Trident Layers Gum Contains Phenylalanine

After making a trip to Target yesterday, I decided to buy a large pack of Trident Layers strawberry and citrus gum. While at home last night I began chewing the gum. I was immediately obsessed and finished the entire pack in an hour. Today, while cleaning my room, I noticed the empty case of the gum and saw a notice on the pack saying, "PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE." I immediately remembered from organic chemistry that phenylalanine is an essential amino acid. When I began to research the gum today, I read on many blogs that Trident Layers gum also contains aspartame. More research led me learn that aspartame is a sweetener made of two amino acids, one of which being phenylalanine.

Searching for aspartame information on google, I read about some horror stories like how aspartame can cause neurons in the brain to die due to overexcitement. As you can probably guess, it freaked me out and I immediately thought of all the pieces of gum I had previous eaten. Was my brain going to blow up? Was I going to become less intelligent?

With mixed reviews on different sites, I don't really know what to believe. Some people claim that aspartame in foods and drinks is too little to cause tumors in the brain, whereas other people claim to get headaches from drinking one bottle of aspartame containing liquid. I even read some horror stories about people dying from aspartame.

I have decided to finish off the rest of the Trident Layers strawberry and citrus gum that I bought, and NOT purchase it again. That's one less unnecessary chemical that I'll be cutting out of my life, though I must admit, the gum was delicious.

[Source: http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/Ajinomoto-brands-aspartame-AminoSweet]