I had a great time at my reunion this weekend, despite my not being in the best of shape. I did get to see quite a number of my fellow classmates, though I couldn't make the rounds completely - please forgive me, you guys.
I read a number of stories that really made me get up and speak to my mom in regards to the dangers of artificial sweeteners, specifically Splenda. Without further ado:
Stop Using Splenda - Tuesday, October 09, 2012 by: Melissa A. Bartoszewski, DC
(NaturalNews) Do you put Splenda in your coffee? Or use it in your baked goods, instead of regular sugar or other natural alternatives? You may think you are making a better choice, but in fact, you are doing more harm than good. Many foods labeled as "healthier for you," low calories, no/low fat, are typically worse for you than the real thing. Ingredients that are chemically altered and processed are not better for you. Although long-term studies performed on Splenda and their effects on humans have not been performed, willingly ingesting possibly carcinogenic materials is unsafe.
The Many Problems With Splenda
Splenda, also known as sucralose, is a combination of maltodextrin and dextrose and is 600 times sweeter than regular sugar. Splenda is a synthetic compound discovered in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new pesticide formation and is similar in chemical composition to DDT. Splenda is found in countless products and advertised as a "safe" alternative to sugar. "The inventors of Splenda admit around fifteen percent (15 percent) of sucralose is absorbed by the body, but they cannot guarantee us (out of this 15 percent) what amount of chlorine stays in the body and what percent flushes out" (Brahmini, 2012). Chlorine is considered a carcinogen. Possible side effects of Splenda include: "gastrointestinal problems (bloating, gas, diarrhea, nausea), skin irritations (rash, hives, redness, itching, swelling), wheezing, cough, runny nose, chest pains, palpitations, anxiety, anger, moods swings, depression, and itchy eyes." (Brahmini, 2012)
A 12-week study performed by Duke University on rats determined that Splenda caused pH imbalances in the body, disrupted absorption in the intestinal tract, depletion of good bacteria, swollen livers, kidney calcification and promoted weight gain (Gerson, 2008). No long-term studies have been performed regarding the dangerous effects of Splenda on humans, yet this product continues to be put on the shelves of our grocery stores, advertised and bought by "health conscious" consumers, trying to make healthier decisions.
Au Naturale
Our society needs to get away from the common perception that sugar substitutes are safer, healthier options; they are NOT! Agave is an example of a natural sweetener that is not chemically processed. Sugar in the raw form and Stevia are some other examples of natural, healthy sweeteners. Organic honey can also be used to sweeten many things naturally. Just because a product is on the shelf, does not mean it is safe. The Food and Drug Administration has approved many unsafe products for human consumption. NutraSweet is a known neurotoxin that has been proven to cause tumors and had been previously banned in Europe; yet was previously deemed safe for human consumption, like Splenda has been today. The truth is, the long-term consequences of ingesting man-made chemical substitutes are unknown, but it is better to be safe than sorry, and avoid products containing such ingredients at all costs.
Always read labels and question anything that has a long name that you cannot pronounce; more than likely it is a chemical you should steer clear of.
Sources:
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/artificial-sweeteners.html
Myths and facts about aspartame and sucralose: a critical review Maganti Brahmini*, Tanikonda Keerthi, Birudugadda Priyadarshini, Idpuganti Sudheerbabu Sir C.R. Reddy College Of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Santhinagar, Eluru-534007 India
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.nycc.edu
Splenda, The Calorie-Free Artificial Sweetener, May Leave Consumers with Something Worse
Than a Bitter Aftertaste. (Total Health, Mar/Apr2009, Vol. 30 Issue 4, p17-17, 1/2p)
http://www.draxe.com
Gerson Healing Newsletter, Nov2008, Vol. 23 Issue 6, p8-9, 2p (http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.nycc.edu)
About the author:
Dr. Melissa Bartoszewski is a chiropractor at Estramonte Chiropractic & Wellness Center in Charlotte, NC. She is a graduate of New York Chiropractic College. Dr. Bartoszewski is also a raw food and natural healthcare advocate. Follow her on Twitter at PolishChiro.
There are four containers of La Yogurt in the refrigerator that contain sucralose. I advised everyone in the household to leave that garbage on the store shelves. It really should not be available for human consumption.
Let's segue into a review of Jeffrey Smith's latest film, Genetic Roulette, which can be seen at
http://geneticroulettemovie.com/
From my notes:
- The human body does not see GMOs as foodstuffs; instead, the "organisms" promote inflammation, disease, etc.
- Crossing zones can create mutations in DNA
- GMO "science" is equivalent to an episode of Gunsmoke (check out the method by which genes are "fired" into other organisms)
- Pesticide producing crops destroy the stomachs of insects - why do we believe that the stomachs of other organisms are immune to this?
- Scientific consensus is equivalent to quackery
- Long-term studies to gauge effects of GMOs on organisms were never performed
- The FDA actually doesn't approve any GMO crops, and biotech firms are free to market their FrankenFoods as viable alternatives to naturally grown/organic crops
- The biotech firms have "bad science" down to a science
- The main ingredient in Monsanto's BT crops, Bacillus Thurgeniensis, breaks open stomach tissue - that is its primary function...so why would this affect only insects?
- The bacteria (BT) in Roundup soybeans persisted in the human gut - this would seem to account for the increase in gastro-intestinal ailments in the last few decades
- Food allergies/intolerances are caused by intestinal function disruption
- 35 years ago, there was no such thing as a "food allergy"
- There is a relationship between GMOs and autism, though the firm link has not been established
- Roundup functions as a deprivation agent (glyphosate is a chelator - it makes nutrients unavailable to the organism) - by definition, Roundup-ready crops have less nutritional value than conventional crops; Roundup can also affect the human body in the same way - those missing tace minerals adversely affect immune response
- Glysophate is genotoxic
- Fertility clinics now abound - once, they were scarce and unnecessary
- The mystery organism discovered by Dr. Don Huber is transferable and heat-tolerant; in examining aborted fetal tissue, it exhibited the functions of a fungus but was the size of a virus
- A number of testimonials from pet owners and from farms report adverse effects from GMO feed/pet foods, and the positive reactions once those GMOs are removed from their diets
- Monsanto's rBGH ingredient IGF1 is linked to breast and prostate cancer - scientists performing these experiments later refused to ingest rBGH-laced milk
- Children's immune systems are not prepared for GMOs - their young genes are mutable
- The WIC Program that assists low-income families with essential supplies actually promote GMO baby formulae (including Similac, Enfamil, Gerber)
- WHY GMOs? GMOs are a PRODUCT
- Monsanto's true mission statement should read: "To take control of the world's foodstuffs and to marry them with our chemicals"
Was that harsh?
The real question to ask is: is any of that UNTRUE?
There's much more you can take from the movie - watch it for yourself, and see if I am wrong. It's only 85 minutes of your time.
Watch it in segments, if you like - it's not a race. It's important that you are aware of the danger that GMOs pose to you, your family and your health.
GMOs ARE A PRODUCT.
GMOs MAY SIMULATE THE LOOK OF FOOD, BUT ARE NOT FOOD.
I'm going to give Monsanto a new goal.
Why don't you create a chelating agent that removes TOXINS from the human body? I mean, you found a way to capture necessay nutrients and successfully inoculate them; why not the opposite? It sounds like the kind of research you should have been involved with in the first place.
Think about it!
A chelating agent for HFCS! You could pop one of those, then drink all of the surgary soda pop you wanted, with nary an ill effect! It's all going out with the bathwater, so to speak.
Let's get back to the topic of GMOs - do you know that GMO crops have been banned pretty much all over the world?
Do you know that Monsanto itself serves only non-GMO foods in their cafeterias?
What, you say? These guys make FrankenFood, but they themselves won't eat it?
You tell me what that says to you. I know what it says to me. In fact, the current Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, I understand, is a big booster for the biotech companies, yet on his plane, the meals are certified organic.
From Jon Kirby's blog:
Repost mother Jones
By Tom Philpott
Wed Sep. 26, 2012 3:00 AM PD
Mitt Romney hasn’t divulged many details about what kind of agriculture policy he’d pursue as president. (Sound familiar?) But all signs suggest that he’d follow the agribiz party line. As Wayne Barrett showed in a recent Nation piece (my comment here), Romney has ties to agribusiness giant Monsanto that date to the ’70s, when GMO seeds were an R&D project, not a business model. According to Barrett, Romney, then a young Bain consultant, helped nudge Monsanto on its path away from disgraced industrial chemical concern toward its current status as world-beating agribiz player. Then there’s the agribiz execs and shills the GOP nominee tapped for his campaign’s Agriculture Advisory Committee.
But guess what? In the privacy of his campaign jet, the beleaguered presidential contender apparently eats organic, reports the Today show’s Peter Alexander:
And, while I’ve never been invited up front, sources close to the campaign tell me the shelves are stocked with a wide variety of healthy fare. Kashi cereals, hummus, pita as well as organic applesauce. Everything’s organic, I’m told, including the ingredients to Romney’s favorite, peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
Nor is this the first time the Romney family has been linked to organic food. Get a load of this 2002 profile of Ann Romney from the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette:
Mrs. Romney was introduced to several practitioners of holistic medicine, who persuaded her to adopt alternative therapies. She now eats organic foods and very little meat. She practices reflexology and undergoes acupuncture treatments. She credits the lifestyle with turning her health around.
I have calls and emails into the Romney campaign to confirm these reports. I have yet to hear back. But if they’re true—and it’s hard to imagine either the Romneys or the journalists would make them up—Romney would hardly be the only prominent politician to publicly promote genetically modified foods while privately avoiding them by sticking to organics. (USDA organic code forbids GMOs from any food labeled organic, along with the application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides).
Indeed, he’s following a tradition that dates to Bill Clinton, includes George W. Bush and his family, and is alive and well in the White House of Romney’s opponent, Barack Obama. What’s my evidence that the Clintons and Bushes ate organic? Get this, from someone who knows—Walter Scheib, who served as White House executive chef during the Clinton and Bush years:
From 1994 to 2005 I was the executive chef at the White House. This offered me not only the personal honor of serving two unique and interesting first families, but the professional challenge of fulfilling Hillary Clinton’s mandate of bringing contemporary American cuisine and nutritionally responsible food to the White House.
This meant that nearly all the product used was obtained from local growers and suppliers. There was a small garden on the roof of the White House where produce was grown.
The ethic of the purchasing and the cooking at the White House under my direction and under the continuing direction of [current Obama White House executive chef] Cris Comerford is one of respect for the pedigree of the product and manner it is grown, gathered, raised or caught.
The Clinton and Bush families dined regularly on organic foods. Both wagyu and grass-fed beef were frequently used.
And here’s Scheib again, in an interview with the blog Obama Foodorama, on Hillary Clinton’s unheralded rooftop veggie garden:
“Not certified organic,” Mr. Scheib said. “But everything was absolutely grown without pesticides and fertilizers. I guess it’s what these days we call ‘natural.’”
And “the emphasis on organics became even more important when the Bushes arrived in the White House,” Obama Foodorama reported. “Laura Bush was ‘adamant’ about organics, according to Mr. Scheib.” Scheib also told the New York Times that Laura Bush “insisted that fresh, organic foods be served in the White House,” but she just didn’t talk “much about it outside the house.”
While the Clintons and Bushes quietly dined on organic and grass-fed, their administrations pushed policies that propped up industrial agriculture and the companies that dominate it. Clinton promoted GMOs to the very end of his term—a cause his wife Hillary has kept up as secretary of state. At least Clinton was fairly progressive on maintaining strict USDA standards for organic farming; Bush matched Clinton’s zeal for propping up industrial farming but also tried to weaken organic standards.
As for the Obamas, Michelle Obama, unlike her predecessors, was pretty open about her preference for organics—at least at first. For a pre-election 2008 profile, Ms. Obama told the The New Yorker that “in my household, over the last year we have just shifted to organic.” She added a little critique of a famous industrial-food sweetener:
And the fruit-juice-box thing, and we think—we think—that’s juice. And you start reading the labels and you realize there’s high-fructose corn syrup (BIOWEAPON) in everything we’re eating. Every jelly, every juice. Everything that’s in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don’t even know…
And, of course, soon after she moved into the White House, Ms. Obama famously broke ground on an organic garden on the lawn—and launched a campaign to inspire children to make healthier food choices.
But the agrichemical industry quickly chided the Obamas for not using “crop protection products” (i.e., pesticides) in their garden; the administration began making pro-agribiz appointments and policy moves (a trend that continues to this day); and Michelle Obama shifted her kids’ health campaign to emphasize exercise over diet change.
Now the Obamas appear to have settled into the pattern established by their predecessors: privately eat organic while publicly maintaining the food system status quo—a pattern that Romney, if he wins, seems ready to maintain. So, organic for the elite, GMOs for everyone else? That’s precisely the kind of exclusive mindset that gives organic food a bad name.
——–
One has to wonder what are politician for if they aren’t standing up for the poisons we are injesting.
Let's highlight this sentence:
So, organic for the elite, GMOs for everyone else?
GMOs are NOT food. Consider the movement to keep GMOs unlabled.
A fellow in the film Genetic Roulette says it best - I paraphrase: "No one gets up in the morning anxiously awaiting their next bite of some GMO food - in the 30 years since the idea of GMOs, there has not at any point been any improvement in any GMO food compared to conventional/organic food."
Watch the film and see how he states it - much better than the above.
In California, Proposition 37 is on the ballot, to be voted upon on Election Day. The biotech firms and their benefactors are adamant upon you and I not knowing the origin of the foods upon our shelves.
I believe that, after watching this film, reading Jeffrey Smith's books, verifying the information I've imparted to you above and in past articles, you will implore everyone you know in California to vote YES! on Proposition 37.
Download a poster (4.2MB, PDF) listing both both the corporate charlatans who are selling organic while fighting Prop. 37 and the organic companies who have donated money in support of Prop. 37.
To help you eat safer, visit
http://www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com or download the iPhone app ShopNoGMO.
