[Grovenet] Artificial Sweetners

Thu Nov 8 20:22:14 PST 2007

Has it? I thought it was the reverse: fat content had gone way up over the
past several decades. 

I apologize for not responding to your questions. I had planned to edit it
and reply to your questions more directly but hit send when the phone rang. 

You make a valid point about longevity. Ancients didn't live as long, by and
large. They could be more self-abusive because their bodies didn't have to
survive it as long . I did point out that from what I see, refined sugar has
been around at least 1500 years, and probably 2500 years. It's not new.
There's no evidence of significant deaths from using it. 

You make a valid point about whether supplemental use of sugar is "natural".
I don't see any clear evidence of it having a deleterious effect in limited
quantities either, based on over at least 1,000 years of use. My point was
we only have a few decades, at best, of experience with the artificial
forms. As the FDA  says, they may be fine. That "may" rings strongly in my
ears though as I explained before. I don't pretend to be "right", only that
I base my choices on my life experiences which include a negative personal
encounter with the processes by which we decide whether something is safe or
not. 

For myself, I'll stay close to the substances I know have worked well for
me. One thing is to avoid adding stuff to our foods. I have a carton of salt
that I bought over 10 years ago. It's still 2/3 full, although two of us
"use" it. In short, almost all of the things we eat are plenty salty enough
without adding salt at the table or in the kitchen. I use some refined
sugar: maybe a teaspoon a day. Sure, I get sugar in things like ice cream.
It's been at least a year since I had a scoop of ice cream though. Like you
said, there is sugar in many fruits and vegetables. 

If we're thirsty, we drink water or, if we want something more robust, some
vegetable juice. Kids on can drives stopped checking with us because we
haven't had a can of soda pop in the house in 20 years. I do enjoy a cup of
black coffee in the morning. 

On the other hand, we eat a tuna steak about once a month, even though the
darn fish might have enough mercury in it to take its own temperature. We're
thankful for salmon, which is a staple part of our diet, covering three or
four meals each week. And we like our red meat too: about once a month or so
we have a nice filet mignon for dinner - maybe 4 or 5 oz each. But that's
all the red meat we care to eat. 

It's not that we are fanatical about low fat diets: Cobi's Dutch! We both
love many cheeses! 

As I said before, I believe in all things in moderation. So far it has
worked. 

But under it all, if I want to stay fit I *MUST* exercise and live in a way
that feels good. There is no food substitute, pill or diet that replaces the
power of exercise for me to keep my weight under control, make me feel good
and give me energy:  especially running barefoot along the water's edge on
the beach. And that's why we no longer live in Forest Grove. 

Bottom line: I believe that the right answer is a different answer for
everyone. 

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 5:22 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Artificial Sweetners

>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. 

I agree with this statement.  It was a major point in my last post.  So the
trick is to find the culprit.  Fat content in the American diet has
decreased over this period, while sugar has increased. 

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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