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Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

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Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#41

The whole phenomenon of sugar and fructose being added to virtually everything is beyond comprehension. There are so many people, fat and slim, saying they don't want to be fat, yet eating foods with added sugar every day. Why not just replace all the added sugar with erythritol, for example? The whole situation with sugar reminds me of the situation with opium in early 19th century China

At least with erythritol some people have bad reactions to it. Nothing life threatening as far as I know, but it can give me very bad gas, and for one other person I know it's like eating Olestra Chips[1]. That said there are other sweeteners that don't seem to have that effect but they don't seem to behave quite as closely to sugar in cooking as erythritol does. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra#Side_effects

Tagatose has become my go-to sugar substitute. It is indistinguishable from sugar for me. There's an interesting article in Wired about its discovery and properties here:

https://www.wired.com/2003/11/newsugar/

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#42
post #8

Makes you wonder what we'll find out is being withheld right now, 50 years from now.

I sometimes wonder which materials I directly interact with on a regular basis that people in a few decades wouldn't touch for anything short of large amounts of money. History tells us there are probably a few. Guessing at least a couple are plastics or plastic additives/coatings of some kind. Maybe whatever they replaced BPA with. Possibly gasoline will qualify. Probably one or two things currently on/in our food.

Nanoparticles. They irritate your lungs in ways that are very similar to asbestos irritation. And of course, it's your body's reaction to the irritation that kills you.

Example: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.7b01873

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#43
post #29

The whole phenomenon of sugar and fructose being added to virtually everything is beyond comprehension. There are so many people, fat and slim, saying they don't want to be fat, yet eating foods with added sugar every day. Why not just replace all the added sugar with erythritol, for example? The whole situation with sugar reminds me of the situation with opium in early 19th century China

Erythritol can cause digestive discomfort for some [1], which is why I suspect it isn't prevalent. It was an eye opener to me how many packaged goods have sugar (HFCS) added, when intuitively it seems there was no good reason for any added sweet flavor to be present. By (mostly) assiduously reading the ingredients (the only source of truth, which is why it is often in the smallest print), I am often able to avoid pur…

The shocking thing is if you completely drop sugar from your diet you still notice plenty of sweet things. The only changes is the threshold before you consider something sweet.

IMO, we need to have a big fat "This is Candy!" label on anything that's got more than 1 gram of sugar/hfcs/whatever per serving. Yes, that includes Apple Juice and other 'hidden' sweeteners.

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#44

The whole phenomenon of sugar and fructose being added to virtually everything is beyond comprehension. There are so many people, fat and slim, saying they don't want to be fat, yet eating foods with added sugar every day. Why not just replace all the added sugar with erythritol, for example? The whole situation with sugar reminds me of the situation with opium in early 19th century China

Because price per pound: Erythritol: $20 Sugar: $0.44

Source: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mhVolO...

[Google cache, the original PDF is 404 Not Found]

Edit: looks like one can find erythritol for as little as $15, which is still 34 times more than sugar.

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#45

Fruits and vegetables are full of sucrose, it is the most commonly occurring sugar in plants. If splitting more sucrose (or is fructose really the problem?) increases your chance of cancer, it means very little on its own. Would you get the same results if they matched the starches to the glucose equivalent, rather than the same mass? Which is why I don't see why they would bother to suppress a result like this, but…

A 12 oz can of Coca Cola has twice the sugar content of an apple, without the beneficial fiber or vitamins. How many Americans are obese because they eat too many fruits and vegetables? An overwhelming majority are obese due to fast foods, soda, snacks, and sweets... costing taxpayers millions of dollars while companies profit from the negative externality.

How is the food industry supposed to grow if we stop becoming more and more obese?

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#47

The whole phenomenon of sugar and fructose being added to virtually everything is beyond comprehension. There are so many people, fat and slim, saying they don't want to be fat, yet eating foods with added sugar every day. Why not just replace all the added sugar with erythritol, for example? The whole situation with sugar reminds me of the situation with opium in early 19th century China

There's an interesting book on this topic that discusses both how it happened and what that does to our brains and bodies - "The Hacking of the American Mind" by Robert Lustig [1]. The book also is about other ways our brain is affected by a substance or behavior, but mostly about sugar. I highly recommend it.

[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531013/the-hacking-...

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect the practice of of "sous vide in plastic bags" to be shown as long-term unhealthy sooner or later. It's one of those things where I wonder if the plastics really are as safe as claimed, or just "safer than the standard we set (and we didn't set it high, and our way of measuring is flawed)".

It's a good point. I can't remember the last time I saw a plastic bag that gave a safe temperature range right there on the bag or package containing the bags. You'd think they would say Safe for food up to 200 degrees F or something.

My Mom feels guilty that she used those "sterile" plastic bags in our baby bottles when we were little. Of course they were BPA.

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#49

The whole phenomenon of sugar and fructose being added to virtually everything is beyond comprehension. There are so many people, fat and slim, saying they don't want to be fat, yet eating foods with added sugar every day. Why not just replace all the added sugar with erythritol, for example? The whole situation with sugar reminds me of the situation with opium in early 19th century China

Because price per pound: Erythritol: $20 Sugar: $0.44 Source: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mhVolO... [Google cache, the original PDF is 404 Not Found] Edit: looks like one can find erythritol for as little as $15, which is still 34 times more than sugar.

Switch to stevia instead?

Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago

#50
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aspartame.

Aspartame has been extensively studied and no adverse effect has been found. Why do you think that? Is it because "scary chemical"? And is it worse than sugar?

http://www.cibr.es/ka/apps/cibr/docs/aspartamo-opinion-efsa-... is a European Food Safety view.
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