Aspartame makes you fat

I woke up this morning to the sounds of Smashing Pumpkins coming through my radio. The song was 'today" from their 1993 album Siamese dream. This immediately made me think back to my high school days (yes, I'm dating myself here).

Back in high school my buddies and I were coffee house rats. Yep, my addiction to all things coffee started very early in life, mostly because there wasn't much else to do when you were 15 in Southern Ontario.

(album of choice while cruising in my 1986 supra..)

My high school crew are now all in different parts of the world these days. One is a chef in Toronto, another is a journalist in Japan and one is an architect in New York. So needless to say, none of them were about to meet me for coffee.

But since I do love coffee, I went anyways.

I noticed two interesting things while waiting in line for my coffee at a local Williams Coffee Pub. One, I realized I still had the chorus from 'Today' stuck in my head, and two I was eaves dropping on the people in front of me.

The lady in front of me ordered a coffee with one sweetener. The gentlemen with her ordered a large coke, then emphasized the word 'Regular'.

He then turned to the women he was with and said "I'm off artificial sweeteners, I heard on the news that research says they make you fat".

"really?" she responded

"Yeah, they just make you hungrier 30 minutes after you eat them, apparently you are better of drinking regular Coke". he replied.

So this man just ordered 16 ounces of sugar because artificial sweeteners might have slightly increased the chances of him ordering 16 ounces of sugar later in the day. The logic here is so messed up, it makes my nose bleed.

This is another reason why I now go out of my way to avoid nutrition advice that comes from the mainstream media.

I could understand ordering a water, or a black coffee..but a regular coke? because a diet coke will make him fat?

This is what happens when weight loss research that is cutting edge and novel is found by mainstream media. Something that is very exploratory, very new, and not conclusive at all can be turned into a completely backward nutrition "factoid" that serves to do nothing more than confuse us.

Losing weight would be easy if everyone didn't try to complicate it all the time. Find a simple way to reduce the calories you eat, find the time to exercise and ignore crazy nutrition factoids from the main stream media.

BP

More Trouble for Diet Pop and Sodium Benzoate

Looks like Benzene and Sodium Benzoate are back in the news again.

If you remember, I wrote about diet pops, sodium benzoate and health risks HERE.

According to a recent release on foodqualitynews.com, it appears that recent research has suggested that "benzoate contributes to faster ageing and degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's".

Members of the soft drink industry have shot back saying that sodium benzoate is "approved for use by the Food Standards Agency and we follow the guidance of the regulatory authorities."

I don't know about you, but for me this recent development adds to the volume of questions that surround this ingredient.

My advice, treat pop the way it should be treated...like a dessert.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training

Sweet Misery

Here is a link to a very interesting movie on the history and politics behind Aspartame.

I will warn you ahead of time that the movie is very one-sided, and many of the claims that are made about the dangers of aspartame seem to be greatly exaggerated. However, it is also very eye opening.

Even if the claims are greatly exaggerated, they still describe a very scary political battle that was behind the legalization of what is probably the world's most famous artificial sweetener.

Sweet Misery -1 hour 30 min

PS- By posting this movie I am not verifying or agreeing with its views or opinions. I am condoning it as an educational piece of work for you to assess and to use as a tool to build your opinions on what you choose to eat and what you choose not to eat.

BP

Diet Pop - Do You REALLY Know Enough?

You may or may not know that back in 1990, Diet Orange Crush was recalled in certain areas of the US because it had an elevated Benzene content.

Earlier that same year, there was a recall on Perrier spring water for the same reason.

Now, it's safe to say that benzene was not being added to these drinks on purpose. It turns out that two common ingredients in many drinks - sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can react to create benzene.

I'll be the first to admit that when I found this out, I was a little scared. From what I knew about benzene, this sounded like some pretty scary stuff.

You see, Benzene is an organic chemical compound that is used mainly as an industrial solvent and precursor in the production of drugs, plastics, synthetic rubber, and dyes. It's not exactly something I want in my drink.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) classifies benzene as a human carcinogen - a compound that promotes cancer.

Eating or drinking foods that contain high levels of benzene can cause vomiting, irritation of the stomach, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, rapid heart rate, and death.

So should we throw away our sodas and never touch them again? Well for many health reasons the answer may be yes, but NOT because of the risk of benzene content alone.

Everyone is exposed to a small amount of benzene every day. In fact, auto exhaust and industrial emissions account for about 20% of our total national exposure to benzene. We are also exposed to benzene from both active and passive second hand smoke.

So while we do want to limit the amount of benzene we are exposed to, the contribution from sodas is actually very small.

It is still a good idea to read the label of any soda you wish to purchase. Avoid or limit the consumption of products that contain both ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate.

Other factors that affect the formation of benzene are heat and light. Storing soft drinks in warm conditions speeds up the formation of benzene. Interestingly, sugar has been shown to inhibit the formation of benzene.

So while the small amount of benzene that may or may not be present in your soda is not a reason to panic, it is another reason to drink mostly water or green tea and save the soda pop for special occasions.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training