Aspartame - The World's Best Ant Poison

By Author Unknown; contributed by Jan Jensen of WELLthy Choices

We live in the woods, and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We have
spent thousands of dollars with Orkin and on ant poisons trying to
keep them under control but nothing has helped.

So when I read somewhere that aspartame (Nutrasweet sweetener) was
actually developed as an ant poison, and only changed to being
considered non-poisonous after it was realized that a lot more money
could be made on it as a sweetener than as an ant poison, I decided
to give it a try.

I opened two packets of aspartame sweetener, and dumped one in a
corner of each of our bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago and I
have not seen any carpenter ants for about 9 to 12 months. It works
better than the most deadly poisons I have tried. Any time they show
up again, I simply dump another package of Nutrasweet in a corner,
and they will be gone for a year or so again.

Since posting this information I have had many people tell me of
their success solving ant problems with this substance, when nothing
else worked.

We found later that small black ants would not eat the aspartame. It
was determined that if you mixed it with apple juice, they would
quickly take it back to the nest, and all would be dead within 24
hours, usually. I have found that sometimes it will kill them, and
sometimes it does not. Not sure why, may be slightly different
species of ants or something.

Fire Ants

We got our first fire ant hill about 2 weeks ago. My son had tried
Terro Outdoor ant poison on some hills near his house some time ago
without success, so I figured I would give aspartame a try.

I opened 4 packets and scattered the aspartame over the mound. The
ants seemed to be ignoring it, but a storm came in in about an hour,
and washed it all away. So the following week I tried again. Once
again they ignored it for 24 hours although some very small black
ants found it and begun carrying it off. Then we got a light rain. It
was just a sprinkle, enough to moisten the Nutrasweet and ground, but
not enough to wash it away. They went crazy, hundreds of them
grabbing it and taking it back into the mound. When I checked the
mound 2 days later, there was no sign of the fire ants. I even dug
the mound up some, and still saw none of them.

How does it Work

Aspartame is neuropoison. It most likely kills the ants by
interfering with their nervous system. It could be direct, like
stopping their heart, or something more subtle like killing their
sense of taste so they can't figure out what is eatable, or smell, so
they can't follow their trails, or mis-identify their colonies
members, so they start fighting each other. Not sure what causes them
to end up dieing, just know that for many species of ants it will
kill the quickly and effectively.

As with any poison I recommend wearing gloves and washing any skin
areas that come in contact with this poison, and avoid getting in
your mouth, despite anything the labeling may indicate.

I suspect it will work for other insects such as yellow jackets as
well, but have not tested that yet.

More information on this fantastic poison can be found at:
http://www.dorway.com