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1A) Food Science of ASPARTAME and Louis Pasteur: connecting the dots…

If you do not consume “diet” soda, that is excellent. Diet sodas are not good for you, that we know. Are they better than sugary soda? Let’s not go into that debate. (this paper does)

Even if you don’t consume aspartame, you may still find this email interesting, as I believe I have discovered an interesting aspect of “pasteurization” and its history.

Aspartame was in the news recently after a WHO report. Not sure why the timing was now. 1st world problem? 1st world has obesity problems, so perhaps the WHO figured they’d weigh in. I wrote a term paper on aspartame way back during high school, in 1996!

Confusingly, I thought Coke-Zero was sweetened with sucralose, not aspartame, but aspartame is now in Coke-Zero too! (not just "Diet Coke" has aspartame) Apparently, the hard working food scientists at Coca-Cola have been adjusting the formulations based on consumer preferences (and pricing pressure? Sucralose is typically more expensive than aspartame.)

There may even be a sucralose-version of Coke-Zero, if you search the grocery shelves enough or go online.

What is aspartame? It's fairly simple to explain: Three molecueles bound together into one big molecule:

(1) Aspartatic Acid + (2) Phenylalanine + (3) Methanol

Asparatic acid and phenylalanine are amino acids our bodies need, so I don't see what's so bad about consuming these two molecules. However, methanol is very toxic, which I will go into further detail.

    ***Methanol, however, is toxic***

Nature cited that the amount of methanol in aspartame is a "trivial" amount, although I would argue that regular drinkers of diet soda can damage their liver. I'll explain further.

Interestingly, Aspartame is not heat stable, so a can of aspartame containing soda if not refrigerated will taste less sweet. Sucarlose is heat stable.

Why not just use sucralose? (1) diet coke has been around longer (came out first); (2) thus, diet coke has its fans and the taste and astringent afterstaste, whereas sucralose has a sweet/lingering aftertaste some folks don’t like; (3) sucralose is generally more expensive than aspartame; (4) Sucralose has its own share of health concerns.

WHO report did not seem to be written in a very alarmist tone. The summary does not mention liver cancer from methanol.

Does sucralose cause cancer? Does Acesulfame K (ASK) high-intensity sweetener cause cancer? ASK is often used with aspartame to create a more rounded-out sweetness. Maybe I'll dive into those chemicals another time.

So how does aspartame tie-in to Louis Pasteur?

The process "pasteurization" is traditionally defined as heating to 149F. Then it dawned on me: interestly: 148F is the boiling point of methanol!

I found this article about when back in 1860s, French royalty enlisted Louis Pasteur to help with the nation's wine production quality problems.

1. While pasteurization is often associated with inactivation of microorganisms, the temperature of pasteurization is often defined as 149F to 150F…

****Could it be the great chemist also intended winemakers to vaporize the methanol to prevent the methanol-poisoning of the populace?****

2. 149F happens to be 1 degree fahrenheit above the boiling point of methanol! (148F (each degree celcius is about two times fahrenheit)
3. Flash pasteurization in a heat exchanger is sealed and does not allow methanol vapors to escape! (bad!) The advantage of flash pasteurization in a heat exchanger for beverages such as wine is that flavors are prevented from evaporating (and the temperature is not kept high for very long. Higher temperatures can cause cooking of the wine and creating undesirable flavor notes.) Ethanol boils at 173F, so keeping the ethanol in, while removing the methanol, is not so easy. (this is generally when distillation equipment is needed.)
4. *****Red wine has much higher methanol content than white wine, and red wine can be quite high in methanol! (see chart below) Microbial fermentation of tannins in the grape-skins tend to form methanol) whereas white wine typically has had skins removed; Good winemakers take processing steps to remove the methanol from wine.

Decanting of red wine and swirling of the wine in the glass is often associated with mellowing the flavor of red wine, however, the side/additional benefit is to allow for methanol to evaporate from red wine, although the boiling point of methanol is 148F, so you'd need to be in a fairly warm room to achieve much methanol evaporation from your wine.