Aspertame* The not so sweet side of the "sweetener"

[Ten-Ten]

I was reading the ingredient content on the label of the sugarfree gum I used to purchase and the dry drink mix I used to love and came accross *Aspertame *"Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine" on the very bottom.
It sounded familiar so I proceeded to search it up and this is what I found...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspertame

Why is it so widely used if the outcome is much worse in comparisson to natural sugar? Do people know what is in their food? Better yet, do they care anymore?
Is anybody else concerned by this?
I welcome any constructive insight from any that may be more educated on the matter.

[honestabe]

Do people know what is in their food? Better yet, do they care anymore?

No

[BruiZar]

Aspertame is a very dangerous sugar replacement and it can fuck up your entire body. I´m allergic to it, so I know. If anything, just eat sugar, its better for you than aspertame (i dont add sugar to anything myself).

You don´t need to eat sugar at all because there are natural sugars in vegetables and fruits. The only sugar you could consider eating is solid honey (never clear/liquid honey). You can have sugar, but you need to watch out for the glycemic index which tells your body how quickly it should release the sugar into your system. If you consume lots of high glycemic index foods, you can develop diabetes. If you eat lots of whole wheat, fruits and vegetables, you´re eating low glycemic index foods. At all times avoid drinking beer (you can drink whatever else you want but avoid beer). The reason for this is because it has Maltose (malt), which is an even worst  type of sugar as the stuff in Coke. The maltose in combination with grains needed to produce beer is where beer bellies come from. If you are working out, eat Glucose sugars right after power training because it will directly go into your blood. Sugars like Sucrose need to be converted to glucose by your body first, which takes too much time, by that time your muscles ´close´ and it is stored as fat. So, in other words, you need to know what kind of sugars you´re eating and when.

Types of Sugars
Sucrose (Saccharose)
Glucose (Dextrose)
Fructose
Maltose

I´m not a dietist so there´s probably someone who knows more about this stuff than me that can chime in. Oh btw, Aspertame was used by the egyptians in their preservation balms for mummification. Bon apetit

[H]

I don't eat/drink anything with artificial sweeteners in it.  Aspertame gives me a headache and not to mention it just takes odd.  It has such a gross aftertaste.  My friend's family only ever has diet caffeine free drinks at their house.  In those situations, i have water instead.

[Ten-Ten]

..I really appreciate all the responses.  I have to say though, I love my wife for keeping me off all this lab food. She began eating healthy bout a month ago, doing so she began to insist I stop consuming such products Also containing  MSG ..etc. I thought maybe this had become an obsession..   I was wrong.         I was thinking of calling up the companies that use artificial enhancers in their products and questioning them about it through their customer hotlines, but i doubt i will achieve much.

[kikoo]

I used to eat it because it's in most protein powders, but it made me feel like crap so I switched to something without artificial sweeteners.

Ultimately, you have to trust your own body before anything else. Judging from my own personal experience and from what I have read on this subject, Aspertame is clearly poison and since the FDA has deemed Aspertame safe to use, they apparently don't care about anyone's well-being.

[BruiZar]

What I eat every day is a spoon of beepollen, a spoon of  ´zemelen´ (not sure what the english word is, but it is the outershell of the grain) and a spoon of ´lijnzaad´ (also not sure what the english word is), i drink mostly water, try to stay away from coffee and never drink any soda and try to avoid red meat (skip pork all together) because its poison. Also, I never use butter or butter substitutes, no sunflower oil and no palm oil. Its all crap. The only thing I use is olive oil (extra vergine only).  In Italy there are people who drink olive oil, its that healthy for you. Also, you don´t get fat from olive oil. If you don´t believe me, just see how skinny all those mediterranean people are. Mediterranean/Middle Eastern diets are the berst in the world (minus the baklava). Also, if you dont eat any sugar at all It´s amazing how quickly your body adapts. The moment you drink a single soda after 2 months of not having had any added sugar in your foods, it will taste 10 times sweeter than it used to.

Keep up the healthy habit, you only have one body and a well fed, well excersized body means you will feel mentally fit too!

[Delha]

...well excersized body...

This. People seem to focus way too much on their intake and not enough on their expenditure. You will get fat off lettuce if you do nothing but eat and sleep all day. The vast majority of unhealthly people I know would be okay (even with their terrible eating habits) if they would just excercise. I'm not saying they'd be on magazine covers or anything, just that they'd be in much better shape.

I love carbs, I love red meat, I love cheese, I love butter, and I like my food overseasoned. At the end of the day though, I just use a bit of moderation and don't indulge in those things every damn day. I hit the gym a couple times a week, and tend to work out pretty hard while I'm there. It's all about balance.

[Ten-Ten]

I love carbs, I love red meat, I love cheese, I love butter, and I like my food overseasoned. At the end of the day though, I just use a bit of moderation and don't indulge in those things every damn day. I hit the gym a couple times a week, and tend to work out pretty hard while I'm there. It's all about balance.

Yes! sounds like me in one of those talks my wife and I would have.
 Its funny though how offended people look when you point out the toxins they are about to consume. It has been difficult not to read the labels now. I am not obssesed, just most aware now.
Also, I noticed that the more unhealthy the food, the cheaper it seems.

I used to eat it because it's in most protein powders, but it made me feel like crap so I switched to something without artificial sweeteners.

Any protein shakes or mixes you might recommend? I have tried Muscle milk but made me feel like crap!

[BruiZar]

Here's some interesting info
In this lecture, Dr. Russell Blaylock explains one of the most important connections between nutrition and our health, how nutrition affects our behavior.
Citing a series of important studies, he shows that good nutrition can powerfully enhance our memory, mood, and behavior in a socially desirable way.
Like wise he shows us that poor nutrition can lead our youth into a world of violence, crime, depression and suicide.
By using an impressive array of studies on both juvenile and adult prisoners, Dr. Blaylock demonstrates these principals and outlines specific measures you can take to protect your children from these detrimental effects. Most importantly, he shows us that it is never too late to make these nutritional changes.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/russell-blaylock-nutrition-and-behavior-aspartame/
Fun excerpt from this documentary. The guy tells us how Aspertame can make you hypoglycemic which causes you to eat too much. End of the line, you end up gaining weight with diet cokes because you feel like eating all day.



Aspartame is an artificial sweetener, an additive. And it’s a chemical. It’s not a natural product, it’s a chemical. The molecule is made up of three components. Two are amino acids, the so-called building blocks of protein.
One is called Phenylalanine, which is about 50% of the molecule and the other is Aspartic Acid, which is like 40%. And the other 10% is so-called Methyl Ester, which as soon as it’s swallowed becomes free methyl alcohol. Methanol. Wood alcohol, which is a poison. A real poison.
Excellent documentary showing how dangerous artificial sweetner Aspartame is. From its history, to its effects this video is enough to shock anyone into really looking at there food labels next time they shop. Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. Take a good look at this video, it could save lives.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/sweet-misery-a-poisoned-world/

And some other things.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/waste-food/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/simply-raw-reversing-diabetes-in-30-days/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/how-to-live-to-101/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/food-inc/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/genetically-modified-food/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/farm-for-the-future/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dispatches-supermarket-secrets/

I havent watched most of these but its a topic easily found on the internet.  Search for sugar, aspertame, food science, nutrition.

[BC]

Its funny though how offended people look when you point out the toxins they are about to consume.

They're not offended, they're annoyed.  It's cool if you want to go all crusader against big food, that's certainly your right.  But don't be surprised when people are not terribly receptive to your diatribe when they're trying to enjoy their Big Mac.

[The Atog Lord]

try to avoid red meat (skip pork all together) because its poison

Can you perhaps explain how meat is poison? I understand that it doesn't work out so well for the animal. But as the consumer, I've spent my life incorporating flesh into my diet, and have yet survived the experience. There are entire species of animals whose diet consists of meat, for that matter.

[BC]

I wouldn't go so far as to say meat is poison, but it definitely has a potential downside (scientifically supported, not just the ramblings of a hippie).  I don't know a lot about it, but here is an excerpt from the introduction of an article I found on Pubmed:

"Frequent consumption of meat has been associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. Such a risk may be due to naturally occurring compounds in the meat, substances added to the meat, or agents formed during cooking. Concerning the latter alternative, mutagenic heterocyclic amines are multi-site animal carcinogens, but their relevance to human cancer has yet to be determined."

[BruiZar]

@The atoglord

Amongst many things, it can give you a higher risk of heart disease and some cancers. It can have very adverse effects on people with rheumatoid arthritis (hands swell up). The fable of 'needing' meat for your protein intake is wrong. Meat actually stays in your stomach for ~30 days before it is completely digested. I don't even want to know what meat looks like 30 days outside the refrigerator, let alone your body. I eat bee pollen instead which is ~40% protein without the negative side effects of red meat or the digestive problems you get from eating it. When meat eaters fart, it tends to smell MUCH worst than when nonmeat eaters fart, because the meat literally rots in your body.

Come to think of it bee pollen, is probably the closest consumable product to the 'essence of life'. Bees are responsible for  30% of all the world's crop growth. That means, if they would become extinct, whole societies would collapse due to food shortage. This is why I boycott American honey. Large American beekeepers tend to exterminate their bees during the winter to minimize their overhead during the winter period. (your local bee keeper may not do this, so go to a local farm if there is one) I purchase my bee pollen/honey only when it is labeled with made in the EU or Lebanon (not made in EU and non-EU). Bee pollen It is the best power food I have ever come across. There is a cautionary note however. You should build up your intake slowly, because if you are allergic you can go into anaphylactic shock (same way you can go into that from a bee sting if you're allergic. It's easily treated if you're in the hospital, but if untreated, you will choke to death.). I currently take a table spoon of bee pollen a day and thats more than enough. I started out with a couple of grains a day just to see if it would fuck me up. Also, if you have a pollen allergy, don't over do your initial intake. Bees gather beepollen from a large number of different plants, including those that can cause pollen allergies. If you buy bee pollen, you never really know which plants the bee pollen are from, since they are so diverse (this is why they all have different colors and shapes).

There are a lot of people that make false claims about bee pollen, but in general there are a couple of things that you need to know:

1) Be careful if you are allergic to bee stings or pollen. You can die from the stuff if you're not informed and allergic/eat too much.
2) Build up your intake slowly, not more than a spoon a day at most
3) Its extremely rich in practically everything that your body could possibly want
4) ~40% protein

Here's some information about the nutrients it contains:

Chemical Analysis of Bee Pollen



Vitamins
Provitamin A (carotenoids) 5-9 mg %
Vitamin B1 (thiamine) 9.2 micrograms %
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
Vitamin B5 (panothenic acid)
Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) 5 micrograms %
Vitamin B12 (cyamoco balamin)
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
Vitamin D - Vitamin E
Vitamin H (biotin)
Vitamin K. Choline. Inositol
Folic Acid, 5 micrograms %
Pantothenic acid 20-50 micrograms/gram
Rutin. 16 milligrams %
Rutin in beehive pollen 13%
Vitamin PP (nicotinicamide)


Minerals

Calcium. 1 - 15% of ash
Phosphorus 1-20% of ash
Iron, 1-12% of ash
0.01-1.3% of fresh pollen
0.6-7.1 mg % of air dried
Copper 05-08% of ash
1.1-2.1 mg % of fresh
Potassium, 20-45% of ash
Magnesium, 1-12% of ash
Manganese, 1.4% of ash, 0.75 mg %
Silica, 2-10% of ash
Sulphur, 1% of ash
Sodium - Titanium-Zinc
Iodine - Chlorine
Boron-Molydbenum
Fatty Acids (Conifer Pollen)
Total list identified are:
Caproic (C-6) - Caprylic (C-8)
Capric (C-10) - Lauric (C-12)
Myristic (C-14) - Palmitic (C-16)
Palmitoleic (C-15) one double bond
Uncowa - Stearic (C-18)
Oleic (C-18) one double bond
Linoleic (C-18) two double bonds
Arachidic (C-20) - Stearic (C-22)
Limolenic (C-18 three double bonds)
Eicosanoic (C-20 one double bond)
Brucic (C-22 one double bond)
Pseudotduga dry pollen contains
0.76-0.89 % fatty acid. Major are:
Oleic, Palmitic, Linoleic,
Pinus dry pollen contains:
125-1.33% fatty acid based on
dry weight of pollen, major are:
Linolenic, Oleic - Stearic.

 Enzymes & Co-enzymes:
Disstase
Phosphatase
Amylase
Cataiase
Saccharase
Diaphorase
Pectase
Cozymase
Cytochrome systems
Lactic dehydrogenase
Succinic dehydrogenase

[Delha]

@ Bruizar: You do realize that decomposition and digestion overlap, right? Both are examples of organic matter being broken down into component nutrients. The big difference here is that digestion in humans occurs within the body, and bacteria aren't big enough to swallow burgers. Be it olive oil, pollen, or otherwise, the primary reason food is valuable to any organism is because it can be broken down and absorbed.

[BruiZar]

I understand that Dehla. What is important for your body is that your digestion occurs fast and that it gathers all the vitamines from the food you are digesting. If food stays in your stomach too long, you can develop all sorts of problems. I mentioned 'lijnzaad'and 'zemelen' earlier in this thread, and those help activate your digestion.

Another tip: Also, although I typically don't really drink much milk, but after eating fried food such as french fries, drinking milk is very beneficial because the milk tends to clog to the fat and what that means is that you will shit out most of the fat. I avoid both fried food and milk though.

Food science is a very interesting topic, and the more I learn about it, the more I learn to appreciate how complex the body is and operates. I see my body as a machine, a vehicle even. I  choose what kind of fuel I put in it. For me, food is fuel in the first place and its taste is secondary. Though I love cooking, I tend to have fancy diners once or twice a week and enjoy it a lot. The other days, its just something to feed me. I do eat meat, and sometimes red meat, but it's the exception more than the rule. I am not advocating people to become vegetarians, however, if meat consumption would be reduced to once a week people would be much more healthy. It's also much cheaper. Since people are usually only interested in the ´whats in it for me´, I won´t even elaborate on the positive effects it has on the collective of all living beings. (Just consider it a bonus that there would be much less polution, much less burning of rainforests for breeding of cows/more preservation of flora/fauna, less epidemic breakouts/potentially catastrophic pandemics, less animal abuse, and food shortage would disappear (Not counting the distribution and economic impact it has).

The only reason why we eat so much meat and drink so much milk and sodas is because big companies pour BILLIONS of dollars to market it to you. Some food companies even have considerable stakes in pharmaceutical companies too. First they make you sick with their food, then they patent a drug to treat the illness. They are making money off your well being.


In the Netherlands we have a program called "Keurings dienst van Waarde". It is an educational program that reveals the truth about the food industry. In one episode, they revealed the truth about Kellogg's  'fortified with iron' cornflakes. They did a test and literally put a magnet above a bowl of milk and cornflakes and metal particles were pulled out of the cornflakes. After some investigation, it turned out that the iron used to 'fortify' their cornflakes came from a company that also provides the automotive industry with iron. To put it more directly, you're eating cars. Obviously, natural iron as a nutrition is not the same as iron that we use for the production of, well, iron objects. That particular cornflakes is banned in one of the Scandinavian countries but the EFSA [European Food Safety Authority] simply fails.

My personal rule is never to eat food with fortifications or weird chemicals, I only want to eat natural things. That brings me to E numbers. I think the reason why they use E numbers, is to hide what they actually are. For example E-120 is a coloring agent extracted from lice. Your tasty berry yoghurt or your tasty red M&M's are colored with lice blood. Bon apetit!

Here's the video about Kellog's. Translated in english, check it out. The translation isn't that good but its worth checking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAwO1oAGWA&feature=PlayList&p=98FD72B80FE9D487&index=0&playnext=1

It starts getting interesting at the 5.50 minute mark

[policehq]

Bruizar, there is always something to gain from promoting or speaking against foods... The FDA says aspartame is okay; you've read some articles on bee pollen. Follow the money either way, but don't become some radical fool that says red meat, milk, butter, things humans have lived on for millenia, are poison. It sounds like you're blindly accepting whatever hippy conspirators throw at you.

I grew up as an athletic kid. I took karate and played soccer and football. After high school, I quit being active, I drank a ton, and I ate a bunch of crappy food, eventually weighing 240 pounds. Now I run, swim, bike, and lift weights, I eat basically whatever but include good foods in addition to everything else and weigh 175 and am fitter than ever. I don't see any sort of mystic conspiracy behind health, nor do I believe in superfoods or marketed poison being associated with health or sickness, respectively. The only asociation I see is living well, feeling well, and looking well. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Enjoy life.

EDIT: It takes me forever to read all of your posts, but are you suggesting in one of them that amino acids AREN'T the building blocks of protein?
EDIT 2: I know you say you're not a dietician, and this much is clear, but you also don't understand much about metabolizing sugars and how muscles are built. The paragraph about glucose and your muscles "closing" is incriminating to anything actually useful you may post.

[Ten-Ten]

The only reason why we eat so much meat and drink so much milk and sodas is because big companies pour BILLIONS of dollars to market it to you. Some food companies even have considerable stakes in pharmaceutical companies too. First they make you sick with their food, then they patent a drug to treat the illness. They are making money off your well being.

It is not the meats or dairies that are being marketed, companies see a trend and bank on that. Fiber bars for example, I found so many low fat, high fiber, suger free snack bars the other day and realized they all contained aspertame.
I always knew to take care of the body that God gave me but somewhere along the lines I stopped caring about what I consumed and figuered if I excercised enough,everything would be ok..not true.
The fact is the majority have accepted the lie that our lives must move at a fast pace with work,school, and home. Many reach for a bag of chips instead of an apple, fast food instead of cooking at home or stopping at a deli instead of grabbing that burger.
It's ok though because there are so many pills you can take and so many programs you can join to treat the results of a poor diet and little to no excercise.

I see my body as a machine, a vehicle even. I  choose what kind of fuel I put in it. For me, food is fuel in the first place and its taste is secondary.

I think it is 50/50. I want the taste,just not from artificial stuff. I recently tried Stevia extract as a sweetner. Good so far.

As far as meats go, we have 20 maulers for grinding plant,  eight incisors used for biting into fruits and veggies and only four small canine designed for eating meat.
 I recommend reading Eat This and Live by Don Colbert, MD

[policehq]

As far as meats go, we have 20 maulers for grinding plant,  eight incisors used for biting into fruits and veggies and only four small canine designed for eating meat.

Evidently, the four are sufficient. All the rest of the teeth, plus enzymes in your saliva, happen to help eat meat too.

Be real men. Lift heavy, run hard, and eat heavy and hard, including animals. You'll have muscles, testosterone, all the good things you should have.

And for a real doctor's word about digestion, read this article instead of "celestial healing" and "power food" blogs from hippies.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/digestive-system/AN00896

[zeus-online]

I am smoker, and i drink coffee...

With my intake of caffeine and nicotine, why should i worry about the other million things that could kill me?

On top of all that i have other health concerns that are way more serious then anything i am likely to eat.

[theLastGnu]

I am smoker, and i drink coffee...

With my intake of caffeine and nicotine, why should i worry about the other million things that could kill me?

On top of all that i have other health concerns that are way more serious then anything i am likely to eat.

[Ten-Ten]

As far as meats go, we have 20 maulers for grinding plant,  eight incisors used for biting into fruits and veggies and only four small canine designed for eating meat.

Evidently, the four are sufficient. All the rest of the teeth, plus enzymes in your saliva, happen to help eat meat too.

Be real men. Lift heavy, run hard, and eat heavy and hard, including animals. You'll have muscles, testosterone, all the good things you should have.

Nobody said we were not capable of eating meat just that it is well to eat other foods with it.
 

eat heavy and hard, including animals.

I get the "eat heavy" part but "hard"? Seriously, you seem to get too excited when on the subject of "Meat"

I simply started this thread when I became aware of the seriously harmfull chemicals,mostly Aspertame, the FDA has allowed in our foods, the same foods your children may be consuming and there may be no telling what the extent of the harm could be later in their lives,mentaly and physically (mostly mentaly from what I see here).
This was not intended to bash people for eating meat, I love my steak  just not as often as others, 
 or for whatever lifestyle they may have chosen for themselves.
I understand that there may seem other more important things going on in your lives than what foods to eat but in magic your deck consists of cards carefully chosen to perform a task and each card has its purpose alone and in tandem with the deck it is in,you do not throw random cards in the deck and expect to win right? So, If you make such an effort in building a deck for a card game, why not make the same effort for your body or in life? Every decision has a consequence, nothing is by accident.
 
Thank you all that posted.

[policehq]

Out of curiosity, had you never heard there may be health risks associated with aspartame before your wife pointed them out?

I understand people come from different places and learn different things along the way, but I'd be surprised if a person of marrying age wasn't aware of that association.

eat heavy and hard, including animals.

I get the "eat heavy" part but "hard"? Seriously, you seem to get too excited when on the subject of "Meat"

I'm not sure what you mean, really (some attempt at a double entendre?), but it bothers me when people exercise and then starve themselves. I personally find meat-eating, exercising people to be more useful in general. I certainly won't ask any vegetarians or vegans to help me move or count on them in a high stress situation.

[BruiZar]

I didn´t mean to come off as a hippy policehq. For all your bashing of power food, you are clearly biased on the topic.

I'm not sure what you mean, really (some attempt at a double entendre?), but it bothers me when people exercise and then starve themselves. I personally find meat-eating, exercising people to be more useful in general. I certainly won't ask any vegetarians or vegans to help me move or count on them in a high stress situation.

Having worked in a very demanding environment in a high stress role at a fortune 500 company for many years I can tell you that your view is wrong.  I go to the gym 4 times a week and on top of that I play squash every week. Clearly I must be getting my energy from something? Meat is not required for your energy consumption and red meat can lead to developing diseases. There is no reason to eat red meat except for its taste. Compare it to drinking Coke vs water. Drinking Coke certainly doesn´t improve your health. Yes, in the absence of other drinks (including water) it can at least hydrate your body, but that´s about it. The same is true for red meat. If there is nothing else to eat, sure, at least it keeps you going for a while, but in the long term its plain unhealthy. There are  alternatives to both drinking Coke and eating red meat. You can agree or disagree, but that is just how it is. It's all a matter of discipline and taking care of yourself, something that athletes will agree with me. (Which you claim to have been).

What bothers me is that meat eaters continuously disregard the harmful facts of eating meat, (physically, ethically, environmentally). I can completely understand that meat eating  is something that has to do with culture and  habits that date from early childhood and if you enjoy eating it by all means do so. Just don´t call me an uninformed hippy. FYI I mainly use bee pollen as a source of protein and a natural multivitamin on top of the other food that I eat.

I'm not sure what you mean, really (some attempt at a double entendre?), but it bothers me when people exercise and then starve themselves

Perhaps you are referring to orthorexic people. Eating disorders are never good.

As I stated in my previous messages, I am no dietist. I find you agressive in your effort to say tell me I´m clueless. If you know so much about human metabolism, why don´t you explain why how the different sugars are metabolized.

[policehq]

I didn't mean to be so hostile. I'll just point out that you're very scientific with the things that you promote and very unscientific with the things that you discourage. You're right; people get annoyed/mad when you tell them what they're eating is poison. That's because it's quack, is all. It sounds like a few people met up in Amsterdam, smoked some weed, then theorized about how the body might work, then decided what was healthy or not.

Red meat is important in a man's diet. It is a complete protein, which you don't get from any vegetable sources except soy which may or may not be all that great for males to eat. It has a lot of zinc, which is important for men's function. Iron is important for women (or men that bleed regularly?), and animal meat is a good source of it. Meat and eggs in general have B vitamins which are good for energy and muscle development. Eat it lean and understand what a serving size is.

Not all athletes eat "healthily." When a daily caloric burn is anywhere from 5,000-10,000, an athlete's metabolism can take just about anything. They LIVE healthily because they burn it, and some of them (Michael Phelps, e.g.) are performers far beyond what other humans could dream of doing. That's basically the bottom line of my posts; performance is achieved through pushing the body with sprints and heavy lifting plus eating animal proteins, at least fish and eggs. I don't particularly care about red meat, but it's certainly not poison.

I have no idea what ethical and environmental concerns you have with eating meat, but I feel like they're going to open another can of worms and be a huge source of disagreement.

[Norm4eva]

Sadly a lot of this discussion is moot if we forget that it's often times tied up in economics.  Not the billions of dollars Coke spends a year advertising but the few bucks on which average folk use to skate by on terrible budgets.  The sad thing is, two liters of cola is a shit of a lot cheaper than the same amount of juice.  You can get a loaf of shitty bread for around $1 American; a decent whole-grain loaf of the same size is $3-4 at the locally owned organic co-op down the street (which my wife works at, for what that matters).  I see the price difference all the time and I fucking hate it.  I really fucking do.  I just got done planning a Wal-Mart trip with my wife.  We know exactly how shit it is to feed those fuckers more money, but ever since the big layoff at DHL 2+ years ago we've (I've) been woefully underemployed.  I seriously *just* found a job a month ago that actually pays about the same and has the same number of hours per week and I have a lot of catching up to do.  Corners get cut, one bikes to work and doesn't go out to the bars (unless one is playing a gig at said bars, in which case it's most profitable to be there!), but really the whole budget has to change.  When we have to buy shit food to maintain our gym membership, there's a disconnect and irony there.

I wouldn't bring it up if I thought it were peculiar to my life, but it's not.  There's a ton of people who are living on shitty income and have a few too many mouths to feed and they can only manage it in certain ways.  Hence the great American paradox of having hungry or malnourished kids that are also overweight.  It's an issue of nutrition, absolutely it is, but it's an issue of money as well.

[Tha Gunslinga]

The sad thing is, two liters of cola is a shit of a lot cheaper than the same amount of juice.

Water out my tap costs a quarter-cent a gallon.

As far as the loaf vs loaf thing goes, it's all a matter of priorities.  I feel that food is one of the most important things I can spend money on, because it keeps me alive, so I'm fine with spending extra for quality.

[BruiZar]

William Li: Can we eat to starve cancer?
About this talk

William Li presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game.

About William Li

William Li heads the Angiogenesis Foundation, a nonprofit that is re-conceptualizing global disease fighting.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/william_li.html

[BC]

That's cool and all, but every time I see something like that I cringe because I know there are several idiots out there that will try to eat away their cancer instead of seeking appropriate medical treatment, instead of eating differently in addition to their treatment.  Frankly, alternative treatments like this are misunderstood by a lot of people and sometimes lead to unnecessary deaths.  Cool concept, though.  Thanks for the link.

[Delha]

Nobody said we were not capable of eating meat just that it is well to eat other foods with it.

Actually, that's almost exactly what Bruizar said. Do you not remember "red meat is poison"? I haven't argued against the vast majority of his points, as a sort of tacit agree to disagree, but it's very clear how he feels.