"artificial sweetener" news and stories

There's a new study out that has some bad news for Splenda users. According to the research, the sugar substitute may "suppress beneficial bacteria in the gut, and cause weight gain." It may also block absorbtion of nutrients.

The study was performed on rats and conducted at Duke University in North Carolina. However, it was co-sponsored by the Sugar Association, and the makers of Splenda were quick to respond. This could be a new, real health concern, or it could be a new battle in the sugar/Splenda war, or both.

While I'm not personally a fan of Splenda (just don't like artificial sweeteners), but I know that lots of people depend on it for sweets. I think this may be a wait and see situation, but may also be something to keep in mind next time you open a packet.

Journalist Joanne Chen, an unabashed, lifelong lover of sweets, had a hard time understanding why that's not the universal reaction. In The Taste of Sweet, she examines the physical, psychological and historical relationship between sweet flavors and humans, and discovers some pretty extraordinary things about our tongues, brains, societal perceptions, and why some folks will always have room for dessert.


Read her 10 Surprising Facts About Our Relationship with Sweets, take her Are You A Supertaster Quiz and come back here to share your scores and pose your questions to Joanne Chen in the comments thread. She'll answer them in an upcoming blog post. How sweet is that?


Buy The Taste Of Sweet


And for those who would enjoy further insight into the questions/results of the Are You A Supertaster?, quiz, the author offers the following, "Researchers have detected a link between overweight subjects and non-tasting tendencies. Severe ear infections may also cause less intense taste experiences.

Of course, biology isn't destiny, and much of what we eat results from culture and learning. So while the quiz offers a good idea of your taste profile, sensory specialists can provide a better assessment by running taste tests, analyzing your tongue, and counting your taste buds."

Despite urges from various British food organizations, the European Food Safety Authority decided against banning additives in food.

Their reasoning? A recent £750,000 study, which found a link between eating food loaded with additives and colorants and impulsive/hyperactive behavior in kids, was not a substantial enough reason to ban the additives entirely. In the study, eight and nine year olds who had ingested food with additives could not sit still long enough to complet simple tasks, like a 15-minute computer exercise. (Yeah, but neither could most of the eight year olds I know, with or without stimulants. Heck, most 25 year-olds I know don't have the patience to finish a 15-minute computer task).

But the study did prompt some retailers to change their ways: Marks and Spencer, a British department store that sells everything from shirts to iPods to gourmet foods, vowed to stop selling food and drink that contain additives by the end of the month.

The study results should not be ignored, but I don't blame the EU for not jumping to conclusions. Banning food with additives falls along the same lines as banning food with trans-fats, and I have the same opinion in each case: use your own good judgment and discretion. If packaged foods make your kid hyperactive, don't buy the foods, or at least limit their intake. Simple as that.

[via] Times Online

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It's that time of year - a week of green-tinted beer, green-tinged bagels, and an overabundance of green streamers and shamrock-shaped accessories and five dollar Old Navy shirts with clovers prominently displayed on the chest.

What would St. Patrick's Day be without our bizarre, Americanized version of a culture we apparently know very little about? It is our job, as Americans, to mock and exploit the Irish culture by upholding commonly-held stereotypes. And the best way to do this? Through these five products.

Oh: and as a person with a good amount of Irish heritage in her blood, I'm proud to say that I've never ingested that green goo-like substance that McDonald's sells every year around this time. And now I'll brace myself for the inevitable barrage of hate comments from Shamrock Shake devotees...

There's a lot of research coming out about artificial sweeteners and how they are not good for you. I had heard unsubstantiated claims about aspartame a long time ago, but I did not know this. Did you know that aspartame was at one time listed as a biochemical warfare agent by the pentagon? What?!

I guess that's why it took eight years for the FDA to approve it's use, and only then though political pressure (or so I was informed). And no wonder the FDA didn't want to approve it. Research, both new and old, show the sweetener causes all kinds of medical side effects like "headaches, memory loss, mood swings, seizures, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's-like symptoms, tumors and even death."

On top of that, aspartame is hard to avoid. It's in everything, from diet soda to prescription drugs. It's sold under the commercial names of Nutra-sweet and Canderel. I don't know about you, but I will drop anything like it's hot if I see those words on the label. I try not to ingest artificial sweeteners anyway, but now I'll really be on the lookout!

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