Is Sugar Really Toxic? Sifting through the Evidence

Scientific American ^ | July 15, 2013 | Ferris Jabr

[antidisestablishment]

A friend of my wife’s worked on Aspartame when it was developed—he said the physiologic effects in the human body were not all beneficial. He would never ingest it.

Stevia is a plant product. It is very sweet tasting, however the taste and quality varies dramatically between producers. My wife uses NuNaturals NuStevia. It is available online and also at GNC.

[RedMonqey]

I don’t know what to graduate to now that I hit the Ghost pepper level

Ghost Pepper?

Phew!!No thank you!

I consider my stomach to be "iron clad" but even iron has it limitations. Ghost pepper is too much for me and I'd like to leave this life with as much "original equipment" as possible.

I'll stick with Tabasco for now, thank you very much!(wink)

[RedMonqey]

You can take sucrose (cane sugar) and dissolve it in water and get a solution of glucose and fructose.

Since HFCS is basically approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose I fail to see that as an rational argument against the use of HFCS as is the ability of turning it back into crystalline sugar.

After my gut has digested HFCS I have no desire to "reuse" it.

A better argument is that it fails to give the body an feeling of satiety and thus people continue to eat more.

Having said that I am not a fan of HFCS on economic grounds (it's tariffs are a sop to the sugar and corn lobby )as well as personal.

After the fiasco of "New Coke" Coca Cola executives, in their infinite wisdom(rolls eyes), changed their formula from sugar to HFCS, making it a bit sweeter than I like.

If I want sweet I'd drink a F#$$%%ing Pepsi. Dammit!!!

[RedMonqey]

Black Agnes
Your Home Ec teacher sounds alot like my(black) music teacher. A very strict(not mean) no nonsense teacher who demanded your respect.

I think I was the only kid in our county school system who ever got kicked out of music class for hitting the wrong keys on those children’s Xylophones. An honest mistake on her part as other mischievious chidren were intentionally plinking the wrong keys. However I wasn’t. I was earnestly trying to play correctly however I was and still am hopelessy “tone deaf” (please don’t ask me to sing)

I took Home Ec but didn’t learn anything. That wasn’t the fault of the teachers but the result of good parentage.

On cold rainy days when it was just too miserable(even for us kids) we boys would drive our mom nuts so she got us into baking cookies (a natural for kids who loved sweets) Best part was the licking the bowl clean(as well as sneaking a finger full of batter when possible) This lead to other things like cakes then frying bacon, hamburger, french fries and so on until by the time we graduated high school all of us boys could cook(not reheat) any meal we loved.

So Home Ec was an easy A and a way to meet the chicks(grins)

Divinty was one of the many specialities my granny made us during Christmas.
Of course you had to wait for the weather to be right(cold and dry or the Divinty wouldn’t set up right but instead puddle into a pancake of goo)

And we grew a large garden, so big that we wouild have the whole family together on certain days set aside to can the crops as they come into season.

From the great grand children(us)three families(my cousins), to my two living Great grand mothers, two grandmothers, our mothers and my father shucking corncorn(both on the cob and cream style) shelling peas, cooking jellies,tomatos, etc. etc.

And sharing family stories and of course the latest gossip, of course.

Alas those days are gone. I’m afraid that part of Southern life is dying as few of my nieces or nephews even know how to cook(Not REHEAT) a proper meal.

Too busy at work is the reason.

I didn’t really appreciate what we had. At least not as much as I do now that it is gone.

The world got busy and “modernized”

Mores the pity...

[antidisestablishment]

Eating peppers is like chopping wood: it warms you twice. ;)

[Mase]

You can take sucrose (cane sugar) and dissolve it in water and get a solution of glucose and fructose.

How are you going to take a disaccharide and convert it into a monosaccharide in an aqueous solution? Will you be adding sucrase (enzyme) to that solution? Will sucrase break the bond between glucose and fructose in water? I don't think so. Mixing sucrose with water doesn't break the glycosidic bonds connecting the two monosacchrides, glucose and fructose. Your statement is flawed from the start.

you cannot convert the HFCS solution to crystalline sugar

Why would you want to convert HFCS into sucrose when you can simply purchase sucrose instead?

[RedMonqey]

Eating peppers is like chopping wood: it warms you twice. ;)

HaHaHa. That's a good'n!

[Toddsterpatriot]

Because cancer cells live on glucose

So do brain cells.

[RedMonqey]

How are you going to take a disaccharide and convert it into a monosaccharide in an aqueous solution?

Ok now this is where I leave the arguement to you who paid more attention in science class tham I did.

I can read and understand a science or medical journal with some confidence on forming a reasonable opinion but I've got enough horse sense than to try and buffalo fellows who clearly got beter grades than I did.

I'll follow the discussion try to keep up but otherwise I'm over my head.

Have at it, boys.

[Girlene]

Thanks!

[James C. Bennett]

You’re right, my bad.

I forgot that hydrolysis doesn’t happen in water as rapidly as it does in the stomach, under acidic influence.

Nonetheless, the excess fructose in HFCS, weight per weight in comparison with sucrose is where the difference matters.