Makes you wonder what we'll find out is being withheld right now, 50 years from now.
Aspartame.
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
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fruit & vegetables full of sucrose? That seems a little exaggerated. An onion, for instance, is 90% water, 4% sugars, 3% other carbs and 2% fibre. A coke, on the other hand, is 90% water, 10% sugar (either HFCS or sucrose, depending on your locale) and not an iota of fibre.
Would a coke onion (84% water, 10% sugar, 5% fibre, [1% other stuff {caramel colouring, deactivated coca leaf extract, etc.}]) be a bad source of sucrose? Pineapple is about 6% sucrose, red delicious Apples are about 2% sucrose (the rest being mostly fructose, and some glucose), bananas have more than 5% sucrose (As do mangoes, nectarines, and varieties of apple like pink lady).
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> costing taxpayers millions of dollars How do you mean? My understanding is that it would affect insurance rates for the overweight, unless of course insurers are not allowed to set rates based on bodyfat guidelines? I'd accept that it's costly here in Canada though, definitely an increase in emergency medical service load.
Additionally, when uninsured people visit the emergency room and can't pay for the service, the ER is not allowed to turn them away, and the rest of us end up paying for it.
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#24Makes 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.
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)".
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#25Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> costing taxpayers millions of dollars How do you mean? My understanding is that it would affect insurance rates for the overweight, unless of course insurers are not allowed to set rates based on bodyfat guidelines? I'd accept that it's costly here in Canada though, definitely an increase in emergency medical service load.
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#27Earlier 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?
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#28Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#29The 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
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 purchasing rubbish that has no business driving me ever faster to a painful death.
There are some goods that are proudly sugar free (on the marketing speak and in the ingredients list) and I make sure to buy these when possible.
Re: Sugar industry withheld possible evidence of cancer link 50 years ago
#30Fruits 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…
Fruit & vegetables full of sucrose? That seems a little exaggerated. An onion, for instance, is 90% water, 4% sugars, 3% other carbs and 2% fibre. A coke, on the other hand, is 90% water, 10% sugar (either HFCS or sucrose, depending on your locale) and not an iota of fibre.