Comment: *Sigh*

Aspartame does indeed break down into methanol in the body. About 1 part in 10 by mass of aspartame turns into methanol. Methanol is indeed very dangerous, and as little as 10mL can cause permanent blindness.

What Mercola doesn't tell you is that methanol is ubiquitous in nature. The bacteria in your gut are producing it right now. At all times there is a very small concentration of methanol both in the air and in your blood. Your body deals with very small amounts of methanol very efficiently.

In a 355mL can of diet Coke, the dose you get of aspartame is 180mg. This breaks down in your body to 18mg (1 part in 10) of methanol. 10mL of methanol weighs about 7.9g. This means that you would have to drink 439 cans of diet coke (156L or 41 gallons!), all at once, in order to ingest enough methanol to possibly cause blindness. There are other things we eat in small doses which are far more toxic. Vitamin A and caffeine come to mind. In comparison, aspartame is relatively harmless. Also, Mercola is a raving, supplement-pushing quack.

Really, a lot of the demonization of aspartame (as well as other artificial sweeteners) originated with dubious studies and reports funded by the sugar industry in the 1970s. See: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industr...

I don't recommend aspartame as a sweetener. There are better natural alternatives like stevia or xylitol. However, aspartame is NOT the "most dangerous food additive on the market today." Not even close. It's safe as long as you're not drinking 41 gallons of soda. And if you are, I think you have bigger problems than methanol.