"It is not negligible. It's dreadful stuff, go look up the history of some of these artificial sweeteners."

Sorry, Stilly, but Charmion (as ever) has it exactly right. I totally agree with you about artificial sweeteners and wish they'd never been invented. If I ever eat those ghastly sugar-free mints you can buy in supermarkets, I get the farts and bellyaches worthy of awards. And I've told you about my stevia misfortunes. If I buy cordials to get me through summer gardening heat, I look for the full sugar versions (which are getting harder to get). But the plain fact is that there are dozens of things which are far more harmful than aspartame, and in far less quantities than the bucketloads of aspartame you'd need to do you any harm. Once again we are being subjected to tabloidistic, sensationalist nonsense. Twitching antennae are crucial.