Sweeteners?

[stuffit 0]

Any nutrition expert types know anything about the differences between refined sugars and "natural" sweeteners like brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice (as far as health effects)?

[Nightingale 0]

I've heard that raw sugar is better for you than white sugar, but I'm not sure why.

It does taste better, though.

[boxingrrl 0]

Really, it's a matter of how processed the final product is, and how you feel about that. Some of the "natural" products are truly just less refined. Most have about the same calories, and similar rates of absorbtion into your bloodstream (impact on your blood sugar levels/glycemic index.)

The artificial sweeteners may be very low or no calorie, but they are chemically based.

Are you looking for something "healthy" and sweet, or something low calorie and sweet? Remembering, of course, that consuming too many calories, even from naturally sweetened foods can increase your risk for health issues.

I vote for everything in moderation.

[skygal3 0]

Aspartame, Sucralose, etc., all chemical based, make me very very sick. I don't know how the FDA allows them to be an acceptable food source. Unfortunately, with the new "low carb" hype, they are only going to become more popular.

[stuffit 0]

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Really, it's a matter of how processed the final product is, and how you feel about that. Some of the "natural" products are truly just less refined. Most have about the same calories, and similar rates of absorbtion into your bloodstream (impact on your blood sugar levels/glycemic index.)

The artificial sweeteners may be very low or no calorie, but they are chemically based.

Are you looking for something "healthy" and sweet, or something low calorie and sweet? Remembering, of course, that consuming too many calories, even from naturally sweetened foods can increase your risk for health issues.

I vote for everything in moderation.

It is a question that came from looking at the back of a Clif bar. I like eating them so I emailed their company with basically the same question above: are these sweeteners any better than traditional refined sugars? All I got was some bullshit answer. I understand that refined, processed sugars are bad because your body does not process them correctly(if at all) so I want to know if these alternatives are any better.

[skygal3 0]

Just curious, what was the BS answer? We tend to keep a healthy stock of Clif Bars around as well. The are supposedly organic, but organic does not mean any better for you if it is not easily digested.

[bmcd308 0]

Look up the glycemic index of the other sweeteners.

Refined sugar will have a high glycemic index, which means that your blood sugar will increase more quickly after you eat it, resulting in more insulin production. Lower glycemic index sweeteners do not enter your bloodstream as quickly, so you do not have as much of an insulin response.

Brent

----------------------------------
www.jumpelvis.com

[stuffit 0]

He just basically said, " I am glad you have asked us about our sweeteners. We use only the highest quality, organic ingredients....blah blah blah"

He never actually answered my question but I will still eat them as a snack rather than some chips or some fried crap. I would imagine they are atleast a little better for you than some of that stuff.

[misskriss 0]

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Aspartame, Sucralose, etc., all chemical based, make me very very sick.

Wonder if that's why I feel so bad when I have more than 3 diet pepsi's in a day..

[skygal3 0]

It's evil stuff! I'd stay away if I were you..

[boxingrrl 0]

A lot of companies want to market their products as "natural foods". Basically, Clif Bar and others use raw cane sugar and brown rice syrup, so they don't have to put high fructose corn syrup on their labels. Their "sugars" are still just sugars. Your body will digest them just fine, as it would plain old white table sugar, or the sugar from a banana or apple juice. It's really a question of how much sugar do you want in your diet? And would you rather have more sugar (from natural sources or not) or eat products that employ aspartame or saccharin, etc for sweetness.

From what I understand, though, the new stuff, Splenda, is not supposed to be as scary as Nutrasweet and it's predecessors (Equal, sweet n' low). Anyone know much about it?

[misskriss 0]

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From what I understand, though, the new stuff, Splenda, is not supposed to be as scary as Nutrasweet and it's predecessors (Equal, sweet n' low). Anyone know much about it?

I've heard that too and I use splenda in my coffee. It definitely does not have that nasty aftertaste and tastes more like real sugar.

[hookitt 0]

I forget where I got this. but one site about it is...http://www.dorway.com

=================

Cardiomyopathy From
Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Etc)

From Betty Martini

[email protected]
10-20-3

Dear Jeff,



Because so many aspartame victims have cardiomyopathy, and so many athletes who have dropped dead, I posed this question to the physicians. There are different types of cardiomyopathy. For instance, alcoholic cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle due to alcohol consumption. And reasonably you can probably understand because there is wood alcohol in aspartame, free methyl alcohol. So Dr. Bowen has answered this, and while its technical, yet it serves to explain to those who might have the problem why they have it. It's the best explanation I've seen written and thought it should be part of the record and put on web sites. We thank Dr. James Bowen for explaining in detail. It looked like he tried to put this on the list but I haven't seen it come through.



All my best, Betty



Cardiomyopathy From Aspartame

By James Bowen, MD
10-19-3



Cardiomyopathy from toxic and auto immune causes has long been appreciated. Cardiomyopathy is often an accompanying feature of rheumatic fever, for example.



Since Aspartame is indeed a toxic, mitochondrial, and auto immune killer we could expect no less! The heart is especially targeted in alcohol poisonings of all kinds, but is not especially the focus of attention in most cases because the liver and nervous system symptoms usually get more attention. I. e: Steato Hepatitis, "anti mitochondrial antibody hepatitis", cirrhosis, etc. as well as the neurodegenerative diseases. The heart failure of alcohol drinkers was well known before the advent of Aspartame. I had a personal friend who died of it.



Since the intact Aspartame molecule is an alcohol poison about twenty thousand times as toxic as most beverage alcohols, and since most of the damage from beverage alcohol comes from its methanol content, Aspartame, which has the methanol-formaldehyde-formic acid toxic axis as one of its highly aggravated toxic components, could very predictably cause extreme damage of all organs of the body. Indeed the FDA recognized ONLY 92 Aspartame related problems before it refused to count any further!



Since this Methanol- damage is related to subsequent metabolism which increases the severity of poisoning, and DNA and tissue damage at each step of the axis, it would be expected that those organs which are highly metabolic would be greatly effected, and that indeed is just the case. The Heart, for example, never really gets to rest, just between beats. The cardiac conduction system never rests, if it does, or if it gets out of control, you are dead! SUDDENLY! The auto immune attack is similarly focused in areas of metabolic activity. So the heart is a certain target for the Aspartame damage. I personally went into such a toxic cardiomyopathy after just two days of using the lo-Cal Kool Aid, that I went from being a two mile per day swimmer to being so cardio decompensated, I had to stop and catch my breath just to climb one flight of stairs to my apartment.



Aspartame was at that very moment killing workers in Searle's first Aspartame plant in Phoenix. Even though you are supposed to ingest it by FDA mandate, Aspartame manufacturing plants around the world now protect their employees with face masks and full body protective garments lest their employees come into any contact with the dust! This all started with the death of an employee named Krossic who first passed out from the inhaled dust's toxic effects. His death occurred even after all were made to wear face masks so they couldn't breathe the dust. He absorbed enough through the skin that he died from a toxic cardiomyopathy. The post mortem exam revealed an "alcoholic cardiomyopathy". Jim Krossic was a teetotaler who used NO beverage alcohol!



The mitochondria are the sub cellular structures which are literally the energy furnaces of the cell, so they get a huge amount of damage from Aspartame, and from creatine likewise. The heart muscle, as I have mentioned in previous articles, (See Dorway) have enormous concentrations of mitochondria: on the order of twenty to one hundred thousand per cell. The cardiac conduction system, even more! Little wonder Athletes who use Aspartame are suddenly dropping dead. Even more so if they use both creatine and Aspartame! Sudden death has now become the leading cause of death in the US! Mitochondrial DNA, (MtDNA), in addition to being where the toxins are generated in great concentration, lacks the protective and repair mechanisms of nuclear DNA, so the mitochondrial DNA is horribly damaged. Just six weeks of using the lo-Cal Kool Aid completely grayed me from having a full head of dark reddish brown hair when I started using the Kool Aid! It was only since 1983 when Aspartame wa! s fully marketed for soft drinks that any full line of hair dyes aimed at the male user were brought to market! I know. I went searching, and there were none at first. MtDNA damage is of itself, so prone to produce cardiomyopathy, that cardiomyopathy is one of many congenital "Mitochondrial DNA Diseases" which the mother can pass on to her offspring from herself having MtDNA that is damaged, such as from having previously consumed Aspartame.



The Maternal transmission of damaged MtDNA can occur for the rest of a woman's reproductive years, and may directly affect both her children and grand children, as well as becoming a persistently transmitted genetic problem. The mother therefore, does not necessarily have to have been drinking Aspartame, when she got pregnant, nor while carrying the baby. Since the female is born with all the eggs she will ever have already present in her ovaries, it may well likely be the Nutra Sweet her mother drank which is the source of her offspring's problems.



This is not to suggest that Aspartame ingested by the mother before and during conception and pregnancy is not horribly damaging to the fetus. It indeed is, and such Aspartame use is HIGHLY damaging to the fetus, causing fetal loss, deformity, fetal alcohol syndrome, and many other horrible problems. Now that Aspartame has been openly and extensively marketed for twenty plus years, children and athletes may be suffering from the Aspartame foisted upon their mothers and even grandmothers! Yes, a given athlete may never have used Aspartame, but may be dying from an Aspartame MtDNA cardiomyopathy inherited from his maternal line. Athletes who do use Aspartame, or worse yet, both Aspartame and creatine are, of course at great risk, even if they inherited no such problems from their maternal ancestors. Male Ancestors do not transmit MtDNA diseases because the sperm has only a few mitochondria, and will unlikely be the winner in the race to find and fertilize the egg if any mitoch! ondria are damaged. Moreover the egg accepts only the head of the sperm. The mid body which contains the sperm mitochondria serves only to provide the energy and motility to get the head of the sperm to the egg and through its wall. In addition, if any mitochondria from the sperm do get into the fertilized egg, that condition results in the death of the egg.



It would therefore be fair to say that children are two thirds the genetic result of their mother's DNA! All the more reason that females especially, should be protected from any use of Aspartame! That goes for creatine too! My articles such as "Sperm Warfare", "Punditries and Palsies", "Aspartame murders infants", "Billions of Victims", etc. go into greater and wider detail on many of these topics. They are available at www.bowendrjim.com. www.dorway.com may have a wider selection of mine and other authors' articles on related topics.



Sincerely,



Dr Jim Bowen

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[stuffit 0]

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A lot of companies want to market their products as "natural foods". Basically, Clif Bar and others use raw cane sugar and brown rice syrup, so they don't have to put high fructose corn syrup on their labels. Their "sugars" are still just sugars. Your body will digest them just fine, as it would plain old white table sugar, or the sugar from a banana or apple juice.

I spoke to a nutritionist a while back that would disagree. I was told that your body does not process the refined sugars as well as it processes natural fruit sugars. I dont think you meant to say that all sugars are the same? (I hope)

[BikerBabe 0]

Splenda tastes like sugar because basically, it IS sugar.

The way sucralose was explained to me is this:

Sucrose (regular sugar) is a "right-handed" molecule. Meaning the molecule has a certain shape. The enzyme in the body that breaks down sugar is made like a puzzle piece to fit that shape.

What they did to make sucralose is make a "left-handed" sugar molecule. Now the enzyme that breaks down sugar doesn't fit with this puzzle piece, so the sucralose passes through your body.

The only diet cola I drink anymore is Diet Rite, because they use Splenda. You can also cook with it, something you can't do with Nutrasweet (aspartame) or saccharine.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[boxingrrl 0]

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I was told that your body does not process the refined sugars as well as it processes natural fruit sugars.

It depends on what you mean by "process" and "not as well". The bottom line is that your body will process, or digest, refined sugars, and your body will process, or digest, natural sugars. Some people believe that fruit sugars are somehow better or different, but from what I understand, they both, meaning fruit or refined, break down into the same or very similar sugar molecules. Now, some fruit sugars, if they are still actually in fruit, may take longer to hit your blood stream. That is mostly a function of the complex carbohydrates contained in the fruit, plus the fiber, that slows down the sugar's absorption. This is a better option for those with issues regarding blood sugar/insulin response. Some people think that "raw cane" sugar and brown rice syrups have nutritional content, trace minerals and whatnot that regular white sugar doesn't. They do, but the amounts are so small, that unless you eat an unhealthy amount of those products, you won't be getting enough trace anything to do any good. You'd be better off laying off the sugar altogether and eating a well balanced meal and/or or taking a good quality multivitamin.

[boxingrrl 0]

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The only diet cola I drink anymore is Diet Rite, because they use Splenda. You can also cook with it, something you can't do with Nutrasweet (aspartame) or saccharine.

I've been drinking the Diet Rite, too, and using some Splenda at home. I've just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. For a while, Nutrasweet was the miracle sweetener, but then long term studies came out. I don't even know how long Splenda has been around, but so far I've only heard good things

[BikerBabe 0]

Well, they've been using it in Canada for something like 20 years, and as far as I know, no long term bad stuff has shown up.

Canadians? Anyone know?

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[bch7773 0]

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I understand that refined, processed sugars are bad because your body does not process them correctly(if at all) so I want to know if these alternatives are any better.

well of course the refined artificial sugars such as splenda or nutrasweet aren't really processed in your body at all. The reason they are no calorie is because they aren't being broken up and used for energy, like normal sugar. They basically just pass right through you. I think whoever said that they are left-handed molecules may be on the right track... I think the technical term though is "stereoisomer"

but if you were asking if raw cane sugar is better for you than white refined sugar, beats me. I would just guess that they basically are processed the same. I think refined white sugar is used more quickly in your body, so you get more of a sugar rush with it.

MB 3528, RB 1182