Aspartame

[teamsaint]

Slightly off-topic. Disturbing article in yesterday's Guardian linking diet and dementia, Alzheimers now being called "type 3 diabetes" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...trophic-effect

Haven't heard about that before. Something to take very seriously.

[Globaltruth]

Slightly off-topic. Disturbing article in yesterday's Guardian linking diet and dementia, Alzheimers now being called "type 3 diabetes" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...trophic-effect

Disturbing indeed - then I started to read some of the comments online. Ye Gods & little fishes such obfuscation, so many personal attacks, muddied the water around what seemed a reasonably clear line of thinking .

The good news being that it shows this forum up for the calm and thoughtful place it is..

[Simon]

Haven't heard about that before. Something to take very seriously.

Well, as it's Monbiot writing we can take the silly class-warfare social comments with a kilo of (unhealthy) salt, but the evidence for diet being the root of many diseases stacks up. Big Arable and the food industry in general, as I said on here years ago, is only equalled in corruption by Big Pharma.

There is also, of course, the pervasive influence of chemicals and plastics, that many of us - though not so much in this household, if we can help it - use and inhale and touch too often.

[Resurrection Man]

Well, as it's Monbiot writing we can take the silly class-warfare social comments with a kilo of (unhealthy) salt, but the evidence for diet being the root of many diseases stacks up. Big Arable and the food industry in general, as I said on here years ago, is only equalled in corruption by Big Pharma.

......

Well said. A good article spoilt by his perennial 'chip-on-shoulder'. Why do they do it? Detracts from the point of the article.

[Anna]

Well, I don't know Robert Monbiot and his views on class .... but leaving aside Alzheimers the obesity epidemic is worrying and the current predictions of diabetes developing in children, teenagers and young adults. When I was growing up I can only recall one girl at school who was fat, something has gone terribly wrong with the British diet for a lot of people.

I gave up sugar some time ago, I do have a packet in the house in case guests want it in tea or coffee but having lost my sweet tooth (although I do indulge in the occasional biscuity chocolatey Tunnocks) to me, most commercially produced foods just taste of sweetness, no real flavour, and totally bland. Has anyone been subjected to some of the awful pasta sauces such as Dolmio? Heinz soups also just taste of sweetness. The last bottle of squash I bought, about 18 months ago, was Robinsons Barley and like saly above I couldn't drink it. Sugar is, I think, an addiction and fizzy drinks like Coke seem to be addictive (did I read somewhere that Diet Coke actually encourages weight gain?)

Were E Numbers (the ones that make children hyper) invented because the colours, etc., they replaced were so dangerous or just to jazz up food and make it more colourful? Was anyone worried that there never used to be blue Smarties? (Sorry if this has turned into a bit of a moan!)

[Bryn]

Anna, blue Smarties were introduce in the late '80s and temporarily went (and were replaced by the previously disallowed white*) in 2006 when Nestlé bowed to public concerns re all artificial colours. There never was a particular issue re. the artificial blue used. It was simply a matter of Nestlé not having found a non-toxic natural blue at the time. In 2008 they started using a natural blue derived from Cyanobacterium spirulina and blue returned. I don't eat Smarties, by the way.

[* It was said that the white ones might encourage kids to eat similarly looking while pills.]

[Anna]

Oh, thanks Bryn (I used to eat Smarties and loved them as a child!) So, the blue Smarties turning children into monsters is a bit of an urban myth then? Were all the colours artificial from the beginning when Smarties were invented I wonder (not that it's important but I remember the red Smarties could be licked and smeared on like lipstick, I imagine they were coloured with cochineal, which is natural, being insects)

[Bryn]

Oh, thanks Bryn (I used to eat Smarties and loved them as a child!) So, the blue Smarties turning children into monsters is a bit of an urban myth then? Were all the colours artificial from the beginning when Smarties were invented I wonder (not that it's important but I remember the red Smarties could be licked and smeared on like lipstick, I imagine they were coloured with cochineal, which is natural, being insects)

I don't know for sure but my guess would be that the main problem colour would have been the yellow. It's a bit ironic that the food additives which were supposedly passed as safe by the EU all got tarred[sic] with the same brush because some turned out to be dodgy after all. I recall being told not to eat some bread because it contained E300*.


*Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) used as a "flour improver").

[mangerton]

Here's the list of E numbers. Many of them are natural products. The colours probably have the worst reputation eg tartrazine. Thirty plus years ago I worked in a food factory which used a many of these, including about twenty tonnes (sic) of monosodium glutamate (MSG) per week.

[MrGongGong]

I don't know for sure but my guess would be that the main problem colour would have been the yellow. It's a bit ironic that the food additives which were supposedly passed as safe by the EU all got tarred[sic] with the same brush because some turned out to be dodgy after all. I recall being told not to eat some bread because it contained E300*.


*Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) used as a "flour improver").

Which reminded me of this

http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2011/08/warning.html

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/newscripts/84/8443newscripts.html