U.S. dairy industry petitions FDA to approve aspartame as hidden, unlabeled additive in milk, yogurt, eggnog and cream

The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition with the FDA asking the FDA to alter the definition of “milk” to secretly include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose. 

 Importantly, none of these additives need to be listed on the label.

They will simply be swept under the definition of “milk,” so that when a company lists “milk” on the label, it automatically includes aspartame or sucralose. And if you’re trying to avoid aspartame, you’ll have no way of doing so because it won’t be listed on the label.

This isn’t only for milk, either: It’s also for yogurt, cream, sour cream, eggnog, whipping cream and a total of 17 products, all of which are listed in the petition at FDA.gov.

As the petition states:

IDFA and NMPF request their proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity to allow optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk (e.g., chocolate flavoring added to milk) to be sweetened with any safe and suitable sweetener — including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame. 

 This is all being done to “save the children,” we’re told, because the use of aspartame in milk products would reduce calories.

Milk industry specifically asks to HIDE aspartame from consumers 

Astonishingly, the dairy industry is engaged in extreme doublespeak logic and actually arguing that aspartame should be hidden from consumers by not listing it on the label.

Here’s what the petition says:

IDFA and NMPF argue that nutrient content claims such as “reduced calorie” are not attractive to children, and maintain that consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims. Further, the petitioners assert that consumers do not recognize milk — including flavored milk — as necessarily containing sugar. Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.” 

 In other words, hiding aspartame from consumers by not including it on the label actually helps consumers, according to the IDFA and NMPF!