[Grovenet] Artificial Sweetners

Thu Nov 8 17:16:43 PST 2007

Not really. Obesity among the general population is a relatively new
phenomenon from what I read. It's driven by inappropriate dietary choices
(fats and simply consuming too many calories per day) coupled with lack of
appropriate exercise. 

After running rampant in the USA for decades, obesity is just now appearing
in Europe and in Japan. Obesity is appearing there, interestingly, on the
heels of McDonalds, Burger King, etc. In spite of those chain's attempts to
offer more nutritionally balanced foods such as salads, the simple fact is
that most people will develop a craving for more fat in a hamburger consumed
at one sitting than is healthy for a normal person to eat in a week or a
month. Those chains serve up the fats in easy to access and affordable
packages that weren't available before. The success of those chains isn't
based on quality, it's based on addiction. Fatty foods are addictive. 

I don't blame the chains. I blame a poorly educated general public who has
been taught that a hamburger is good food to be eaten as often as one likes.

I was raised on hamburgers too, back in the 1940's and 50's. Got maybe one a
month when we went out to the drive in. It was a big deal family  outing
sometimes topped off by a visit to the local drive-in theatre. As a High
School student sitting in my Studebaker at Hudlow's or Mel's (local L.A.
area equivalents of Arnold's in "Happy Days") chatting with buddies or
eyeing the girls, I was more often slurping a milk shake than eating a
hamburger, or having a "pine float" which suited my budget better (glass of
water with a wooden toothpick floating on top). 

I believe it was a mistake to "accept" fat people as "normal" any more than
we accept the alcoholic or other drug addict as normal. They may be able to
function well enough, but they are anything *but* "normal". Claiming they
are "normal" meant that it was socially unacceptable to us them as examples
for children of how not to behave. 

Back in the 1960's I worked for the Electronic Defense Laboratories arm of
Sylvania Electronic Systems. We had a doctor on staff who conducted
mandatory physicals of all employees every year. The good side was that we
knew we were well monitored for any issues we should know about. The bad
side was that we couldn't hide anything. I was in the Army National Guard
then, so I was in quite good physical shape, but had some friends there who
were getting a little pear-shaped from working at our desks all day as
researchers, engineers and writers. The doc would check someone and observe,
"You're nearly 20 lbs over weight. Here's a diet you will follow. I'll check
your weight weekly for the next 20 weeks until your weight is normal again.
Failure to maintain this weight loss or make the goal will result in your
immediate termination for cause: obesity."

And they did fire people and it did stick. Try that today. But we didn't
have any fat people. Nor, were there many in the general population. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Carol Morgan
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 4:31 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Artificial Sweetners

Thanks for changing the subject line! 

It isn't the mere existence of sugar in our diets as it has existed
historically that causes problems like insulin surges and eventual tolerance
and obesity.  It is the unnatural or supplemental use of that sugar in
highly concentrated form, as you yourself mentioned was like using it like a
drug.  Many people have a beverage or snack with a large amount of sugar
(unnaturally) added every 3-4 hours, like a morphine addict.  We know that
morphine, another highly bioactive substance, has its role in our lives but
that would not justify its constant use in high doses as we have begun to
use sugar. 

This is to what I am referring, not how sugar has been eaten before the
ability to cultivate large amounts of simple sugars. The ability to do
something like press an apple or an orange and throw the rest out is most
certainly only the kind of thing that has resulted from current technology
and prosperity.  Other than that in whole foods, historically only
importation of cane sugar or husbandry of bees could allow any type of
supplemental sweetening in large amounts.  Before that it was sporadic,
(whenever you might run across a hive, and then you probably burned a few
calories getting it and running from its occupants). Certainly people
weren't putting concentrated forms of anything sweet in their foods in any
large amounts on our habitual level.  Especially not commoners, as cane
sugar and honey were kept under lock and key until at least a hundred years
ago. 

(Related funny anecdote: Elizabeth I, due to exploration, was the first
British monarch who had wide access to sweets, and she had the most of it of
any Britain, being the wealthiest. As she aged her teeth became black as
pitch.  Just as noblewomen had tried to make their hair her ginger color,
they also tried to make their teeth appear black like hers! You would think
that just made you look English, but not before the wide use of sugar,
apparently.) 

Another question I have about your argument is that am not sure exactly why
your mind is eased about the fact that we have used sugar for many years as
a species.  I am not sure that the heath of any people in history is too
much to aspire to.  (Except Methuselah and that bunch.  If I could find out
what they ate... ) 

For example, the Egyptian diet consisted of vegetables, grains, little red
meat, fish, and honey (bees' domestication there was a rarity pre 1600's).
But do you know what they found when they have autopsied mummies from
ancient Egypt, excited to look at what such diet similar to a 'traditional
government FDA/USDA approved food pyramid' would result in?   Even those
that didn't die from violent death or early disease had even worse
degenerative disease and earlier onset old age than we have. Arteries full
of plaque and decayed teeth.  Not my idea of a healthy life to emulate.   

Hunter/gatherer cultures, and most other ancient peoples, which we don't
know much about how healthy they were enough to conclude much, also didn't
have many of even the concentrated sugar in food sources that we eat.  They
probably had some in the summer, but probably mainly berries, which have
almost as low of a glycemic index as green vegetables.  In the winter they
probably were on Atkins all winter like today's Eskimos.  

Many current foods that naturally have high sugar content, such as highly
starchy ones like corn (the variety familiar to us) and very sugary fruits
like apples and oranges have been at least somewhat domestically cultivated
beginning in agricultural societies like Egypt, and most of them more
recently.  They have been genetically manipulated (through selective
breeding) to increase sugar content over the years as we 'refined' our sweet
tooth.  Native Americans didn't eat the yellow fluffy corn kernels that we
know, they would remind us more of wheat.  Consequently, they didn't have
the weight problems then that they do now. 

Along with that technology to import and produce sugar to use in high
amounts and cultivate sugarier natural ones, has come the sedentary
lifestyle that has also eliminated the need for the one function that sugar
has (which is not also available in other foods): storing fat. This has had
obvious results.  In most other ways we are healthier than ever before in
history except for many of the diseases in which sugar has a direct role.  

And we can't even totally eliminate this historical use of simple sugars
that you mention from being a culprit in disease as it exists now or then.
For instance, what are the particular substances involved in immunity to
disease? Proteins.  A long string of different kinds of them must be present
in the bloodstream to detect and eliminate various invaders. A diet of
primarily starch and only occasional protein would leave us very vulnerable
to disease the rest of the time, seeing as how proteins (that we don't
specifically build tissues with) can't be stored long term like energy can. 

I guess what I have been trying to say in several ways is that there is
nothing natural about the supplemental use of natural sugar.  You mentioned
long term consequences of additives, what are the long term consequences of
sugar supplementation itself?  We are starting to see a few, but possibly
not all.  I said that it would be good to replace sugar supplementation of
food and drinks (not necessarily just the sugar we eat naturally in small
amounts, remember even arsenic, etc.) with a substitute because it would be
much better in my opinion to replace this supplemental substance that causes
our pancreas to pour out this fat-storing hormone that we don't need anymore
with one that has little if any such drastic impact on the body.  

------ Original Message ------ 
Received: 09:27 PM PST, 11/07/2007 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <ron at cobi.biz> 
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com> 
Subject: [Grovenet] Artificial Sweetners 

Carol wrote: 

"... given the idea was to replace 
something that we KNOW is not that good for us. " 

You and I disagree on this point. I don't want to try to change your mind, 
just point out a fundamental disagreement that would weigh on any further 
discussion about sugar. 

I look back on thousands or, depending upon one's personal beliefs, many 
tens of thousands of years of human existence throughout which sugar has 
played a constant role in the human diet. A very quick web search brings up 
claims that refined sugar goes back to Alexander the Great (what didn't that

guy dabble in?) and certainly honey was collected and eaten well back into 
ancient times. 

The "artificial sweeteners" have been with us a few decades. 

Based on that, I can find no fault with sugar in reasonable quantities, and 
much to be suspicious of in other chemical mixes that emulate sugar's 
sweetness. I realize I'm biased. That's why I mentioned my (and my 
daughter's) experience with DES. That life changing, life threatening 
experience with "modern living through chemistry" has made me wary. 

Does it make me right? Not necessarily. 

Note that I said "reasonable quantities". Keep in mind than ANY food or 
drink is lethal if taken in sufficient quantities. Most will have very 
serious ill effects upon us even when taken in far less than lethal 
quantities, as those who have developed a love of fats and red meats, 
alcohol and a great many other substances have learned. And now we must deal

with an ever-increasingly polluted food chain as well. 

Yet, in reasonable quantities, all of these things provide a benefit to 
those who consume them. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

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