Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
Yes. Trans fats and nitrates, for example.
Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
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Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#12Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
I might be a paranoiac here, but I prefer to keep a somewhat-permeable whitelist instead of a blacklist. Make sure 2/3ish of my calories come from healthy animal proteins (I raise pigs and chickens and trade meat and eggs for beef, so I know exactly what's going into what's going into me), drink almost exclusively water (2-5 expressos a day are worth mentioning too), and then fill in the rest with whatever the hell I want.
Don't have to be careful with particular ingredients if you have a steady baseline of known-good, nutrient-dense, healthful calories. Also never have to waste on time on bullshit like this--oh, no, maybe aspartame ISN'T good for you! or, What did the NYTimes says about Splenda? or what the NIH researched about highly-processed factory-produced fake meat. Ignore it all, eat reasonable, old-school food.
In one kind of way it's kind of like that story you hear about Steve Jobs wearing the same black shirt and jeans every day--it actually is a consequential decision--what to eat vs. how to present yourself. But, if you can pre-set some defaults that get you to Good Enough (and in the case of my diet, apparently Better Than 95% of Americans), you save so much mental energy. It seems to me most "nutritional research" serves the purposes of large agribusiness and/or fad-nutrition industries. Why bother spending mental effort on that bullshit?
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#13Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
Processed meats and red meats are linked to colorectal cancer. I believe it's something like 70% of CRC cases can be traced back to red/processed meat consumption.
>In 2007, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) stated that there is convincing evidence linking the consumption of red and processed meat with the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). The WCRF further stated that the public should limit their intake of red meat to below 500 g per week, and avoid processed meat entirely. A further update from the WCRF emphasized that no safe level of processed meat could confidently be attributed to a lack of risk.
Excerpt from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893523/
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#14Note that it is in rodent. Aspartame hadn't been confirmed as a carcinogenic agent in humans. That said, I don't think it's a good idea to subject to ourselves to drinking diet soda as a daily habit. It costs money, may or may not interfere with your blood sugar and the health of your gut microbiomes. As a goal, I limit my intake of any sweet and/or artifically sweetened drinks. Instead of being a chronic diet coke d…
not only is it rodent the amount of Aspartame / kilogram is huge even at their lowest value (20mg/kg). Coke no sugar has ~87 mg of Aspartame in it, you need to do drink ~20 cans of it to meet the same Aspartame level in a 90kg human.
A 90kg human is above the US national average, though about on target for US men. 81kg is the US average body weight with women around 73kg. So for women, that means the quantity they'd need to consume to reach that level is around 16 cans. 16 cans translates to 192 oz, or about 1.5 gallons.
That is indeed quite a bit, but about twice what's recommended by volume for water consumption for women.
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#15Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
I was surprised to see a Prop 65 warning on the organic frozen spinach we get delivered by Amazon Fresh/Whole Foods. Apparently it's due to Cadmium. It makes me wonder if the stuff you buy in-store doesn't have the same risk, or if they just don't label it as obviously as online.
You can find prop 65 warnings on basically anything heated to browning too. Coffee, cooked asparagus, bread, the list is gigantic: https://franzbakery.com/HTML/prop65
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#16The strain of rat used in these experiments, the Sprague Dawley, is commonly used to study cancer because it has a higher baseline incidence of cancer and grows solid tumors faster than other strains [1].
Interestingly, it’s the same strain that was used in the now-discredited study purportedly showing that RoundUp causes cancer [2].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat#Sprague_Dawley_...
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#17I think that there's some weird sort of moralization aspect to alternative sweeteners or just a 'too good to be true' attitude. In how many other areas would we spend so much time looking at such scant evidence and taking it seriously?
I've always thought they tasted terrible.
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#18Note that it is in rodent. Aspartame hadn't been confirmed as a carcinogenic agent in humans. That said, I don't think it's a good idea to subject to ourselves to drinking diet soda as a daily habit. It costs money, may or may not interfere with your blood sugar and the health of your gut microbiomes. As a goal, I limit my intake of any sweet and/or artifically sweetened drinks. Instead of being a chronic diet coke d…
H2O all the way.
I used to drink a ton of coke everyday.
I started carrying a water bottle everywhere (and I do mean everywhere), and I take small sips very often. It's a surprisingly easy habit to kick - grab a bottle and stick with it.
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#19Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
I was surprised to see a Prop 65 warning on the organic frozen spinach we get delivered by Amazon Fresh/Whole Foods. Apparently it's due to Cadmium. It makes me wonder if the stuff you buy in-store doesn't have the same risk, or if they just don't label it as obviously as online.
The physical store likely has a warning saying they “contain chemicals known to cause cancer.” Because these warning signs are so ubiquitous in California you probably just miss it when you go to the brick & mortar.
Re: Aspartame and cancer – new evidence for causation
#20Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?
Processed meats and red meats are linked to colorectal cancer. I believe it's something like 70% of CRC cases can be traced back to red/processed meat consumption. >In 2007, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) stated that there is convincing evidence linking the consumption of red and processed meat with the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). The WCRF further stated that the public should limit their intake of…
I saw another study that showed only processed meats were linked to colon cancer recently. Variety and moderation, avoid processed foods. I don’t think red meat is the culprit people make it out to be /in a healthy and balanced diet/.