opinions is something I have learned to live with. As a long-time proponent of organic food, a campaigner for the countryside, the environment and animal rights and an opponent of Third World exploitation I have long since become inured to disagreement and to the disapproval of others, so many of whom would never miss the opportunity to overlook an injustice and who never fail to ignore an impending disaster until it is too late.
Those who laugh at me now, who dismiss my opinions as evidence of stupidity, will mostly be the same people who fed their children the carcinogens that will shorten their lives, the same people who stood by complacently while our global environment was decimated by multinational corporations, while our rainforests were eradicated and our oceans and our air contaminated with industrial pollutants, and while the Third World was denuded of its natural resources.

To those people I say…laugh now, while you may, for tomorrow you will be crying. It will give me no satisfaction to see the miseries of cancer, CJD, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, asthma, obesity, premature ageing and behavioural defects that are set to increasingly afflict our population. It will not make me happy to see others suffer, even if I have been the object of their derision and contumely. If the truth is ever known all I ever wanted was for people to have happy lives, enjoying the good things without abusing themselves or their planet. The hatred that I fight within myself is not for my critics, but for the abusers and the misinformants, for the greedy businessmen and the lying politicians, for those who conspire against our interests and our welfare, and all the other unprincipled, selfish evildoers who have so blighted our lives over the last 60 years.

Our politicians and opinion formers today make a great show of their concern about unhealthy food, as they do about the environment. Believe me, that’s all it is, JUST SHOW! They need you to believe they care, but they don’t care about anything but themselves and their own. Their children, you can be sure, have not been fed the same contaminated food and have not been brought up in the same polluted and deprived environments.

They are simply playing catch up because they are being found out. Their evildoings will soon be exposed so they are having to cover their tracks. Please, let’s not allow them fool us again! When disaster strikes, when the consequences of their heinous policies become manifest and the magnitude of their mendacity becomes evident, I fervently hope that we will have the moral courage to avenge ourselves upon them.

Many of these people, whose love of wealth and power has robbed them of all basic morality, will be dead by the time their misdeeds are brought to light. Though they may need to live forever Nature does not permit, and they are all eventually dragged unwilling into an uncontrollable future. Fabulously wealthy though they may be while still alive they have to leave it all behind them when they go. But, who gets it?

It greatly offends my sense of justice to think that these monsters could have that last compensating satisfaction of knowing their progeny will benefit from their evil deeds. I would rather their last thought was one of concerned anguish for the fate of their heirs who will be facing severe punishments for the wrongdoings of their parents.

Let them know their children will inherit, not their houses and their fortunes, but their guilt and their debt to society. Let them be sure that their descendents will pay that debt in full, and with interest! Let this be so even for the most despicable crimes, such as genocide and treason, and let it include even the most severe punishments.