Sugar: It Could Be Worse Than You Think

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/sugar_it_could_be_worse_than_you_think/

According to The New York Times’ Gary Taubes, who isn’t a scientist but is a journalist obsessed with the topic, the recent uptick in anti-sugar sentiment in nutritional (and lay) circles isn’t without basis. In fact, he goes so far as to essentially answer his headline question “Is Sugar Toxic?” in the affirmative.

Taubes also uses the findings of California-based medical researcher Robert Lustig to back up his rather alarmist message, connecting sugar and HFCS (that would be high fructose corn syrup) consumption to a slew of undesirable conditions and killer diseases. Take heed, sugar junkies. —KA

:snip:

This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?

It’s one thing to suggest, as most nutritionists will, that a healthful diet includes more fruits and vegetables, and maybe less fat, red meat and salt, or less of everything. It’s entirely different to claim that one particularly cherished aspect of our diet might not just be an unhealthful indulgence but actually be toxic, that when you bake your children a birthday cake or give them lemonade on a hot summer day, you may be doing them more harm than good, despite all the love that goes with it. Suggesting that sugar might kill us is what zealots do. But Lustig, who has genuine expertise, has accumulated and synthesized a mass of evidence, which he finds compelling enough to convict sugar. His critics consider that evidence insufficient, but there’s no way to know who might be right, or what must be done to find out, without discussing it.

More at the link --

[blondeatlast]

1. "...isn't a scientist..." If sugar were toxic, wouldn't the entire world be

dying in numbers larger than The Plague?

I'm insulin dependent so of course I know the dangers of sugar, but if your stuff functions better than mine I don't see much cause for alarm.

[Taverner]

2. Almost everything is toxic in big enough amounts

Water? Deadly if you try to breathe it. But even still, drinking too much water can cause you to lose nutrients. I'm not talking the gallon-a-day those who excessive should drink, or even 3 gallons a day - but say drinking 1 gallon per hour - that will cause a lot of problems.

Same goes for protein - anyone hear of kidney stones?

About the only thing that isn't dangerous in large amounts is oxygen, and even then there is a case to be made for pure oxygen being dangerous.

[yawnmaster]

5. pure oxygen is very dangerous, and under some pressure its toxic. eom

[Taverner]

9. I did not know that - thanks

[yawnmaster]

16. learned about the toxicity of oxygen from scuba...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity
but, in my opinion, its more exciting to realize that in a pure oxygen environment, you can easily set your skin afire!

[Taverner]

19. really....wow

So if you light a match in a pure oxygen environment, does the room explode?

[yawnmaster]

21. not necessarily, but anything that can oxidize will rapidly oxidize (creating heat, flames, etc.)...

plastics, wood, humans, other organics, hydrogen.
and just a spark will do it.
explosion is possible if there is enough to oxidize rapidly generating heat and a pressure wave.

good times.

[Odin2005]

24. Think Apollo 1. That capsule had pure O2. BOOM.

[KeepItReal]

3. So much for my brown-sugar-is-better-for-you theory

:-(

[dkf]

8. Raw organic honey.

That's what I like.

[yawnmaster]

11. Stolen insect regurgitant. sounds good. eom

[pipi_k]

18. Never cared for the taste, really, but

when I found out where it came from, that was it. Gross.


Oh, and eggs. Liquid chicken in a shell squeezed out from the same place as the chicken shits.

[yawnmaster]

20. how 'bout milk! eom

[Obamanaut]

52. Only if it's in a box. nt

[Kalun D]

26. Honey Is Awesome

They've found honey in Egyptian tombs 1000's of years old and it was still edible.

But it has to bee in moderation especially as you get older.

It also has to be raw like you say which is unusual because it's so much easier to package with heating which if it goes above 108 F it's no longer raw.

[FreeState]

105. Brown sugar now days is just white sugar with molasses added n/t

[Javaman]

4. I use Stevia.

It has a little after taste at first but after a while you never notice it.

[Zorra]

42. Me too. And honey.

Stevia, lemon juice, and water makes a great sugar free no chemicals no calorie lemonade.

[Hissyspit]

43. Me three.

[yawnmaster]

6. something will eventually kill me. I choose sugar and bacon. eom

[blondeatlast]

10. Death by a mound of perfectly cooked bacon, fresh sourdough bread,

lettuce, and tomato with a glass of unsweetened black iced tea sounds quite delightful, imho.

[bluestate10]

28. And beer. Don't forget the finisher. Die with a smile on your face. nt

[RebelOne]

7. Never use sugar, only sugar substitutes and don't eat meat,

but I am guilty of using too much salt.

[SoCalDem]

12. M O D E R A T I O N

People USED to eat/drink sugary stuff OCCASIONALLY..not every day all day.

Lemonade was a summer beverage
soda pop was for picnics & outings
cake was for birthdays
pies were usually for Sunday dessert
cookies were homemade, preservative-free and doled out by Mom/Grandma..in moderation

people ate fresh fruits all summer long & then switched to canned "put-up" fruits during the winter.

Koolaid became really popular when boomers were young, but back then we rode bikes & payed hard outside as long as there was light ..we burned it off..

[cynatnite]

83. +1 n/t

[grasswire]

13. I'd like to read the NYT article

But I spose it's now pay per view

[Big Blue Marble]

14. Not a problem.

It is a lengthy article and I read it in its entirety.

[Akoto]

15. Living is dying. I can think of worse ways to go than sugar.

Seriously. I wasted a lot of years before I became disabled, which tends to remind you of all the shit you once let bother you. The small worries no longer seem as important. Eat a damn hamburger, enjoy some sugar, drink a soda. So long as I'm not cramming these things down constantly, the pleasure of the experience outweighs that of paranoia.

[blondeatlast]

17. Indeed. My TIA woke me up to both my mortality and the

absolute necessity of enjoying small, indulgent pleasures within reason.

:thumbsup:

[anneboleyn]

22. I have an illness, and I relate to the "small, indulgent pleasures." Life is brutal enough

and life without sugar? Argh.

[bluestate10]

30. Exacto mondo. People are so afraid of dying that they don't realize

that each day spent worrying about dying means they have one less day to live. Freaking live people.

[Odin2005]

23. I stopped reading when I saw "not a scientist".

Just another journalist using alarmist to get readers.

[blondeatlast]

27. Exactly. nt

[Kalun D]

31. A Journalist

can read and compile the work of scientists

[Odin2005]

37. And the vast majority suck at it and/or manipulate it to cause controversy.

A scientist will report in a scientific journal that rats injected with the amount of aspartame equivalent to 200 cans of pop a day have a 3% increased risk of cancer and idiot journalists will report "Aspartame Causes Cancer". :eyes:

[Kalun D]

41. Science

so since you're promoting scientific method you must have some kind of studies that prove that a "vast majority" (which must be a more exact amount in the study) of journalists are inaccurate

and you must have some kind of proof that this specific journalist is among that majority.

[Abq_Sarah]

100. That's your loss, then

Taubes is a highly respected science journalist. He has a degree in applied Physics from Harvard, a MS in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford and a Master's in Journalism from Columbia.

[ReggieVeggie]

25. Well, I'll be dead in a few weeks then

I've inhaled sugar from when I was a fairly young kid to now. Sugar, sugar, sugar, and, oh yeah, more sugar.

[Kalun D]

29. Three Kinds Of Foods

Healing
Neutral
Detrimental

sugar falls in the detrimental category. It throws off the acid/alkaline balance of the blood, shifting it toward the acid. This taxes the immune system because germs feed off of an acid balance. It also can lead to other serious maladies like diabetes. Part of it's problem is the processing, white sugar is bleached which destroys the small nutritional value present in cane or beet. As you get older you will feel the detrimental effects more, in mood swings and a weakened immune system.

But there are other sweeteners even worse

aspartame is a neurotoxin, it was pushed though the FDA, with more public complaints during the trial period than any other substance, by non other than Donald Rumsfeld when he was with Searle

HFCS is a devils brew of a sugar slightly less sweet than white sugar so they have to use more volume. Chemically it is much more conducive to diabetes which explains the current diabetes epidemic.

http://www.daghettotymz.com/current/whitesugar2/whitesugar2.html

WHAT WHITE SUGAR DOES
The chemicalz used in white sugar processing are phosphoric acid, acid calcium phosphate among otherz. They are potent and health-debilitating. White sugar has a tremendous amount of carbonic acid which disturbz the nutritional balance in the body. White sugar robz the body of almost all nutrients, especially the mineralz chromium, zinc and calcium, and vitaminz C and B-complex.

White sugar also destroyz food digestion enzymes in the mouth, stomach, the small intestines and the pancreas. It also reduces the amount of hydrochloric acid — a necessary digestive acid in the stomach. Without it, the food doesn't get broken down properly, thus inhibiting the body from properly absorbing the nutrients. A symptom of this is frequent bouts with constipation.

White sugar interferes with activities of the small intestine which digests the food. The small intestine pushes the waste along and most importantly releases the nutrients in the food to give us energy and nourish cells. But when we eat white sugar, digestion is disturbed. According to Muhammad, the amount of food nutrients available to the body are limited.

In addition to this, white sugar is released into the blood. This toxifies the blood, putting too much carbon in it which further damages the body cellz. Since there's no real nutrition in white sugar, it represents a toxic waste material in the blood that the body will try to get rid of. The lymphatic system will grab some of this waste in an attempt to purify the blood. When the lymphatic system becomes overloaded, health problemz occur, which could have been avoided. Too much white sugar, salt, and starch can work together to create an excessive appetite. These food cravingz create an imbalance in the body.

[bluestate10]

32. Name a food that won't kill you if you consume too much in a small time period. nt

[Kalun D]

40. Not Discussing Abnormal Amounts

an abnormal amount of water will kill you

discussing normal amounts.

an amount of healing food will help you commensurate to the amount

a amount of neutral food is just that, neutral

a detrimental food is detrimental no matter the amount. No matter how small there is some damage. Many times the effects of detrimental foods are accumulative in that small amounts over large periods of time add up to larger damage.

[Prometheus Bound]

71. Apples

[Odin2005]

36. This post is pure BS.

Sugar does not affect blood pH. Blood pH is carefully controlled and regulated by the brain stem via controlling the amount of dissolved CO2 in the blood by adjusting breathing. That is why things like yogic breathing exercises work, they affect blood chemistry.

Aspartame is not a neurotoxin. I avoid it, but not because of any toxicity, I avoid it because in many people, my self included, it can cause carb-craving because when you taste something sweet your body expects to be digesting sugars.

[Kalun D]

38. Your post is pure BS

Sugar does affect blood PH. So you're saying that the digestive system does not affect blood PH, LOLZ!!

Aspartame is a neurotoxin especially when heated, it has like 3 different kinds of acid. It's approval process was by individuals in a revolving door with the corporations that made the product. The scientific studies saying it's ok by the same kind of prostitute "scientists". Tell us how again you are going to conduct a 40 year cancer study, because that's how long it takes if something has an accumulative effect.

Why even wonder about all this questionable sh*t? Why not just leave out the man-made chemical garbage from your diet?

[PVnRT]

45. Sugar does not affect blood pH directly

Unless your body is swimming in free radicals, the hydrogen atoms on a sugar molecule will not be released. It is either broken down by cells for energy or combined and stored as fat.

The only way it can affect blood pH, and this is a stretch to say that sugar "causes" it, is via the production of ketones in people with type I diabetes. Because diabetics cannot use the glucose in their bloodstream, their bodies instead use fat, which causes the formation of ketones as they break down. If they build up too much, it becomes dangerous.

NIH

As for aspartame, the "acids" you're referring to are amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartic acid), which do not function like hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. In fact, the only way to get phenylalanine, a requirement for human life, is to ingest it through your diet. If you are a phenylketonuric (unable to break down phenylalanine), yes, you can get a buildup of phenylketones, which are dangerous for the reasons listed above. That's why diet sodas have that warning on them. Otherwise, the worst thing that comes out of aspartame when it breaks down is methanol, and because so little aspartame is used to sweeten things, it's a negligible amount, easily passed through your body.

Elmhurst College

Are you seriously suggesting that everything be tested for 40+ years before declaring it safe? I suppose you never want to see a new medicine developed again, do you? People have been studying aspartame for that long, and the worst effects (other than for those with genetic diseases) are occasional headaches and nausea.

Granted, I don't expect you to actually believe any of this information, as you'll just claim it's all part of the super-huge corpo-government conspiracy.

[Odin2005]

47. The blood pH thing is common alt "medicine" quackery.

[Kalun D]

66. Un Natural

the amino acids in aspartame are lab created synthetic copies of AA's found in nature. In nature they are only found with other substances that balance or offset bad effects or ensure they break down in non harmful ways.

Aspartame is 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10% methanol. The primary breakdown products of these lab created chemicals are formaldehyde, formic acid, methanol and DKP (Diketopiperazine) a proven brain tumor agent. Formaldehyde, formic acid, and methanol are all neurotoxins. Usually this break down occurs in the body, but if aspartame is heated it will break down beforehand, like in a hot storage area or in a drink like hot tea.

http://www.neuroassist.com/Neurotoxin.htm#Formal">Neurotoxin list

The approval process is all you need to condemn aspartame. It failed the independent lab tests, the rats were dying. So Searl did it politically by buying up the upper level of the FDA and the approval process changed to favor the industry owned labs. During the public trial period it had more complaints than any other substance on record.

Another huge red flag is the CEO of Searle at the time was non other than the scumbag deathskull Donald Rumsfeld. You know the one, that sold nuclear tech to N Korea, and told us there were WMD's North, South, East, and West in Iraq, when he knew there were none.

Now Searle is owned by Monsanto (the root of all chemical evil) and Rummy got a $12 million dollar bonus

http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050805.htm">The SICK EVIL story of Rummy, Searle, and aspartame

Please link to the continuous 40 year studies of aspartame, industry owned labs don't count. You won't find one of any type anyway.

If something has accumulative effects and it's not tested long term then the public is the lab rat. Big Pharma is over-medicating the country. Conventional medicine's answer to all problems is, take more chemical drugs. It's just leading to more death.

[Odin2005]

70. LOL, a, AA molecule is an AA molecule, whether it is "natural" or "artificial" is irrelevent.

The rest of your post is one giant fallacy.

[Kalun D]

77. Synthetic and Natural

the difference is the surrounding substances found in the natural product that cause it to react and break down safely in the body.

""The rest of your post is one giant fallacy.""

Rumsfeld would be proud of your "argument".

[Odin2005]

78. Bullshit.

[Kalun D]

84. Nature Trumps Man

by a long shot when it comes to nutrition

and these men are just into making money

they don't give a damn about human life or the planet

all they care about is profit

[Odin2005]

48. The only toxicity from Aspartame is if you drink the equivalent of 200 cans of pop.

As I mentioned in another post.

And by equating "acid" and "bad" you show your ignorance. Aspartame is composed of 2 amino acids, the building blocks of protein, which it breaks down into. That's why people with PKU can't consume it, one of the AAs is phenylalanine.

[Kalun D]

68. Industry Talking Point (200 cans)

Aspartame is 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10% methanol. The primary breakdown products of these synthetic chemicals are formaldehyde, formic acid, and methanol, all neurotoxins, and DKP (Diketopiperazine) a proven brain tumor agent.

Is that 200 cans at once or cumulative?

do any of these neurotoxins have cumulative effects?

[Odin2005]

69. That is the point, that stuff is harmless under a certain amount.

Hence the 200 cans comment.

Wiki sayeth:

Upon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into natural residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol,<21> and further breakdown products including formaldehyde<22> and formic acid, accumulation of the latter being suspected as the major cause of injury in methanol poisoning. Human studies show that formic acid is excreted faster than it is formed after ingestion of aspartate. In some fruit juices, higher concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame in beverages.

See that? there is more methanol is a glass of plain old fruit juice than there is from the metabolism of aspartame in diet drinks.

[Kalun D]

73. Wiki Has Been Compromised For a Long Time

the industry advocates have corrupted it

Just because the industry backed 200 can talking point says it's okay, doesn't mean it's okay. In fact it most likely means it's not okay.

link to the human studies, so we can see if they are industry sourced or not

there's a big difference between synthetic methanol and naturally occurring methanol

Don't forget the root company we are dealing with here, they don't give a damn about human life or the planet.

[Odin2005]

74. Your paranoia makes any reasonable discussion impossible.

You simply dismiss any argument you don't like as propaganda. No use trying to reason with you.

[Kalun D]

82. Still Waiting

for links to credible studies

sorry Wiki is just not credible, it's too easy to manipulate in either direction

[yawnmaster]

67. so much worry...so little time. eom

[malaise]

33. So which has more sugar

A ripe mango or a slice of cake?

[WinkyDink]

34. And doing without will lengthen our lifespans by how much?

[theophilus]

35. HFCS is in SO MANY things that you wouldn't suspect. If they just didn't

put it in hot dogs and a multitude of other stuff it might not be so damaging. Sugar, imo (I'm no scientist) having been around somewhat longer is probably not as bad. If you eat lots and lots of it, though, it is probably not a good thing. I believe the corn lobby is trying to conflate the two. HFCS is not sugar (as in pure cane). I hope definitive studies can be made and announced soon.

[AndyTiedye]

39. Sugar isn't so Bad, but HFCS is Frankenfood

[PVnRT]

46. How is it "frankenfood"?

You do not need to genetically modify corn to extract high-fructose corn syrup from it.

[SharonAnn]

49. Because of the "processing".

[PVnRT]

51. Unless you eat raw meat after killing the animal or pluck fruit/veggies and eat them fresh

all food is processed in one or another. Even your drinking water is processed.

[Pathwalker]

53. I have well water. Not so processed.

n/t

[PVnRT]

64. ...and most people don't

[Bluenorthwest]

58. Actually, there are various categories of processed foods

ranging from 'unprocessed' (because harvesting is not processing) to 'highly processed'. HFCS is a highly processed food. What you call 'extracting' it from corn actually involves making corn starch and then subjecting it to enzymes in a slurry, and so on and so forth. HFCS is not a extract of corn. It is a highly processed food stuff made out of corn. Highly processed. And picking an apple is not processing the apple. Making sauce is a process, not picking the apple. That is called 'harvesting'.

[PVnRT]

63. "Picking an apple" was my example of UN-processed

I wasn't disputing that HFCS was processed. I am disputing calling it "frankenfood," as there is no genetic modification required to make it.

[cui bono]

93. Processing that changes the natural chemical structure is generally bad for you.

This is especially true with HFCS. And the HFCS industry is now running ads telling you not to worry, sugar is sugar no matter where it comes from and that is a blatant lie.

In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found “astonishingly high” levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

<snip>

The processing industry argues that fructose is just another form of sugar and does no more damage than sugar. However, High Fructose Corn Syrup is an extremely refined version of the fructose naturally occurring in nature. High-fructose corn syrup is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. Three different enzymes, two of which have been genetically modified, are needed to break down cornstarch, which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars glucose and fructose.

<snip>

The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems. So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results. The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy--that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They also had delayed testicular development. Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production. In a nutshell, the little bodies of the rats just fell apart. The females were not so affected, but they were unable to produce live young.

“The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar,” says Dr. Field, “but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic.”

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3934.shtml

[Bluenorthwest]

55. Dr Frankenstein's monster was not genetically modified either.

So 'Frankenfood' does not mean genetically modified, it means a food which is intentionally made to serve a purpose, like the creature in the book. The analogy does not work at all. The creature is made of existing parts, which are not genetically modified.

[PVnRT]

65. "Frankenfood," everywhere I have seen it used, refers to genetically modified food

Do you consider pasta to be frankenfood? It's assembled from different ingredients from different plants (wheat, spinach, tomato) and animals (eggs). Same goes for, well, everything. If you're going to define "frankenfood" that way, then everything except the examples I mentioned down the sub-thread are "frankenfood."

[tinrobot]

106. The article says they're pretty much the same.

Don't get too attached to regular sugar, either.

[lonestarnot]

44. Whatever, now what about that nuked milk with growth hormone and oil soaked seafood.

Sugar tastes better.

[Kber]

50. I'll read the article, but my ingoing bias is that putting Sugar and HFCS

in the same category is roughly equivalent to putting pot and coke in the same category.

But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if the evidence is there.

On edit - the article goes to considerable effort to precisely refute my bias regarding HFCS and refined sugar. Interesting.

[defendandprotect]

54. There is every way to know processed SUGAR is harmful ....

what your body needs comes from natural foods -- salts and sugar in fresh foods --

from cole slaw to sweet potatoes --

also your body needs fat -- not fat from animals -- but fat from fresh vegetables, like

Avacados!!


Same with everything else you need -- it comes from greens, fresh fruits, vegetables --

PLANTS are our medicines!!

[hobbit709]

56. I wonder how many avocados the early hominids ate?

Or if they were scavenging anterlope rib bones for the marrow.

[defendandprotect]

57. Are you suggesting there was no vegetation?

:rofl:

[hobbit709]

59. there weren't any avocados in the African Rift Valley.

[defendandprotect]

60. And no nuts -- ? Or other vegetation -- ?

[hobbit709]

61. Learn a little paleontology

There was vegetation. Nobody said there wasn't. the general theory is that our brain capacity started to rise when whe started scavenging meat.
Ask robustus what happened when the climate changed.

[defendandprotect]

75. That wouldn't have been right wing propaganda to create violence, would it?

And, then, why play the avacado game?

Rather, our brains and are bodies are poorly effected from animal-eating --

try alzheimer's, Mad Cow --

Every harm done impacts the brain first --

Nature isn't suicidal -- and animal-eating is suicidal for the planet -- and humans!

[Odin2005]

79. Paleontologists are tools of the right? LOLZ!!!

It's well established that meat consumption, first from scavenging and them from hunting, was an important part of human evolution. the concentrated calories from eating animals is what allowed our brains to get so big.

[defendandprotect]

87. Paleontologists in the Garden of Eden?

That's one of the myths which points us to the "overturning" --

Do you really believe the world was turned upside down by the eating of an APPLE?

An APPLE which naturally grows in a garden?

The world was turned upside down after women were attacked -- and then animal-life --

the work of the violent right in their rising.

And Eve stands still today holding the APPLE as a message to us all.

[Odin2005]

88. What do biblical fairy tales have to do with anything?

You (as usual) are not making any sense.

[defendandprotect]

89. Myth often points us to truth -- distorted and buried -- but truth --

I'd also remind you that if we are to believe polls many take the Bible literally!!

But coming back to that bibical fairy tale --it is about the overturning of women --

and the beginning of animal-eating -- or more appropriately put, the beginning of

violence against women, children and animals.

"Eat your enemy!" --

[hobbit709]

85. Whatever.

Do you even understand what hunter-gatherer means.

I can see I'm wasting my time.

[defendandprotect]

90. Do you understand symbolism? The symbol of the APPLE?

I can see I'm wasting my time --

[hobbit709]

92. so in a discussion that started about sugar

you now want to discuss the symbolism of the role of a central Asian fruit in the Middle Eastern mythology of a bunch of itinerant sheepherders.

[defendandprotect]

98. OK -- you don't understand symbolism -- bye --

[yawnmaster]

62. I get my fat from the most best source available. bacon.

and 2 slices gives a full dose of happies.

[defendandprotect]

76. I'm sure it also made the pig happy!!

Getting enough salt and fat these days?

[AsahinaKimi]

72. Don't call me SUGAR!!!!

oh, WAIT... I read that wrong :P nvm.

[defendandprotect]

99. You can call me HONEY!!!! Bless the bees -- for health and sweetness -- !!

One of the original sweetners --

Only cheap crap can be put on or into foods today -- to ensure profits!!

[Odin2005]

80. The ignorance and pseudoscientific in this thread is astounding.

Ignorance is not just a RW problem.

[defendandprotect]

91. Right -- we need more kids drinking Pepsi -- and rotting their teeth while growing fat --!!

[Odin2005]

94. You are putting words in my mouth.

[blondeatlast]

95. The scientific method is a RW tool, doncha know?

Or so it would seem by this thread. I stopped reading the article at "not a scientist."

[eppur_se_muova]

81. Sugar was originally used as a spice, not as a foodstuff.

I still have recipes that call for a teaspoon or so of sugar. Leaving it out makes for a less tasty dish. Adding half a cup ruins it.

When recipes call for a lot of sugar, I usually cut the amount in half, and see what happens. If it's OK, I cut it some more next time.

If you buy your food pre-prepared, you have no control over how much sugar is present. I was once astounded to see sugar listed as the second or third ingredient in canned green beans, for example. Haven't seen anything that blatant for awhile -- I think mfgrs are responding to changing consumer tastes in that regard.

[defendandprotect]

97. Difference between natural sugar -- and processed sugar -- and --

if I recall correctly, some processed sugars even use animal fats in the

processing -- ?

[Abq_Sarah]

101. I'm pretty sure your liver and gut

Don't really give a rip whether it's processed or not.

[defendandprotect]

103. Your body doesn't care if you eat a pear -- or a cookie with sugar sprinkled all over it?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

[Abq_Sarah]

104. When the individual components are broken down

Your liver isn't saying... wow, thank god they included a little fiber with that fructose.

[defendandprotect]

107. Every vegetable and fruit nourishes a different part of our body --

strawberries -- the lining of your mouth --

carrots -- eyes --

PLANTS are our medicines --

[Curmudgeoness]

86. I don't give a shit. I would rather have a shorter life and

enjoy food than live a thousand years eating only healthy foods. When you use the term "toxic", I would expect it that you will die quickly from it. We know this is not the case.

[stuntcat]

96. I'm lucky, I don't even want sweets often :)

I never want ice cream, muffins or cookies, none of that stuff. When I'm out with portly relatives and it comes time for us all to enjoy the big desert I pretend to enjoy that crap :puke: then afterward I just wish I'd have skipped it. I need to stop being afraid to upset everyone, if I don't want to eat that stuff then I don't have to.

[woo me with science]

102. Could be, but maybe not.

Peoples been eatin' cakes for years. I, for one, plan to continue. :hi: