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Stevia, Xylitol, and Monk Fruit are not artificial. there are probably some others on your list too but these were the ones I knew of offhand.

I suppose it depends on how you classify natural. Looking up how Stevia is made you put the leaves of the plant in hot water, then pas it through a resin, which traps the glycosides, after which you wash it with alcohol, then heat it to remove the alcohol.

It's natural in the same way that cocaine is natural.

As a side note, Stevia is a member of the chrysanthemum family, which is the source of pyrethrum insecticide. Also a natural substance.

Here's a link about the different alternative sweeteners https://cspinet.org/new/201312...

We can scare ourselves out of eathing if we try hard enough.

Would you rather [...]

Now, you are offering me a choice. FDA does not. And I don't need to "look into it" — I have a very close friend waiting for FDA's approval of "experimental" treatment for him. He's been waiting for over 18 months now.

I'm more worried about what happens to our medical system when doctors and companies have the freedom to put random chemicals into people's bodies.

Doctors would not have that freedom my way either. But people would.

Neither your way nor mine is bullet-proof — indeed, nothing would be. But my way preserves people's freedom, whereas yours takes the freedom away. This alone ought to be enough for my way to be accepted as better, but that's not all.

Your way is not remarkably safer either! The FDA was created after some spectacular abuses of patients' trust by "doctors" and "chemists", FDA has since had scandalous failures of its own, when the approved medicines and advice had to be withdrawn and reversed. As forewarned, we surrendered an essential liberty in exchange for temporary safety — and lost both...

It quickly becomes a situation where some data is much worse than no data at all.

Yes, yes, and too much freedom is too dangerous. Yours is a Statist argument — the State government knows best, citizens ought to defer to their benevolent and omniscient betters. And until those betters have enough data, the citizens should keep dying — because taking care of oneself causes chaos.

Is that fucking right?

You ignorance is exceeded only by your sanctimony.

Fuck Off, Donkey.

"Overall, males consume an average of 178 kcal from sugar drinks on any given day, while females consume 103 kcal."

(Nutritional calories (the kind listed on food labels) are equivalent to kilocalories (of the thermodynamic type). I'll use the more coloquial "cal" for the nutritional measure rather than the thermodynamic measure.)

For the purposes of estimating, let's call is 140 (nutrional) cal/person/day.

From a weight loss standpoint, you generally need a caloric deficit of 2500 cal to burn off one pound of fat (approx 500 g). If the consumption of sugar drinks (their definition includes sports drinks, sweetened juices, Kool-Aid, etc.) were cut in half, that would be 70 fewer calories per day per person, or about 25000 cal/year. That represents a weight loss of about 10 pounds per person in the first year.

As for the other aspect of it, soda consumption today versus the 1960s, here at least is one datapoint (Fig. 1): in the 1967, soda production was about 200 12-oz can equivalents per person per year; in 2004, it was about 400.

I stand by my earlier point: if soda consumption today were more like the 1960s, a lot of people would lose a lot of weight, and about as much as I estimated. So, yes, unlike many Slashdotters, I am not merely speaking hyperbolically out of my ass because I want the world to be that way.

yeah, and it's probably carcinogenic.

I've got a nasty Diet Cola habit, but switched from Pepsi to Sam's after Pepsi started adding ace-K. It's not hard to calculate a dose of aspartame that your liver enyzmes can handle but there's no safe-ish dose of ace-K.

Oh, and the whole "aspartame makes you fat" meme is bullshit - I've dropped 45 lbs in the past year by getting rid of nearly all the carbs in my diet, all while drinking the stuff. An over-abundance of carbs is what horks your insulin system.

A sweetener that is proven to be incredibly dangerous, though: sugar, especially HFCS. It causes the largest health crisis the country has ever seen and innumerable downstream morbidities. Most articles about artificial sweeteners tend to "gloss over" that part.

A huge number of Americans self-medicate on caffeine (the drug they should be on is probably illegal or guarded behind the nearly impenetrable veil of the AMA's psychiatric guild). But encouraging them to drink their caffeine with sugar is the worst possible idea. Ace-K is probably carcinogenic, but once you've got some cancer cells, to really make them happy, fill them with fructose - Pepsi's got what cancer craves!

Side effects include laughing, loving, and lasciviousness

And anal seepage. You can't have a drug without that as a side effect.

Oh, wait, that was Olestra, a food additive and not a drug.

Just came back to this. I'm curious, do you know of anyone who's published such tests? I'd be really interested to see something like that.

http://www.expertfoods.com/FAQ/labelaccuracy.php
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/action-plan/food-safety-regulatory-forum/presentations/discussion-paper/eng/1369936679236/1369936805623
http://www.cspinet.org/foodlabeling/
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/label-etiquet/nutrition/res-rech/index-eng.php
http://www.healthline.com/health-blogs/diet-diva/are-food-labels-accurate
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/nutrition/news/study_food_labels.aspx
http://www.livescience.com/26799-calorie-counts-inaccurate.html

Most of this is about the misrepresentation of calorie counts, but there are links to other studies and references to other nutritional discrepancies too. The amazing thing is that these studies have been going on since 1998, have been published, and yet nothing seems to be improving yet.

US has libel laws too. More importantly, the most crazy variety are so called "Food libel laws" can get you in jail for a very long time, simply for filming stuff you are not suppose to film, or speaking against a food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws
http://www.cspinet.org/foodspeak/oped/food_sedition.html

These are not just civil law, these are criminal laws where you can be sent to jail.

There is an old saying. Find me a man, and I'll find a paragraph (law) against him. This was used in context of the Inquisition, but I think it predates it. In today's world, if someone in the government doesn't like you, you have a problem.

the American Beverage Association is a trade organization that represents the beverage industry in the United States. Its members include producers and bottlers of soft drinks, bottled water, and other non-alcoholic beverages.

the American Beverage Association frankly has no idea at all if this chemical is hazardous, at what levels and under what conditions. they have published no known study. they have 25 lobbyists across seven firms and their purpose is to limit warning labels on their products regardless of the actual science.

to clarify, The Center For Science in the Public Interest (we like them. theyre good guys) concluded 4-methylimidazole is added as a caramel coloring in some dark beers and soy sauces. its bad. to further cut past the knee jerk spinjob article from OP, heres the release from CSPI:
http://www.cspinet.org/new/201102161.html
and a quote out of the article as to what precisely theyre targeting...
"Federal regulations distinguish among four types of caramel coloring, two of which are produced with ammonia and two without it. CSPI wants the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the two made with ammonia. The type used in colas and other dark soft drinks is known as Caramel IV, or ammonia sulfite process caramel. Caramel III, which is produced with ammonia but not sulfites, is sometimes used in beer, soy sauce, and other foods. "

There is actually lot less caffeine in most soda than coffee. You would have to drink about 4 cans of Coke to equal one cup of coffee, although the sugar bomb from the HFCS is a different story. http://www.cspinet.org/new/cafchart.htm

I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to consume any substance with which the phrase "anal leakage" is associated.

Every time I hear the words "side effects", I am reminded of some medicine that was advertised several years ago where one of the possible effects of taking the medication was an oily discharge.

I think the appropriate phrase for Olestra was "anal oil leakage".

omg chemicals are teh evilz

I'm sure the overwhelming quantity of available information on the dangers of chemical additives and pesticides in food has been planted only recently by the organic food lobbyists to sway the opinion of us ignorant plebes (kind of like how God put fossils in the Earth to trick people into believing that the Earth was more than 5000 years old). So good of you to point this out.

The higher price of organic food must also be a direct result of the organic food lobby. It certainly couldn't have anything to do with the true cost of pesticide-free food grown sustainably (which is what the fuck "organic" is supposed to mean, fyi). There is no way food grown in this manner could simply cost more to produce than pesticide-laden food grown in a manner that is environmentally destructive. Thanks for speaking truth to power.

Well it is already illegal in Colorado to insult a sandwich.

So, the court upholds the constitutional guarantee of free speech. But... only if the speech is against people.

This is not a joke: In 13 states, you do not have the right of free speech if you talk about food.

Read about food libel laws. Say anything you like about people, but don't libel food!

Don't read this, if you live in these states: Citizens of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, you may not read the next paragraph:

Large amounts of caffeine have an effect on the human central nervous system that many people consider to be unhealthy. In my opinion, it is better to avoid caffeine. That means avoiding soft drinks with caffeine, and avoiding coffee unless it is de-caffeinated.

Citizens of those states, resume reading. If you care for yourself, you will care for your government. Read the many, many books about government corruption in the United States. Take some action against abusiveness.

More stories about your loss of the right to free speech:

Talk Show Host Gets First Taste of Food Disparagement Laws

Food disparagement laws: A threat to us all.

Food Fights

Food Fight - food disparagement laws fought by Center for Science in the Public Interest's FoodSpeak Coalition project

All that said, since the original study talked about the "caffeine equivalent" to a cup of coffee, they were probably talking about 100mg of caffeine, this being the number I've usually seen quoted for the caffeine content of a cup of coffee.

Of course, the real caffeine content of a cup of coffee is going to vary all over the place depending on both the size of the cup and the strength of the coffee, as the above post points out.

This page lists caffeine content for various coffees and other stuff. A cup (8oz) of instant coffee ranges from 27 to 173 mg caffeine (93mg avg). 8oz of generic brewed coffee has 102-200 mg (avg 133) caffeine. Starbucks and Einstein Bros come in at around 160 and 150mg per 8oz and Dunkin' Donuts at 103mg/8oz. The FDA limit on caffeine in colas is 71mg/12oz (about 47mg/8oz).

Blaming McDonald's is kind of silly. Don't raise your kids on a diet of McDonald's. It is supposed to be a treat and not a diet.

After all those "economical" techniques is that e coli beef significantly cheaper than beef elsewhere to _purchasers_?

Or are a few rich people getting even richer from consumer ignorance? The last I checked those cowboys aren't earning big bucks for what they do. Maybe the mexicans in the slaughterhouses are?

For a similar issue check out the salmonella problem ( http://www.cspinet.org/reports/polt.html ). It's being spun that it's the customer's problem that they are not cooking stuff properly. But if it's standard practice to dump chickens into the same chilled water, it's no surprise so many chickens end up being contaminated.

Perhaps people should cook stuff properly, but a look at how the industry is doing stuff should show you things are so much crappier than they should be.

Yes it would be prohibitively expensive to keep changing the chilled water etc, but maybe if there were pressures to do things better there would be cheaper ways to achieve a similar end result with less shit on your food.

I guess it's the US corporate culture. Look at the US car industry - it regularly has to be dragged kicking and screaming to produce cleaner and more efficient cars. Whereas the Japanese are just going ahead and doing it.

The US Beef lobby kicks up a big fuss when the Japanese block imports of US beef for safety reasons, but I don't really blame the Japs given the "respect" the US "human fuel" industry has towards their product (I don't think they really see it as food do they?).

Sorry, check here: http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm

Basically, it's a sneaky way to get MSG into food. You can use processes to create hydrolized proteins 'naturally', i.e. without specifically adding MSG, and then slap 'No Added MSG' on your label.

This link may be of interest to you.

If you don't regularly get contaminated food you shouldn't have to use stuff like this at all.

If it is pretty rare that dangerous bacteria get into your food, why should it be good practice to have viruses added to certain "foods" 100% of the time? Think about it.

This is just like the other stupid idiocy (salmonella etc) which the food industry seems to get away with. Go read this: http://www.cspinet.org/reports/polt.html

Excerpt: "Despite increasing rates of food poisoning from Salmonella and Campylobacter during the 1980s, and continuing high levels today, the poultry industry has maintained processing practices that actually increase the percent of contaminated products. Instead of minimizing the contamination in processing plants, the poultry industry relies on consumers to cook the problem away."

The real problem is not bacteria in food. The real problem is the food industry treating food just like any other "fuel" - if it meets regulations XYZ then it's fit to be consumed. AND the FDA etc allowing them to do so.

With attitudes like that you get practices like feeding feathers to cows - which was stopped because, brilliantly, they feed leftover cows to chickens too, so with the BSE scare, the risk of leftover cows ending up being swept off the floor with the feathers and re-fed to cows was a bit too high to be politically/economically viable.

And then the USA complains when the Japanese refuse their beef or their rice or whatever.

This is just like going to a restaurant and getting crap served to you, but FDA approved crap, with FDA approved viruses squirted on it so that all the dangerous bacteria has been killed, following industry "best practices".

Even if it is legally edible and meets all the regulations, it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth one way or another.

Instead of debating whether the viruses are potentially harmful or not, we should consider whether what's happening in the food industry is harmful or not.

What next? You guys are going to continue eating such industrial output, like it and think it's "wonderful new technology", "Approved by the glorious FDA"? Now that's what I call disgusting. Believe me, what is disgusting is not the viruses or the bacteria, and I'm the sort who eats and likes all sorts of stuff (some of it apparently has appeared on Fear Factor).

And probably my boy bones too:
http://vitacorp.icthus.net/articles/carbonated_bev erages.shtml
http://www.drdonnica.com/faqs/00005211.htm

And just generally bad:
http://www.cspinet.org/liquidcandy/index.html

For those too busy to follow the links: caffeine consumption causes more calcium to be excreted; carbonated water is acidic and bad for your teeth; fizzy drinks have displaced milk in our diet => increased bone fractures in girls.

You know, I'm not sure why fried food got such a bad name. If you fry some potatoes in non-hydrogenated vegetable oil, it's a perfectly healthy side dish. I'd wager that's healthier than a "healthy low-fat" item that's processed beyond recognition and loaded with chemicals. Just my opinion, of course.

Actually, not the case... do a search on acrylamide. It's a potent carcinogen, and it's created when you fry potatoes, among other things.

Article on Acrylamide from CSPI

Note that raising mad-cow testing to the standard (i.e. testing all cattle) in Japan would add only about 5 cents to each pound of beef.

Guess which side is Washington supporting? Consumers or beef agribusiness?

Have you ever heard of carcinogens? How about Acrylamide? What is Acrylamide? It is just a chemical that food manufacturors put in French Fries and Chips.

http://www.cspinet.org/new/200206251.html

And don't even get me started with using the word "chemicals" as a scary bugaboo word to mean "evil substance that doesn't have a natural origin and is therefore dangerous."

There are thousands of more chemicals which will kill a person than a person can eat. Do you remember sacchrinne? It was used in diet soda, then they discovered it caused cancer. Think about it, not just foods but all chemicals. Stuff like Tobacoo, which the tobacco industry lied and said was healthy have killed more people than Hitler gassed. I am sorry, I don't want to trust a chemist to tell me eating something that he made in test tubes is good for me. I rather eat what my great grandfather ate, and he lived to be 104 and very sharp, no mental slowdown like people get today. Speaking of mental slowdowns, do you know where it comes from? Aluminum in the diet. Where does the Aluminum come from? From all the machines that process food.

Processed foods do cause cancer. Why is it that 30 years ago most Ice Creams were made from milk and sugar, and a flavoring like vanilla beans or chocolate, but today they are made with an ingredient list of 20 chemicals?

I can give you an even better example. Sour Cream. Sour Cream used to be made with bacteria and acidophilus. This is very healthy for people. Do you know how Sour Cream is made today? They take guar gum or starch and thicken milk. It is not even Sour Cream, but they keep calling the thick product that name. Without the acidophilus in the digestive tract, people are more vulnerable to illness.

http://www.healthcentral.com/encyclopedia/408/7/Ac idophilus.html

Back to your original statement:

There aren't all that many chemicals that cause cancer.

Look up Free Radicals. Most foods are filled with them, and they cause people to age and get old and get sick and get cancer. They destroy cell membranes. But the body has a way of fighting them, a natural system. Foods rich in Vitamin E for example can stop free radical damage. And Vitamin E is found in natural foods that are not processed. Once a food is processed, the vitamins are greatly removed. It is not the same food anymore.

Look at a 50 year old in France and a 50 year old mid-level manager in the USA. Which one looks healthier? Which one has less wrinkles and healthier looking skin and hair? We already know the French ARE healthier, but they look it too.

http://www.cspinet.org/nah/04_05/microwavemyths.pd f

This was in the "Nutrition Action Health Letter" from the Center for Science in the Public Interest a few months ago. Its a very reputable publication (I recommend a subscription for anyone that tries to eat healthy).

Do you remember Oprah being sued under the Food Disparagement Laws?

---

"The Oprah victory," said Collins, "was based on very narrow statutory grounds. And while it was an important win, it was a costly one, which would have bankrupted most other defendants. That is why these laws need to be repealed or struck down -- because they punish the innocent for exercising their First Amendment rights."

Just thought I'd mention that ActivistCash.com is a site run by the "Center for Consumer Freedom" -- a front group for the restaurant, bar, and food processing industries (which probably has something to do with why the site is so focused on PETA and Mothers Against Drunk Driving). Among their other projects, CCF has campaigned in the past against the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Just a point of reference to help you evaluate the information presented there.

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/index.html
http://cspinet.org/new/200312111.html
http://www.cspinet.org/letters/labeling_coupon.htm l
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Irrad/deceptivelab eling02.cfm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/malt_beverag es.html
etc.

Sorry, I just assumed everyone could google.

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/index.html
http://cspinet.org/new/200312111.html
http://www.cspinet.org/letters/labeling_coupon.htm l
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Irrad/deceptivelab eling02.cfm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/malt_beverag es.html
etc.

Sorry, I just assumed everyone could google.

Ha yeah, it's called Olestra
Any snack that causes anal leakage can't _possibly_ be bad!

don't seem to be urgent to get companies to label bread and pasta in the same fashion

You're talking about acrylamide, and if you had really read about it you'd know that it is a by-product of the cooking process and not a original component of starch-based foods.

A cup of brewed coffee can have over 100mg of caffeine by itself and most caffeine pills right now are 100-200 mg of caffeine. So 500 would be like downing 5 cups of strong coffee or a few regular pills at once. I'm sure it would still get your heart racing but 25 cups of coffee it is not.

http://www.cspinet.org/new/cafchart.htm

A can of coke contains only about 35 mg of caffiene. So 48 cans of coke contain about 1.7 grams of caffeine - far short of the lethal amount, which is about 10 grams if taken at once.

The 48 cans of coke are about the same as 12 cups of strong coffee. I assure that many people have had more than that over a twelve hour period and survived.

Of course, if your fathers friend had an existing heart condition (for example) the high amount of caffeine and sugar could have contributed to a heart attack or something.

Huh? The fact that something is made of something unhealthy that becomes downright carcinogenic when cooked

1. Here it says that "In spite of the substantial evidence to the contrary, several prominent public and private health organizations--and researchers themselves--have ignored, downplayed, or dismissed any relationship between diet and children's behavior."
2. Here it talks about the carcinogenic effect of Ritalin.
3. This is the section directly on sugar and ADD (I note that they don't include caffeine here). They say "Several other studies attributed some changes in motor activity and attentiveness to consumption of sugars. In a study of 12 psychiatric inpatients with a variety of disorders, Conners and his colleagues found that sucrose or fructose caused a significant increase in total motor activity. Wender and Salient found that sucrose reduced attention to tasks in children with ADHD, but not in other children. Both of those studies were funded by the sugar industry." This information is in direct conflict with the point of their paper, which is to show the effect of food additives on ADD. Sucrose is derived from cane and beet sugar, but not corn syrup. "The bottom line on sugars is that few good studies--of sufficient duration, with sizable numbers of subjects, and employing child-by-child analyses--have been conducted." They go on to recommend that children eat less sugar no matter the result.
4. This one reports CHADD dismissing any dietary involvement in ADD and strongly support the use of drugs in all cases. Maybe this is where you got your information? The report also says that 20% of CHADD's budget comes from Novartis, the maker of Ritalin. Hmmmm...
5. This list of foods that they recommend avoiding is given
   • caffeine (colas and other soft drinks, coffee, tea)
   • chocolate
   • corn products (and corn sugar and corn syrup) (Note: high-fructose corn syrup, which is what most sweetened foods use now)
   • Dairy foods
   • Eggs
   • Nuts
   • Oranges and grapefruits
   • Soybeans and tofu
   • Wheat
6. This shows double blind studies covering diet and ADD. 4-6 of them showed no change while 16-18 of them showed some or significant change.
7. 11 Non-double blind studies all show significant relationship between diet and behavior.

Again, this was a report mostly about food allergies and food dyes on ADD, so it did not directly address the issue of sugar. It did talk quite a bit about caffeine, however, and said that the sugar issue is still in the air with few good studies to prove anything either w

The researchers also found that for men, those who drank more than six cups of caffeinated coffee per day reduced their risk for type 2 diabetes by more than 50 percent compared to men in the study who didn't drink coffee.

Six cups of coffee contain a total of 810mg of Caffeine. That's the same as 14 Mountian Dews. If you're drinking 6 cups of coffee a day, you won't get diabetes because you'll be dead of a heart attack at age 35!

Wonder what they say about other GM fish like these fish that were genetically engineered to grow faster

This kind of story makes you want to stick your head in the sand and not buy any critical applications from corporations...Unfortunately, for some "leaders of industry," protecting image is more important than the safety of the users. Users are expendable; image is not.

So you're saying you're not going to ever drive a car again?

Computer applications aren't the only life-critical products we depend on. You put your life in the hands of corporations every minute of the day. How are you going to make sure your house is structurally sound? Buy open-source lumber and build it yourself? Are you going to keep eating food which has been prepared by corporations?

But as you, the Pinto history and others point out, corporations will only care about the lives of their consumers to the point at which it becomes economically favorable to do so. If it's cheaper to settle 10 probable death cases than issue a recall for the faulty product, they settle. The value of human life doesn't factor in. Today's cars only sell themselves on safety because it has become economical to do so, i.e., consumers value safety and demand it from their products.

This is why we need government oversight. I'll tell you what makes me want to put my head in the sand: how we are not funding the oversight agencies enough to do their job. We just passed two tremendous tax cuts in three years; I don't know where the cuts are going, but I feel like people take safe food and transportation for granted around here. I hope at least the sand is clean.

There is also the whole pro-walking thing which lobbied pretty hard against it. They believe this device would cause everyone to get fat.

All other factors aside, these are the people that make absolutely burn with anger. These idiotic health nazis who think they have the right to tell everyone else how to live their life. It's none of their fucking business if someone wants to use motored transportation, even if that causes "everyone to get fat". These are the same absolute imbeciles who whine about the fat content of foods and who want to sue fast food places.

I wish these people would just go live their life of denial and leave the rest of us alone.

Someone will come out with some half-assed story that you can catch herpes from using these APs just like you can get the germs from the public phone handset. You will have to spray your laptop down with lysol before using, so you don't get viruses from the box that looks like a public phone.

Soft drinks range from anywhere between 35 (Pepsi light) to 71 mg of caffeine per 12 oz. Also, most of them add sugar for an enhanced energy kick. Sugar highs are short-time, meaning you get power for only a few minutes, but with caffeine, which works long-term, that's quite okay. Except for getting fat, there are no real side effects. Depending on your constitution, age and weight, you'd need to drink between 4 and 8 litres of this stuff to get caffeine shock. (Please don't try this at home, kids, I know the feeling, and it's not good.)

Energy drinks, like Red Bull, XTC, etc. contain about 100mg caffeine per 8 oz, with additons such as guarana, ginseng or taurine. Because of the higher doses, it's generally not smart, though widespread, to mix those with alcohol. Remember, caffeine may enance the effects of any other drugs you consume.

Coffee, the allmighty coffee. From a low 65 mg in instant coffee to a nice 175 in drip per 8 oz, it is easy to get, tastes okay, and will give you heart and stomach diseases. 2 cans of strong drip coffee will make you shake like a boogie dancer.
I put tea in this category (yes, tea also containes a form of caffeine), strong black tea has 50-80mg per 8 oz, while iced tea and fruit tea range from nada to 15mg. Not quite the kick, but your digestive organs will be much more happy.

Tabs. The all time favorite would be NoDoz, with eiter 100mg in the standard or 200mg in the shiny "kill your brains" edition. Also, you can get various caffeine tablets at your local pharmacy, with different names, those will mostly contain 100mg per tab. Also, many painkillers use caffeine as an ingredience. Your doc will probably tell you that you should not consume more than 500mg of caffeine per day. Understand that 500mg may be enough for the non-coders and non-gamers out there. Real hax0r doods swallow half a gram for breakfast ;)

Speed. The common name for Amphetamines and Metaamphetamines, at least you can hope that they are inside the stuff. Usually snorted or swallowed, sometimes injected or smoked. Speed is avaiable from your friendly neighbourhood dealer(tm), ILLEGAL, and can be very dangerous to your health. One dose will keep you awake for 6 to 24 hours, in this time you will expirience a "brain high", and a lack of emotions. When getting stoned, you'll be dead tired, will sleep for a long time (12+ hours), and have a serious hangover afterwards. Physical addition is possible, but it's more likely that you'll take downers afterward to sleep, followed by more speed when you wake up, and the cycle is finished. May cause seizures, heart strokes, and other nasty things you want to avoid. Just say know.

Crack. Leave your hands of it. 'nuff said.

Well kids, that concludes today's lesson. The next time, you'll learn where /. posters get all the free time to write up useless postings like this one!

Links of interest :

caffeine content of food and drugs
Amount of caffeine in drinks
a salute to caffeine
thinkgeek : caffeine
amphetamine facts

That doesn't mean they are right. Saying the Atkin's diet is a starvation diet is a little extreme. If you are hungry it is because you aren't eating enough. In a nutshell, all the diet does is force your body to tap its fat reserves for energy. There was an article posted on slashdot that explains the process quite well. The /. story linked to the New York times, but you can find the store here as well.

Since starting the diet I'm rarely ever hungry. Before the diet I used to eat a bowl of cereal or toast for breakfast and be starving just an hour or so after I got to work. To satisfy my hunger I would end up getting some "food" (such as Hostess cherry pies) form the vending machine and wash it down with a Mt. Dew. Now I'm eating my eggs and sausage or bacon for breakfast and I'm not hungry until lunch time. Before the diet I was taking 4-6 Tums a day and a Zantac before bed. I was constantly bloated, and often times waking up in the middle of the night from heart burn. Since I started the diet I sleep the whole night through and I never feel bloated. I don't need to take my Tums any more except if I decide to cheat and go out for some pizza or a Saucy Southerner. I feel that I am much more alert/energetic in the mornings than I used to be, even without my Mt. Dew which I miss dearly.

I never ate many fruits before the diet, but I am eating many more vegetables than I used to. Basically I'm eating healthier, losing weight, and feeling better. I don't see how that's a bad thing. If you listened to what the food nazis and other "health experts" tell you, there isn't anything that is safe to eat.

This subject relates nice to the Atkins diet craze. Not to reopen old wounds, but despite the absurd implication that obesity paralleled the rise in "healthy" eating (avoiding fat), doesn't it seem obvious -- and shouldn't both Atkins fans and those who's diets are based on actual research happily agree -- that increasing the average dose of coke from 10oz bottles to 32oz big gulps (an increase of more than 200 calories) would be expected to cause a dramatic rise in the rate obesity?

Gosh, per capita consumption of soda has doubled since 1974. Not at all surprisingly the obesity rate in the US has risen more or less in synchrony.

Has anyone else noticed that Penguin Mints contain sorbitol? Who cares you ask? I know I do. It can cause a number of gastrointestinal problems, especially diarrhea. I know from presonal experience, as I used to eat 15-25 mints/day, until I noticed something funny happening and asked around. Using penguin mints to avoid alzheimer's probably isn't a good idea, unless you also want to loose a couple of pounds of water... --Isaac

There is a much simpler way of satisfying a craving for sugar: just cut back on it. After a short while, your taste buds will adjust and a little sugar will taste very sweet.

There is a much simpler way of satisfying a craving for sugar: just cut back on it. After a short while, your taste buds will adjust and a little sugar will taste very sweet.

The 'organic' label just means the farmer used traditional non-factory non-synthetic-chemical means to nourish the crops. The crud that gets into our food in the name of profit (does anyone think DES or polonium are food groups?) does indeed cause some people acute problems. More importantly, factory farming methods create artificially low prices by sloughing off ecological expenses as 'external costs' - ADM, Allis-Chalmers, Monsanto, etc. don't get billed for the millions of tons of topsoil that washes uselessly down the Mississippi every year.

With organic farming, you get real feedback as to whether your enterprise is sustainable. Trash the land, and your farm won't produce. Pumping up your 'stock value' (crop production) with external nutrients and usurped water will just lead to an Enron-style crash of your system (farm/environment). If that happens, it's more than retirement accounts that suddenly contain nothing - it's a few billion hungry tummies asking where 'America's Breadbasket' went.

They ought to be prepared for name confusion if they ever hit the press...