Choosing a healthy lifestyle and healthy food in industrial countries is fast becoming a nightmare! But, you do have to eat, don’t you? So learn how to “protect” yourself! Do you want to make a couple of important choices that can make a huge difference to your Health and your children’s Health? Of course. So here’s the first steps, and most of them are decently “easy”!
Before starting this article, you might want to read PART 1 at:
https://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/what-poison-is-hiding-daily-in-70-of-your-food-and-especially-in-your-childrens-food-part-1/
In our discussion, we have to be very specific about the worst offenders — and that is refined sucrose — also known as table sugar — and, artificial sweeteners are also implicated in many of the same physiological problems. Each actively promotes the continual, never-satisfied search for sweetness — that could be called an addictive substance, and both are.
These are manufactured, altered substances which your body is receiving without the natural food “cues” it understands for proper use inside your body.
Many natural sugars are not “bad”. But, the most common ones used in processed foods and at the table are very bad. There’s a lot more to learn about the “Sugars That Heal” in the book of the same name by physician Emil I. Mindoa, MD. There are 8 Essential Saccharides (sugars) that we need, but none of these glyco-nutrient quotas are fulfilled by table sugar (sucrose) or by artificial sweeteners.
The eight essential saccharides our bodies need are mannose, glucose, galactose, xylose, fucose (not to be confused with fructose), N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylgalactosamine, and N-acetylneuraminic acid. Of these, only glucose from plants and galactose from milk are common in our overly-processed diet, now. We are no longer eating the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer Diet which our body still expects and needs.
Meanwhile, here’s a short chemistry lesson from www.il.ie
“Commonly when we talk of ‘sugar’ we are thinking of sucrose, a particular disaccharide produced by sugar cane and sugar beet. But sucrose is only one member of a family of sugars: they are related chemically but have different structures and different sweetnesses. Some sugars have one sugar molecule – they are monosaccharides e.g. glucose; others have two sugar units joined, like sucrose, and are disaccharides. Starch and cellulose contain many sugar units linked together – they are polysaccharides. However, starch and cellulose they aren’t sweet and only mono- or disaccharides have small enough molecules to register as sweet on the tongue.”
In 2005, the average American consumed about 140 pounds of sugar, which is about 50% more than the average German or Frenchman and nine times as much as the Chinese.” Eating sucrose to this degree, and using artificial sweeteners, is, I believe, the single biggest reason for American’s worsening Health, diabetes epidemic, obesity epidemic and overwhelming burdening of the health-care system.
Continuing with more statistics from the New Yorker May 2006 issue by Burkland Bilger: Americans also “consumed about twenty four pounds of sugar substitutes per person yearly, which translates to even more sweetness than the natural substance.” These are horrific totals!
And, ” It seems likely that “potentiators” – compounds that accentuate sweetness, bittness, or umami (the savory taste of protein) – will be found increasingly in our food. Is this obese society better off eating less sugar, but replacing it with products of the laboratory? Many of these enhancers are effective in amounts so small that they need not even appear on labels, except anonymously in the “natural and artificial flavors” category.”
YES, THEY ARE ALLOWED TO HIDE THESE HEALTH THIEVES and manipulate our behavior by them!
The punchline on a cartoon by S. Harris says it all:
“Let’s put it this way, you’re an addict and your grocer is a pusher.”
Now we expect other agencies and professionals to be our watchdogs; it should not fall to our grocer — they should be knowledgeable and independent and be protective, but as a last resort. So, what do physicians have to say about table sugar and artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame (NutraSweet)?
Big Pharma and the chemistry industry’s giants, like Monsanto, maker of aspartame, do NOT want you to know the Truth. They play both sides of the issues, making the cause of disease and the panacea for it. Classic behavior from the military-industrial complex.
With a market value of more than 1 billion dollars yearly, the artificial sweetener market is a formidable opponent. Monsanto and the rest make sure they have the influence over the government’s representatives and help to fund the American Medical Association, American Dietetic Association and others — even “helping” them by providing “information”. But some doctors are paying attention, and finally enough of them are beginning to show us the big-picture. It’s a scary one, to the point that you want to do “everything” you can to get table sugar, and especially artificial sweeteners, out of your family’s food!
Certainly, for most of my life, someone else has been eating 99% of “my” 140 pounds of sugar yearly and 100% of “my” 24 pounds of artificial sweeteners, yearly. Heaven help them. Just make sure it’s NOT YOU!
Dr. Ron Rosedale, MD, author of “The Rosedale Diet”, has a great deal to say about the complex relationships between sugar, insulin and other hormones in your body. We’ll discuss most of this later, but he also says that if you are eating natural, unprocessed foods, as our Paleolithic ancestors did, then it is almost impossible to ever have too much “sugar” to be triggering excessive insulin production or insulin resistance. That is why we are SO susceptible when our natural-instinct for “sweet”, traditionally satisfied for just the tiny quantities we need of the 8 Essential sugars, is so haywire when presented with the challenges of excess sugars to the degree we are, due to processed sugars.
Dr. Emil I. Mindoa, MD reports in his book “Sugars That Heal” that the 8 Essential Saccharides, have been shown to:
___ lower cholesterol
___ increase lean muscle mass
___ decrease body fat
___ accelerate wound healing
___ ease allergy symptoms
___ allay autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, psoriasis, and diabetes
___ fight bacterial infections and many viruses–from the common cold to the flu, from herpes to HIV
___ reduce severity of the debilitating symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and Gulf War syndrome
___ mitigate the toxic effects of radiation and chemotherapy for cancer patients all the while augmenting their cancer-killing effects, resulting in prolonged survival and improved quality of life.
BUT TABLE SUGAR AND ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS CAN ACCOMPLISH NONE OF THESE MIRACLES. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME AS THE ESSENTIAL 8 LIFE-AFFIRMING SUGARS!
The manufacturers have exploited this instinctive search for “sweetness”, which was there to help us get the natural, essential glyco-nutrients we need for cellular communication and Health. Instead, research shows danger from processed sugars at every turn e.g. that every can of soda your child drinks daily increases the likelihood of them becoming obese 60% each time. I believe that is partly because fat is needed to protect their body from the extremely acidifying pH of soda drinks. This is equally true if the soda is sugared or artificially sweetened.
One of the hazards of aspartame (NutraSweet) is its vulnerability to heat and to acidic foods. This is a major cause of aspartame inflicting such harm. I’m old enough, at 61, to remember the artificial sweeteners coming into the marketplace (all except saccharin — now marketed as Sweet N’ Low). From the very beginning, there were problems, and the FDA broke its own rules in allowing approval.Now we understand why people were becoming blind etc., and as a huge increase in usage has followed, in over 100 countries, another unwelcome Yankee invention is perpetrating disease everywhere.
Norway has even asked for help to try and get a handle on the medical havoc artificial sweeteners, especially NutraSweet, have wrought there.
So, what do artificial sweeteners do to harm you? After all, they are “allowed” for use by diabetics — what a travesty!
In addition to the at least 76 known health problems caused by refined sugar, published already in the medical journals, which you learned about in detail in Part 1, there are approximately 92 known health problems attributed to the use of various artificial sweeteners.
Dr. Clarice Gaylord, keynote speaker at the 1995 World Environmental Conference, funded by the US Government’s Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.), and held at Elizabeth City State University in New Jersey stated, “we have an epidemic of MS (multiple sclerosis) and lupus and cannot identify the toxin”, at which point, another lecturer, Betty Martini, stood up and said ” I’m here to lecture on MS and lupus and to identify the toxin as NutraSweet.”
Betty Martini ( www.dorway.com ), has a lot of smart physicians paying attention now and they are the source of the Science mentioned here. H. J. Roberts, MD , aspartame expert, states “One liter of most aspartame-sweetened soft drinks contains about 55 mg. methanol. Methanol concentrations in aspartame-sweetened beverages increase with heating and during prolonged storage. The amount of methanol ingested by heavy consumers of aspartame products could readily exceed 250 mg. daily (Monte l984). This is 32 times the limit of consumption recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ‘Abuse (100 mg. aspartame per kg body weight, or more) does result in significant elevations of blood methanol concentrations in normal subjects (Stegink l984). Moreoever, the level remains detectable for eight more hours. Monte (l984) calculated that one-hundredth the fatal level is standard criterion for safety used by the FDA) translates into only two 12 ounce cans.”
And, “safe” levels were for rats; FDA is not allowed to even set a “safe level” of poisons for humans, and this is indeed poison.
When the temperature of aspartame exceeds 86°F (e.g. in cooked food recipes)(Em: or dare I say “when mixed in your stomach with hot food” — I don’t know if anyone has studied this), the wood alcohol (methanol) converts to formaldehyde inside you! Formaldehyde is used in embalming procedures to preserve the tissues of dead bodies, and it is a potent carcinogen. It is not meant to be in a living body!
Next, in another chemical reaction, formaldehyde changes to formic acid –– the poison found in the sting of the fire ant. This is chemical poisoning, not an allergic reaction. Aspartame poisons like other chemical poisons e.g. cyanide and arsenic.
Aspartame also devastates the nervous system in humans. Many people now feel that much of the symptomology of Gulf War Syndrome was initiated or exacerbated by the formaldehyde exposure in our troops after thousands of pallets of NutraSweet flavored soda was left sitting in the 120 degree heat of Saudi Arabia for weeks, and then fed to our troops!
Much of the neurological damage shown in Gulf War Syndrome is evidently quite congruent with the several neurological illnesses NutraSweet is thought to cause. And, overseas, Splenda (sucralose — where chlorine is artificially “changing” the natural sugar molecule into Frankenstein-food) is used very effectively as rat poison!
Methanol toxicity mimics Multiple Sclerosis, a severe neurological disease. Many cases thought to be MS are in fact methanol poisoning from aspartame. The same is true for some cases of tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and for mimicing fibromyalgia — a devastating, painful disease of muscles, joints and aberrant celluar-energy production.
In the case of fibromyalgia, the aspartame (NutraSweet) hardens the synovial fluids which are meant to lubricate the delicate joint surfaces, and allow free-range movement of the joint. With hardened joints, then ligaments, tendons and muscles are all drawn into the problem and devastating pain results, even though the poisoning is only mimicing the real fibromyalgia, it is no consolation to those in pain. Many times, when people completely remove all the artificial sweeteners from their diet, (and detox would then be a good idea) they do get rid of the devastating “fake MS”, “fake fibromyalgia”, “fake lupus” and other symptoms. And, BTW, Monsanto, maker of NutraSweet, has been given approval to “treat” “joint pain” and “arthritis” with Celebra –— as I said, Big Pharma and the Chemical Companies of the military-industrial complex, “creates” and “cures” the problem, with huge amounts of money made in both actions.
And, a brain surgeon in the audience at the conference also said that when the pathology reports came back on the brain tumors he had removed, the reports stated the tumors were filled with aspartame! This is because, again, aspartame (NutraSweet) is made an abnormal amount of the amino acid phenylalanine, which breaks down into DXP, a brain-tumor promoting agent!
Another neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., author of a book about artificial sweeteners as “Excitotoxins”, explains that “aspartame worsens autoimmune diseases such as MS and lupus. He also mentions a recent study on aspartame by Trocho, Pardo and co-workers that makes it easy to understand how the deadly toxin aspartame can trigger so many problems. It demonstrated following aspartame ingestion, significant amounts of formaldehyde accumulate in the tissues. >Formaldehyde is known to bind strongly to proteins and nucleic acids, forming adducts that are extremely difficult to eliminate through normal metabolic pathways. Within the cell, they found large amounts located within the DNA. So, here you have a toxin that can damage DNA.”
Why would you allow this into your body?!
Phenylalanine also concentrates in the placenta, and can cause birth defects in unborn children, including brain problems, which may explain the huge rise in “learning disabilities” and Attention Deficit Disorder. Artificial sweeteners should be banned for use by pregnant women.
And aspartame is implicated in breast cancer and prostate cancer, too, according to world-famous toxicologist Dr. George Schwartz.
Get these artificial sweeteners out of your diet, or you will die and potentially allow your children to be hurt and die, too. You, alone, can prevent this.
Most doctors are not yet looking for a causal relationship between NutraSweet and other artificial sweeteners and disease. You won’t see it listed on a line in your medical history forms like ‘how many cigarettes do you smoke?’ etc. In fact, Betty Martini relates the case of a man in the Mayo Clinic, where his medical insurance had paid $1 million for tests and his hospital stay; the man drank 13 artificially-sweetened sodas a day! His liver enzymes were off the chart. Even the Mayo Clinic had been stymied and had not asked this vital life-style, dietary question.
Both unnatural, refined sugar (table sugar) and artificial sweeteners seriously cause systemic acid pH levels in your body, and as Health requires a slightly alkaline pH, either removing the offending super-acid producers and detoxing along with seriously choosing buffering foods OR never ingesting the serious acid-producers in the first place, is necessary to regain and then maintain Health.
Then, when aspartame promoters talk about there being methanol in ordinary, natural foods e.g. tomato juice, these industry hacks don’t mention that in real foods, Nature provides the “antidote” to the poison, in the proper amount, in the same food, so it is neutralized, making the food safe, and then eliminating the methanol from your system.
There are safer, natural, alternative sweeteners and we’ll talk about them next time.
If you want to read more articles, please click on the Title Archive tab on the top bar. There are several pages of articles, which I hope will help you and your family to get Healthy and remain so.
Best to all — Em
(c)2007 https://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
If you desire to quote or use my article, please include the full copyright citation and my website’s address. Thanks!
“Everyone knows someone who needs this information!” (TM)