My name is Peter, and I'm an addict...

I'm not addicted to much: The Daily Show; The Simpsons; Lost; My Mac; The Internet. (Okay, maybe I'm addicted to a lot.) But the addiction most likely to kill me is the one to Diet Coke—thanks to Aspartame.

Despite a mountain of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, most of the scientific community believes Diet Coke is safe. Aspartame: review of safety states that "The safety testing of aspartame has gone well beyond that required to evaluate the safety of a food additive." While Cytotoxic effects of methanol, formaldehyde, and formate on dissociated rat thymocytes: a possibility of aspartame toxicity suggests that "aspartame at abuse doses is harmless to humans." However, a survey of all aspartame studies found: "One hundred percent of the industry funded research attested to aspartame's safety, whereas 92 percent of the independently funded research identified a problem." I'm holding onto that problem-free 8% like pitbull with a T-bone.