Aspartame

Aspartame, discovered in 1965, is the most widely known artificial sweetener on the market. It is sold under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal and is familiar to most people in the individual serving-size paper packets generally offered with coffee and tea. It is an amino acid compound that is approximately 150 to 200 times as sweet as sugar. Aspartame cannot be used in cooking because its sweetening power is destroyed once the product reaches the boiling point. As with saccharin and cyclamates, many people are concerned about possible long-term health problems from aspartame use.