Posted by
timothy
on from the new-improved-just-like-the-last-one dept.
guttentag writes: "The FDA has approved a new sugar substitute from the people who brought you NutraSweet. It's 7,000 to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar and unlike NutraSweet (aspartame), Neotame apparently doesn't give rats cancer and is safe for people with phenylkeotonuria."
It's not so much a question of cancer.
by
orthogonal
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's a question of what you've evolved to ingest safely.
If this sugar substitute is sucessful, it will be found in large quantities in a large number of foods. So you won't end up ingesting a little; in all likelyhood, (especially if you're an American) you'll ingest a lot.
Your body (is built by a genome that) has had at minimum some six million years to become adapted to the natural sugars found in fruits.
It's had no chance to adapt to this substitute.
That it has encountered the basic elements that make up Neotame isn't really relevent. You'll die without sufficient sodium chloride (table salt), but more than 1 part per million of straight chloride will harm you (OSHA permissible exposure limit).
Some physicians even raise questions about the health effects of corn syrup, given that it is added in great quantities to almost all processed foods sold in the U.S. It's not that corn syrup is bad in and of itself, it's a question of what the effects are when one ingests so much more than the body could even have become adapted to in nature.
We have no data about long-term use of Neotame; if you want to provide that data with your body, go ahead. I'll stick with sugar, in moderate quantities.
But Mother Nature...
by
2g3-598hX
·
· Score: 3, Informative
...is a cruel bitch. There are many natural substances out there which are bad for you.
Artifical != bad && natural != good
Consider this: Many plants don't actual like being eaten. So they evolve to be toxic. Many animals don't like being eaten either. So they evolve to be toxic. At least this sweetener hasn't been evolved for millions of years to be bad for you.
So humans evolved to eat fruit. But recently (20,000 years ago) we adapted to eat grains, something we had never ever done before. And we did it, no sweat.
We are opportunistic omnivores (like bears) that are meant to eat whatever we can - vegetable, animal, mineral. Our systems have evolved to be robust in dealing with toxins. Don't underestimate the body's natural anti-toxin systems: some coyotes simply CANNOT be poisoned... they must be baited with meat with a autofiring projectile syringe in it. (They vomit any poison).
And in all these lab tests they give rats relatively huge quantities of the given drug....but just imagine the rats they tested this on..."God please, just give us something SAVOURY!!!"
Re:The time felt right for a new sweetener.
by
g4dget
·
· Score: 4, Informative
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.
Re:Stevia and genetically modified foods (eg Monsa
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Of course, I was "boycotting" rape seed oil (renamed "canola" due to excessive political correctness) all along. Mainly because it smells like a mixture of latex paint and cat urine.
If they can genetically engineer it to get rid of that "feature", I'd be happy to give it a try.
Go back to your cave, Greenie.
you might think that, but you would be wrong
by
g4dget
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Fructose has a glycemic index of 22, sucrose of 64, and glucose of 100. Many fruits are close to fructose. The reason is that there is an active transport for glucose, while fructose gets absorbed by diffusion. The presence of fiber (in fruit), minerals, fat, and protein also affects the glycemic index.
$%$##@ing chemists
by
Chris+Canfield
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Why do we not market sugar as "cancer-free sweetener?" Most sugar-free sweeteners are A: much less tasty than sugar and B: hideous chemical combinations designed to be unprocessable by your body. When I put something my VCR isn't designed to handle into the little slot in front, it generally voids the warantee. Why are we surprised when, say, Olestra / Olean gums up our little internal sewage systems?
It says quite a bit about this culture that we'd rather be dead than fat, and we'd rather get cancer than think about what we are eating.
Sugar only rots teeth if you eat it pure with a gum base and a coloring (AKA candy) and then don't clean them. Coke can dissolve a tooth overnight, a feat that sugar water can't replicate. How is Diet Coke supposed to protect your pearly whites? Even then viable replacements exist for people's teeth. I really don't know why everyone comes down on sugar these days (except for it's abusability as a cheap addition to many foods). It's natural, healthy in normal doses, and glucose / fructose is the basic ingredient for glycolysis, which is the body's ATP (a form of stored energy) production cycle. You can get fat from sugar because you are producing more energy than your body needs. In effect, your body will utilize the sugar given, and this is seen as bad. Nutrasweet isn't causing cancer in rats because it is too useful for them.
Sorry to go on a rant, but it just p!$$es me off the kind of irresponsibly researched junk chemistry that is pushed upon the worlds population as "healthy." There is NOTHING healthy about Nutrasweet, Saccarine, Neotame, or the other laboratory sweeteners developed and patented with profit in mind. Many "healthy" and "diet" drinks consist of nothing but carbonated water, aspartame, and "natural flavors" (which consist of nothing but trace amounts of compounds developed from a base class of living ingredients but whose final output bares no resemblance to the source material). Maybe there should be an administration of some sort that would regulate companies producing the things we ingest... like food and... drugs? Geeze, I still have nights spent in the smallest room in the house thanks to the random unlabeled proliferation of Olestra into the foods we eat. Thanks FDA!
I would be proud to burn a few karma here if anyone knows how to mod a comment down as "bitter"
-Chris
-- This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
Sweet v. Bitter
by
forevermore
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, the opposite of bitter is salty. Sour is the opposite of sweet. (trust me, I'm marrying a pastry chef) If you don't believe me, just try it. Add salt to something bitter (like grapefruit), the bitter goes away and you can taste the other flavors (like "sweet").
Slashdot Mirror
It's a question of what you've evolved to ingest safely.
If this sugar substitute is sucessful, it will be found in large quantities in a large number of foods. So you won't end up ingesting a little; in all likelyhood, (especially if you're an American) you'll ingest a lot.
Your body (is built by a genome that) has had at minimum some six million years to become adapted to the natural sugars found in fruits.
It's had no chance to adapt to this substitute.
That it has encountered the basic elements that make up Neotame isn't really relevent. You'll die without sufficient sodium chloride (table salt), but more than 1 part per million of straight chloride will harm you (OSHA permissible exposure limit).
Some physicians even raise questions about the health effects of corn syrup, given that it is added in great quantities to almost all processed foods sold in the U.S. It's not that corn syrup is bad in and of itself, it's a question of what the effects are when one ingests so much more than the body could even have become adapted to in nature.
We have no data about long-term use of Neotame; if you want to provide that data with your body, go ahead. I'll stick with sugar, in moderate quantities.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
...is a cruel bitch. There are many natural substances out there which are bad for you.
...but just imagine the rats they tested this on..."God please, just give us something SAVOURY!!!"
Artifical != bad && natural != good
Consider this: Many plants don't actual like being eaten. So they evolve to be toxic. Many animals don't like being eaten either. So they evolve to be toxic. At least this sweetener hasn't been evolved for millions of years to be bad for you.
So humans evolved to eat fruit. But recently (20,000 years ago) we adapted to eat grains, something we had never ever done before. And we did it, no sweat.
We are opportunistic omnivores (like bears) that are meant to eat whatever we can - vegetable, animal, mineral. Our systems have evolved to be robust in dealing with toxins. Don't underestimate the body's natural anti-toxin systems: some coyotes simply CANNOT be poisoned... they must be baited with meat with a autofiring projectile syringe in it. (They vomit any poison).
And in all these lab tests they give rats relatively huge quantities of the given drug.
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.
Of course, I was "boycotting" rape seed oil (renamed "canola" due to excessive political correctness) all along. Mainly because it smells like a mixture of latex paint and cat urine.
If they can genetically engineer it to get rid of that "feature", I'd be happy to give it a try.
Go back to your cave, Greenie.
Fructose has a glycemic index of 22, sucrose of 64, and glucose of 100. Many fruits are close to fructose. The reason is that there is an active transport for glucose, while fructose gets absorbed by diffusion. The presence of fiber (in fruit), minerals, fat, and protein also affects the glycemic index.
Why do we not market sugar as "cancer-free sweetener?" Most sugar-free sweeteners are A: much less tasty than sugar and B: hideous chemical combinations designed to be unprocessable by your body. When I put something my VCR isn't designed to handle into the little slot in front, it generally voids the warantee. Why are we surprised when, say, Olestra / Olean gums up our little internal sewage systems?
It says quite a bit about this culture that we'd rather be dead than fat, and we'd rather get cancer than think about what we are eating.
Sugar only rots teeth if you eat it pure with a gum base and a coloring (AKA candy) and then don't clean them. Coke can dissolve a tooth overnight, a feat that sugar water can't replicate. How is Diet Coke supposed to protect your pearly whites? Even then viable replacements exist for people's teeth. I really don't know why everyone comes down on sugar these days (except for it's abusability as a cheap addition to many foods). It's natural, healthy in normal doses, and glucose / fructose is the basic ingredient for glycolysis, which is the body's ATP (a form of stored energy) production cycle. You can get fat from sugar because you are producing more energy than your body needs. In effect, your body will utilize the sugar given, and this is seen as bad. Nutrasweet isn't causing cancer in rats because it is too useful for them.
Sorry to go on a rant, but it just p!$$es me off the kind of irresponsibly researched junk chemistry that is pushed upon the worlds population as "healthy." There is NOTHING healthy about Nutrasweet, Saccarine, Neotame, or the other laboratory sweeteners developed and patented with profit in mind. Many "healthy" and "diet" drinks consist of nothing but carbonated water, aspartame, and "natural flavors" (which consist of nothing but trace amounts of compounds developed from a base class of living ingredients but whose final output bares no resemblance to the source material). Maybe there should be an administration of some sort that would regulate companies producing the things we ingest... like food and... drugs? Geeze, I still have nights spent in the smallest room in the house thanks to the random unlabeled proliferation of Olestra into the foods we eat. Thanks FDA!
I would be proud to burn a few karma here if anyone knows how to mod a comment down as "bitter"
-Chris
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
Actually, the opposite of bitter is salty. Sour is the opposite of sweet. (trust me, I'm marrying a pastry chef) If you don't believe me, just try it. Add salt to something bitter (like grapefruit), the bitter goes away and you can taste the other flavors (like "sweet").
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers