They knew there were risks, if nothing else.
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No, a Pakistani young man is raised to respect his father and want to impress him. This poor kid was in an impossible situation. No way he could say no. The fact that several family members knew how scared he was tells you all you need to know about how much he felt he didn’t have a choice.
He’s the one victim here. Poor kid.
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I’m trying very hard not to be dismissive of Pakistani culture, because that sort of behavior/thought process is found in many cultures. I’m more inclined to be dismissive and downright against the fact that it takes human lives and IMNSHO is counterintuitive. It also seems to prove that the patriarchy is just as damaging to men as it is to women (as if being damaging to women wasn’t enough).
It’s just sad and frustrating, the whole damn sitch, is my last word on it. 
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Holy moly! I eat a lot of aspartame! It’s basically two acids joined together! Gad. And when it is metabolized, it yields formaldehyde–you know, that stuff that’s used to preserve dead bodies! You can read more about the scary chemistry at Wikipedia. And it was approved during the Reagan administration! The process was tainted by corruption involving the notorious Donald Rumsfeld! And some published articles show that it is carcinogenic!
But a lot of articles show the opposite. And one could argue that the acids concerned are amino acids, which make up proteins. And formaldehyde is a product of normal metabolism of all sorts of food. And a lot of published studies show it doesn’t cause cancer, including literature reviews and meta-analyses. If it was a serious risk, you’d think after about 40 years, something would have been noticed.
Here’s a perhaps more balanced view:
At the bottom, the article notes that WHO has also declared cell phones a cancer risk. OMG!
Of course, the original sweetener, sugar, is somewhat of a risk. Such as obesity and diabetes, which themselves can lead to a few other minor conditions. Nothing to worry about.
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Whelp, back to saccharin.
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Eww, saccharin tastes terrible. How about cyclamate instead? Provided you’re not in the US. Or lead acetate, or ethylene glycol . . .
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This is funny because just today I heard people saying you should switch to aspartame because new studies have shown that sucralose can break down your DNA and be bad for you and make you sick.
The closest I could find to an actual source basically said that if you drank an entire 18-wheeler truck full of soda that was sweetened with sucralose in one day then you’d probably get sick. Well, duh. If you drink that much of anything in one day you’re gonna have a bad time.
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My son and I were discussing artificial sweeteners the other day, and I commented that they leave a film on my teeth. He had no clue as to what I was talking about. Now, he’s on a different level of the spectrum than I, so I did take into account that his sensory issues are different from mine. But even after saying, “well, you know the feeling you get in your mouth when you haven’t brushed your teeth in a while?”, and he still didn’t get it.
We both agreed, though, that they usually leave an aftertaste.
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Not to mention that ubiquitous chemical, hydrogen hydroxide (AKA dihydrogen monoxide).
I find I’m so used to aspartame that soda or tea with either sugar or sucralose tastes funny. And don’t get me started on stevia; it seems to have a hint of licorice flavor. (Not to mention dougia or frankia.)
The chemistry of sucralose bothers me. It’s sucrose with three of the hydroxy groups (-OH) replaced with chlorine. Seems a little too weird.
I guess I got used to any aftertaste to aspartame after so many years. But saccharin definitely has an aftertaste. And the duringtaste isn’t much good either.
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He had a Mtn Dew Baja Blast Zero and said it had a foretaste.
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Yes it does. I once worked for a company that touted stevia and it did absolutely have that licorice taste.
But dougia and frankia - are those real things? And if so, why? I knew a guy named doug and I certainly wouldn’t want to eat anything flavored like him.
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Fortunately that was just a joke. We have a breakfast restaurant nearby that’s really good despite the “natural food” theme (e.g., kale smoothies). For your tea you have a choice between sugar in the raw and stevia. You can ask for Equal, in a whisper of course, and they will sneak it to you.
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My two artificial sweetener cents.
Once about 15 years ago I tried Diet Coke. It was horrible.
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I love licorice but cannot stand stevia, so there’s something else there that’s unpleasant / unpleasant as well. Monk fruit also, bleeegch.
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100% unbelievable. how could you go to Italy, take a historical tour, and NOT know what you are standing in is ancient?
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I mean, there are people who think the Colosseum was a power station and that it’s being covered up by “the government”, so… more like 80% unbelievable, I think. 
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I’m just glad it wasn’t an American this time.
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honestly, that was my first thought, too – “omg, some American did WHAT?”
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