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General Mills To Drop Artificial Ingredients In Cereal
schwit1 writes: General Mills announced Monday that it will be removing artificial colors and flavoring from its cereal products over the next two to three years. The company said that Trix and Reese's Puffs will be some of the first cereals to undergo the changes adding that cereals like Lucky Charms that have marshmallows may take longer to reformulate. They say 90 percent of their cereals will have no artificial ingredients by the end of 2016. "We've continued to listen to consumers who want to see more recognizable and familiar ingredients on the labels and challenged ourselves to remove barriers that prevent adults and children from enjoying our cereals," said Jim Murphy, president of General Mills cereal division, in a statement.
There is absolutely no difference between a flavor-ant that has been isolated and extracted (with chemical processes and solvents in most cases) starting with a natural source and the same chemical that has been produced with a chemical process starting with purified raw ingredients.
There's this huge movement against GMOs, artificial ingredients and other scapegoat ingredients du jour, despite the fact that virtually all of them have undergone rigorous testing and long-term studies and have proven to be safe for human consumption in reasonable quantities. But I guess if it spooks consumers, companies are going to do what's necessary to maintain their revenue streams. Never mind that a diet high in simple carbs like sugar and HFCS (which are highly and conspicuously represented in General Mills products) are the real enemies that shorten your life and bring on obesity and all its nasty side effects like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Then again, I guess it's better to simply green wash them as "organic evaporated cane juice" and the like than to risk making things less palatable?
We don't really have to. The FDA already has:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm?fr=101.22
Right at the top. (a)(1).
HFCS is the worst offender, but even simple fructose is bad. It goes straight to the liver. You should keep your intake of the stuff to the barest minimum you can. It's as bad as alcohol for your body, and you don't even get the benefit of a buzz. Just lay off the fructose and your liver will thank you.
Stick to dextrose (glucose) for your sweetener. It's much easier to digest. Just don't go overboard with it.
To some extent true, but there is load of artificial coloring which do not exist naturally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is only existing because we made it, and is not existing in insect specie or anything. Heck Some artificial coloring may induce hyperactive behavior in children. http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/... and http://www.scientificamerican....
Assuredly evidence might not be enough to forbid the ingredients, but it is enough to warrant caution and maybe remove it from children's food. Personally I do not know the research good enough to tell. Anyway, definitively not natural. But the natural fallacy (which you might have wanted to mention) never took hold for me. Pure natural arsenic or botulism toxin is poison, artificial non naturally existing recent antibiotic, preservative additive are helpful. It is not about the natural or artificial provenance that people should look to, but the effects. But then again that's why it is called a fallacy.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
How hard would it be to drop the corn syrup part and just call it fructose?
Because "High Fructose Corn Syrup" rolls off the tongue slightly better than "a 50%:50% ±10% homogeneous mixture of fructose and glucose with >0.5% residual corn proteins and cellulose."
The problem with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is not the presence of fructose. Sucrose (cane/beat sugar) is a disaccharide combination of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose. The body breaks down sucrose into glucose and fructose using an enzyme. The problem with HFCF is that it simpler molecules are absorbed into the body must faster than of they had to be broken down first. Spikes in sugar in the bloodstream strain the liver and get stored into fat.
The problem with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is not the presence of fructose. Sucrose (cane/beat sugar) is a disaccharide combination of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose. The body breaks down sucrose into glucose and fructose using an enzyme. The problem with HFCF is that it simpler molecules are absorbed into the body must faster than of they had to be broken down first. Spikes in sugar in the bloodstream strain the liver and get stored into fat.
This video Sugar: The Bitter Truth explains the fructose metabolism you describe in detail and how fructose gets metabolized much like alcohol, but without the limiting effects of consuming too much alcohol ... From the YouTube blurb:
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .