the coke and ham recipe

[Daave]

hiya, i was just rading through a book i have, and it was talking about the ingredient aspartame,

this is found in diet drinks, (and many other foodstuffs)

BUT it did say, that heating this substance up can make it have a chemcial reaction that will make it very dangerous if consumed,

so, jsut a note of warning that if anyone trys the coke and ham recipie we were talking about, dont use it with diet cola...

the last paragraph of this link has the same info as my book:

http://www.ess.sunysb.edu/tracy/whatis.html

if anyone was to drink/eat "wood alcohol" it is normally called methanol.. and its nasty, its used in weedkiller and paint stripper

[Gef]

An excellent link by Daave except for the last paragraph which is just rubbish.

If you are worried about aspatame have at look at this

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/aspartame/aspar tameh.html

[Daave]

Methanol is well known to be poisonous in large quantity. "Large quantity" means tens or hundreds of grams.


quoted from your link,

yeah sorry, i probably overreacted.. but i searched for methanol and it does come in paint stripper.. or maybe its jsut something with the same name!

[Gef]

Daave, I meant the last paragraph of your link and not your answer.

You are quite correct in that wood alcohol is one of the old names for methanol and it is nasty stuff if you drink it. Meths (methylated spirit) is 95% ethanol (the alcohol in beer, wine, spirits etc) and 5% methanol. It causes severe brain damage and blindness as many poor meths drinkers have found out.

However, the last paragraph of my link shows that the amount of methanol obtained from a can of diet coke is very similar to that from natural fruit juices.

I hope this helps to allay some peoples worries about aspartame.