May 26, 2005

• That blog link is hilarious. Sounds like the guy is just fearmongering to get votes.
• Your straight dope link says that nutrasweet can't be scientifically shown to do anything. Snopes says the same thing. Why would you use that link as evidence for your point?
• or trolling for a class action lawsuit....possible symptoms are apparently gas, crossed eyes, "anger"...
• "Splenda Sickness" sounds kind of hot.
• I have posted twelve links in just under a year. rolypolyman has just posted eleven in this one post. I am not fit steamclean his undergarments.
• Aspartame and sucralose both almost certainly cause bad reactions in some people. So do peanuts, and we don't ban them from the market. People need to be careful of what they eat and drink and not consume stuff that makes them sick, that's all. And, btw, depending on the beer, it's not that much better for your sugars, rolypolyman. </diabetic's wife>
• What's wrong with good old sugar? These "diet" items are a joke. I doubt anybody ever lost significant weight by simply switching from sugar sweeteners to artificial chemicals (Unless you're lucky enough to get the diarrhea).
• Splenda tastes horrible, on its own or in baking.
• Rocket88, diet soda has no calories. Regular soda has many calories. Less calories means fat burns off. Even if a person drank an infinite number more dieat soda than they drank regular soda, they would still be ingesting less calories. That means drinking diet soda will make people less fat than if they drink regular soda.
• Splenda tastes much better in soda than nutra sweet.
• Yes, but does either artificial sweetener taste as good as owl semen?
• Why don't you check that out and get back to us, prevert.
• It doesn't sound like rolypolyman is on one side or the other, fagbrush. I don't hear anything more than 'companies A & B are affecting the first major big change in their products in 20 years, possibly because there are disputes about the safety of a major ingredient. Maybe not. Discuss.', and I think what you pointed out proves that. Perhaps he included a couple more anecdotal accounts of people who hate aspartame to counter the more 'reputable' Snopes, Straight Dope, and FDA stances. My take? Screw all the artificial stuff, eat sugar in moderation, and get the fuck up and get sweaty once in a while.
• Yes, but does either artificial sweetener taste as good as owl semen? or have the same cleaning properties?

• Even if a person drank an infinite number more dieat soda than they drank regular soda, they would still be ingesting less calories.

  most diet sodas have some caloric content, usually 0.3 per 100 ml or thereabouts. but if you drink an infinite number of diet sodas you'll be ingesting an infinite number of calories; this would probably undermine the "diet" part of the soda, and might lead to gas.
• Wired on the history of sweetners If it's true that the diet pepsi Slurpees are made with tagalose, all I can say is ...YUM!!
• trig: He put the link to straight dope in the part of his post that talks about health problems related to nutrasweet. That link makes the opposite point of what he was trying to say. roryk: Way to take exageration too literally.
• I have posted twelve links in just under a year. rolypolyman has just posted eleven in this one post. I dunno, I couldn't decide on which one to click on, so I just went back to work!
• Eh, somebody wake me when they start using sugar instead of that high fructose corn syrup crap.
• Oh crap, you guys actually click the links?
• I'm actually allergic to Nutrasweet, I think. Whenever I drink soft drinks with Nutrasweet in them, I get kidney infections. When I drink sugary soft drinks, that doesn't happen. Of course, it could be something else in the diet drinks. Dunno. LarimdaME: I agree! Soft drinks with real live sugar are soooo much better than yucky old corn syrup.
• The problem with diet soda is when your stomach tries to digest itself thinking it's being filled with sustenance.
• I actually prefer diet coke to ordinary coke, and pretty much despise sugar in soft drinks (soda) because it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Mind you, I also drink crappy generic instant coffee because I can't taste the difference between that and the good stuff. Years ago, I had a bit of an acne problem, not too bad, but I have oily skin and tend to break out. I gave up sugar for nearly 10 years. After a while, even the sight of sugary, chocalatey things like Mars bars made me feel physically sick because the sweetness was just overpowering. I am of the opinion that 'good old sugar' is fucking way more bad for you than most people are aware. It becomes an addiction, just like any other addiction, after a while, and there's a fair amount of evidence that it can have nasty effects on the old bod and brain. Diet coke is my drink of choice, and on a hot day when you're a bit thirsty, nectar of the gods it be. I hope the splenda stuff tastes as good. I don't buy the arguments about the evils of nutrasweet, but I agree with immlass that people should just be more aware of what their bodies are sensitive to. My wife's reading a book called 'potatoes not prozac' which goes on about some baloney to do with carbohydrates or something, how it affects the brain /derail
• "The problem with diet soda is when your stomach tries to digest itself thinking it's being filled with sustenance." Whaaaat? you can't be serious? If this were true then there would be a hell of a lot of problems from other stuff as well, like, say, water.
• I mean that the deceptively sugary flavor makes your stomach think it's getting some kind of energy bestowing food product rather than just water. This results in undue stomach churning and an associated sensation of ickiness. In my oh-so-pathetically-humble little opinion.
• Did you guys ever watch Farscape? There's this part where the muppet king (or something) is gorging himself on Earth, he's all, "Across the galaxy, sugar is nature's poison... but you Earthlings use it for candy!" Maybe the reason all these sugar substitutes are so evil is because we're trying our best to come up w/ a not-quite poison, and failing miserably...
• What's wrong with good old sugar? These "diet" items are a joke. I doubt anybody ever lost significant weight by simply switching from sugar sweeteners to artificial chemicals (Unless you're lucky enough to get the diarrhea). You really need to read up on sugar and why having so much of it is bad for you. ;) Anyway, the single greatest impact to help weight loss can come from giving up sugar. That's why almost all diets (especially low carb ones) center around eliminating sugar. All part of the "glycemic index".
• MonkeyFilter: get the fuck up and get sweaty once in a while. /GramMa
• fagbrush Ah, I get it now.
• This results in undue stomach churning and an associated sensation of ickiness. In my oh-so-pathetically-humble little opinion. Possibly, but another explanation for said ickiness is that caffeine causes the sphincter joining the esophagus and stomach (hopefully I got my anatomy right), which is notoriously weak even under ideal circumstances, to relax. This causes reflux.
• *sucks up more caffeine, watches rain*
• I haven't found a sweetner I can drink yet. But I also really dislike high fructose corn syrup. So I'm going to stick with drinking obscene amounts of coffee. Actually, I haven't been eating well lately, forgetting to eat and such, so I decided to try one of those drinks that replace meals, one without too many calories, but with some nutrients. I found one that was all natural, no sweetners, but some protien and fibre and vitamins, and feel much better now.
• "I decided to try one of those drinks that replace meals" It's called Guinness.
• I'm strong to the finis 'cause I gulp my Guiness
• I'M CHYMIE THE DRINKIIIIN' MAAAAN!! GLUG GLUG
• What I'd really like to see is soft drinks sweetened with Stevia.
• As a diabetic I stand ready for the day when everything is sweetened by splenda. One of the funny things I noticed when I took my first sip of a chilled 20ouncer of diet coke with splenda was a sudden rush of childhood memories. I don't know how many of you remember when soft drinks in the states were sweetened with sugar, but as someone who enjoyed Soft drinks sweetened with both that and HFCS up until the day my pancreas shat in a shoe I haven't tasted anything else nearly as nice as this stuff. There was even the taste of "sugar" on my lips after taking a sip. Honestly it was like I was 6 again running around in the yard with a glass bottle. They got me hook, line and sinker :(.
• You really need to read up on sugar and why having so much of it is bad for you. ;) I have. Sugar in moderation is healthier than artificial sweeteners (in moderation or otherwise). One or two non-diet sodas a day won't harm anyone, or make them fat. Anyway, the single greatest impact to help weight loss can come from giving up sugar. That's why almost all diets (especially low carb ones) center around eliminating sugar. All part of the "glycemic index". The single greatest impact to help weight loss is physical activity. That, coupled with across-the board calorie reduction (the biggest cut will be fats, to less than 30% of total coloric intake) has been shown to be the healthiest approach to weight loss. Low-carb diets, although popular, are often high in fats and quite unhealthy.
• I much prefer the taste of Splenda to NutraSweet, and, as another Type-2 diabetic, really appreciate the "sugary" taste of it in "sugar-free" things that would otherwise not be worth having. The Pepsi version (a reworking of their Pepsi One formula) is almost indistinguishable to me from original Pepsi. We've also been privy to a test market for a berry-flavored 7Up sweetened with Splenda and fruit juice that has 5g of sugar per serving and is wonderful.
• mrcrandello, your phrase "up until the day my pancreas shat in a shoe" deserves special recognition.
• Another diabetic chiming in on this... I had the Splenda sweetened diet coke for the first time last week. I thought it tasted really good. It tastes more like regular coke than nutri-sweetened diet coke, and it mixed nicely with bourbon. Too much splenda will definitely give you some bad gas (at least it does with me), so watch out with that stuff!
• My wife loves splenda. I love that we can bake with it. I'm looking forward to brown sugar splenda. Seriously, you make some chocolate chip cookies with bitter dark chocolate (cutting out milk and sugar), egg beaters (cutting out cholesterol) and splenda and damn, you still have a chocolate chip cookie. They taste fine to me, and I don't feel so guilty about eating a few. Thanks to the miracle of science we live in a world with fat-free fat and sugar-free sugar. I am a fan of both. The downside is that people are probably overindulging. Just as 95% of the "anal leakage" hype over olestra was undoubtedly from people eating whole bags of the fat-free chips in one sitting, I'd not be too surprised to learn that many suffering from "splenda sickness" went and gorged themselves on the stuff. Just because it says it's a "safe" fat or sugar doesn't mean you should eat massive amounts of it. Heck, lots of "perfectly safe" foods are toxic in large doses. There's arsenic in apple seeds, lima beans are mildly toxic (but I love them so!), and so on. Can't wait to try the splenda coke... Hoping it's more like the old fashioned sugar coke and less like the current corn sweetener crap! I'll take good old sucrose over corn fructose syrup any day!
• OK so apple seeds aren't really a food per se. I don't eat them. Neither does anybody else I know. I just couldn't think of a better example off the top of my head.
• It's cyanide in apple seeds, and I recall reading an article some years back about a chap who saved up a salad bowl full of apple seeds and killed himself, unknowingly, with it.
• Many fruits contain poisonous seeds. and eating other parts of the common orchard plants may also be inadvisable -- cherry leaves are often noted as a hazard to livestock. On the other hand, I've eatern apple seeds from time to time (though not in any quantity) and also seen horses ingest whole apples without suffering for it. So quantity is likely a factor, too.
• you people are driving me doughnuts!
• i ate apple seeds a lot when i was a child. this was against the advice of others, but i thought it was because they thought i'd grow an apple tree in my tummy. hmmm, if i ever get challenged to a battle of wits, i'll try to use cyanide as the poison...
• Wow. Lots & lots of comments. I have a few of my own. My qualifications are that I've been on the South Beach Diet since New Years Day and lost 60 lb. First of all, for the beer link: Beer has maltose which is the most easily-absorbed of dietary sugars. So, if you're drinking diet drinks to reduce sugar intake, switching to beer isn't a good idea. Secondly, I've read that sucralose is merely sugar with a protein or amino-acid coating that prevents it from being absorbed into human tissues. But it still must be filtered out of your blood, so there is some valid concern that it could affect kidney function, at least in my mind. As far as taste goes, sucralose is by far the best-tasting artificial sweetener I've tasted. The others have an aftertaste I describe as "peppery"; sucralose just tastes sweet, at least to me. Bottom line is that I'm trying to stick to water until this gets all sorted out.
• The single greatest impact to help weight loss is physical activity. Yeah, well, I'm not much for physical activity. But the South Beach Diet worked for me. I exercise more now than in the past, but it came after the weight loss; it's easier to get around after dropping 60 pounds. Maybe some kind of stats can point to physical activity, but for me a change of diet really did the trick.
• WoW, Doohickie! Congratulations. Maybe I should try the SBD. Although I never have dieted and HATE the idea of any formulaic plan, other than eat right, eat sensible amounts, and exercise. But something will have to be done, because BlueHorse is looking more...horse-like every day.
• I tried the "eat right, eat sensible amounts" thing and could never stick with it. It was only when I went the "formulaic plan" route that I made a dent. I'm a handful of pounds from my goal, but have lingered there for several weeks due to having family and friends in town for two graduations in my immediate family. What it comes down to is that I suck at making my own food decisions. After reading the SBD book, I decided to let them make the decisions for me, at least for a while. Now that I'm much closer to my goal weight than my starting weight, I've confirmed what I already knew: That I suck at making my own food decisions.