Aspartame patent revealed; chalk up another use for E.coli poop The artificial sweetener that launched a thousand health hoaxes has revealed its secrets, and it turns out one of the urban legends surrounding the much-maligned chemical is true — it really is made using E.coli by-products. The patent for aspartame in Europe, recently made available online, cites "cloned microorganisms" as part of the production process. The microorganism in question is the very versatile E. coli bacteria; in this case a specifically engineered version that poops out proteins with the aspartic acid/phenylalanine amino acid that goes on to help make your soda sweet. Before you go off to mock your diet soda-drinking friends, remember the regular kind has some weird stuff in it, too.
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:16:18 +0000