Artificial sweeteners give themselves away with the nasty dry/bitter/chalky aftertaste. I don't like it.
Even when mixed it's detectable.
grinding wheat to make flour for bread or pasta is processing it (and makes it more calorific)
preparing food in any way will change how it is digested by your body
theres a genetic element to it too, your gut flora is a big influence on colorectal cancer risk, which is partly genetics partly diet - types of cancer varies a lot by ethnicity and geography
Just drink full fat with limitation. If you are riding you will burn off the sugar within 30 min - 1 hour. Your body needs sugar, just not excess.
Hemlock isn’t considered to be food though.
I didn't say it was - the point is that natural = good / synthetic = bad is miles away from reality.
grinding wheat to make flour for bread or pasta is processing it
Which I guess is why the term ultra-processed food is being increasingly used. I reckon most people accept that there is substantial difference between minimally processed foods and ultra-processed foods.
This article suggests that there are 4 categories of foods:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/what_is_ultra-processed_food
I didn’t say it was – the point is that natural = good / synthetic = bad is miles away from reality.
Yeah but I said "natural food". Hemlock isn't considered to be food, even if it is natural.
I work on the default assumption that all substances which do not form part of a natural diet are probably harmful.
There are a lot of naturally occurring toxins and carcinogens, the word "natural" has zero connection to something being healthy or not. For example, sugar and salt are naturally occurring part of a natural diet, but it you consume these in excess, you will do terrible things to your health. Same with eating liver - do not eat the liver of dogs or polar bears, they contain so much vitamin A that they will make you sick or kill you, even though vitamin A is part of a natural diet.
It is almost impossible to know exactly what the long term harmful effects of any one thing are due to the fact that people eat hundreds of different things over a long term. I am with Ernie on ultra processed foods which is where many things are added to the food which don't actually need to be.
For example you could eat some bread made of the basic ingredients required (could even be organic ingredients to remove any non required stuff in the production of those ingredients) or you could make bread and add preservatives, emulsifiers, colouring etc,.
Which one feels like the better choice? To me the first one. Apply that to everything you eat (and a lot of food have got much more added than the simple bread example) and you can see the problem.
grinding wheat to make flour for bread or pasta is processing it (and makes it more calorific)
You don’t add calories to a grain of wheat by smushing it up into flour. A calorie is just a description of the amount of potential energy something contains. If anything, you would lose some of the energy during the milling process.
The difference is in the time it take your body to absorb it and the percentage of that potential energy that makes it into your blood stream.
Fibre slows absorption down by blocking gut transporters.
That’s why fructose in fruit isn’t as bad for you- it’s insulated in fibre so you don’t absorb it as fast.
And of course, if you ate straight wheat grains, you’d pass almost all of it un-digested.
People can have more or less carbohydrate transporters in their gut too, it’s why pro cyclists condition themselves before big events or races and it’s why two people on the exact same diet won’t necessarily get the same outcome. For example, teens who had a high fructose diet in early childhood were found to absorb nearly 100% of the fructose they were given during a study whereas those who had grown up with a healthy diet might only absorb 75%.
Whether consuming pre-digested rocket fuel is good or bad depends on how it is metabolised- which depends on what you are doing.
Even standing V sitting immediately after consuming can elicit a different insulin response.
The risk to most folks most of the time are the increased risks associated with obesity. Most of the ill health effect that society is experiencing with food (which include cancers) is largely down to over consumption because it's relatively easy to do, and in the past food was either relatively scarce because it was either expensive or didn't contain the calories, sugar and salts that it does now.
(for most folks) It doesn't really matter what you eat, just make sure you stay a healthy weight. Along with getting enough sleep, avoid smoking and drinking, and get some exercise are the best things you can do to avoid cancer. Avoiding items like aspartame or processed meat - solely because of the increased cancer risk is probably less worthwhile than just making sure you're not overweight.
For example, sugar and salt are naturally occurring part of a natural diet, but it you consume these in excess, you will do terrible things to your health.
Most people understand that processed foods are not part of a natural occuring natural diet, the term processing refers to changes made from its natural occurrence. I am not sure why there is any confusion with the term.
And I have already pointed out that even water and oxygen, which are very much naturally occurring, in excess quantities can be harmful to health.
Mine question was asking if there was any natural foods, ie non processed foods, which increase the risk of cancer. Kimbers has answered that question by pointing out that yes overcooked starch (crisp) can be carcinogenic.
Like most people I consider cooked food fairly natural as it predates the evolution of modern humans. Indeed it might have been instrumental in the evolution of modern humans by aiding their digestion.
Getting back to my original point, I work on the premise that nonnatural substances entering your body are quite possibly harmful even if research hasn't yet shown it to be the case, it is a fairly easy rule of thumb to live by.
It is reasonable to assume that our bodies evolved only to deal with what exists naturally and in natural quantities. It took a huge amount of research to prove the link between smoking and cancer, and that wasn't established until the 50s/60s. More recently the harmful effects of trans fats has been established despite decades of use in foods. For those reasons I am not always comfortable waiting for the research, especially when avoiding stuff like artificial sweeteners and ultra-processed foods needn't necessarily be that difficult.
The very latest research suggests that erythritol is potentially harmful:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/27/health/zero-calorie-sweetener-heart-attack-stroke-wellness/index.html
"The degree of risk was not modest,” said lead study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Diagnostics and Prevention at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.
Based on that claim is it worth bothering with erythritol?
The weird thing that I don’t understand is that people who opt for things with sweeteners in them don’t seem to benefit. People I know who avoid real sugar but drink all the zero drinks don’t ever seem to lose the weight they complain about. I don’t know what the mechanism is but I don’t see the zero drinks actually helping with weight reduction.
Where can I read this peer reviewed study?
Avoiding items like aspartame or processed meat – solely because of the increased cancer risk is probably less worthwhile than just making sure you’re not overweight.
I am 66kg at age 55 and most I have ever been in my life was 73kg. So worthwhile to me, yes.
Most people understand that
People don't understand shit, is the problem. Though plenty think they do.
In the area of nutrition, the long-term effects of a lot of things are poorly understood even by those folk we consider to be experts. But we've seen this movie on STW before, people wang around words like "natural" or "chemicals" or "processed" or "organic" as though they're self-evidently good / bad and it's all utter nonsense. Now we have "ultra-processed," for when merely "processed" doesn't sound scary enough any more, yet few readers would blink at the prospect of hoovering down a sausage butty after six pints of Tortoise the night before. Red or brown sauce, sir?
People also don't understand relative risk - "eating more X will double your risk" vs "eating more X puts your risk at 2 in a million vs 1 in a million if you don't". Yes those are made up numbers but having the information to make properly informed decisions would help rather than knee jerk reactions to media headlines (57, 60kg never been over 68,never smoked & barely drink these days if we're scoring points - but eat sossies and bacon in moderation and prefer diet fizzy pop when I have it)
What knee jerk reactions to media headlines? WHO is recommending that people stick to the current guidelines for aspartame, where is the knee jerk reaction?
I reckon most people simply ignore the latest guidelines concerning food, they seem to change too often for many people to take them very seriously.
Side note- Anyone who remembers "super sized V super skinny" knows you can be "fat person bad" at a cellular level (insulin resistant, metobolic disease, high blood pressure, high non-HDLP etc etc) whilst having a low body weight 😉
(40 y/o, 95KG, never smoked, barely drink, strong as an ox, 340w ftp 🤣 🤣)
WHO is recommending that people stick to the current guidelines for aspartame, where is the knee jerk reaction?
Everywhere else. Cf. this thread, for starters.
The traditional media whips up a frenzy out of a non-story because it sells newspapers, meanwhile social media gives trumpets to cretins. Film at 11.
Ultimately you eat what you want. I will choose organic ingredients and make my own meals from raw ingredients over meals made in factories with all sorts of things added that don't need to be added to the food when I make it.
Looking at the state of the majority of people, eating what they want may not be the best move, but again up to them.
Aspartame tastes disgusting and I can't stand diet drinks. but it's probably the safest of all the artificial sweeteners
Aspartame is made of the two naturally occurring amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, which are also components of proteins in our body and in food. The phenylalanine in aspartame has been slightly modified by adding a methyl group which gives aspartame its sweet taste.
Proteins in our foods are digested once they reach our intestine. Enzymes break down the ingested proteins into smaller molecules (peptides) and the individual amino acids that make it up. These amino acids are then absorbed by the body. They can then be put back together to produce new proteins in our body or used to generate energy for the body. The exact same process occurs with aspartame.
Aspartame is fully broken down in our gut to aspartic acid and phenylalanine, which are absorbed and enter our body. In addition, the methyl group from the modified phenylalanine is released in the gut to form methanol. Methanol is also absorbed by the body and most of it used to produce energy.
All the scientific studies to date in animals and human volunteers have shown that the breakdown of aspartame in the gut is very rapid and complete. No aspartame has ever been found in the blood or any organ after ingestion. This finding has important implications on how scientists assess the safety of aspartame. Any effect reported to occur in the body following ingestion of aspartame will be caused by one of more of the three constituents, aspartic acid, phenylalanine or methanol.
European Food Safety Authority
Realised years ago that aspartame seemed to flair up my eczema. Also think it might be a trigger for migraines- but not as sure on that. Avoid it in everything, had resulted in drinking more water as not much else doesn’t have it now!
I like the fact it is in the same group as being a hairdresser
TBF some of the bleaches, dyes and other chemicals that hairdressers deal with are quite powerful. Also imnshe they drink a lot of Diet Coke and smoke heavily...
People I know who avoid real sugar but drink all the zero drinks don’t ever seem to lose the weight they complain about.
I just like the metallic taste of Diet Coke over the sickly sweet taste of Coke.
sickly sweet taste of Coke.
To be fair Coca-cola (other soft drinks are available) is so saturated with sugar it would be be reforming back into sugar chrystals if they put any more into it.
Slightly different subject, but related, the so called sugar tax... Full fat coke and coke zero or.. (insert soft drink of your choice here)
Are the same price whether they are full of sugar or full of E numbers, and sometimes both.
So as an uniformed shopper, what is the healthy choice if a discering gentleman wanted a fruity mixer with his rum?
Given that consensus is now aligning behind the notion that there is no healthy level of alcohol consumption- I'd be inclined to drink the fat coke and pour the rum away 😉
(Or consider it a worthwhile trade off to improve your overall mental wellbeing and just drink the Rum and Coke regardless 😀)
It is reasonable to assume that our bodies evolved only to deal with what exists naturally and in natural quantities.
As a serious point, I don't think this is necessarily the case. Evolution often doesn't produce perfect systems - pandas are an example. They eat bamboo because in their natural habitat it's all around them and they barely have to move to get it, but it's pretty nutritionally poor and they are of course vulnerable to habitat loss which could easily happen naturally over time. Many animals *can* manage eating all sorts of foods, but they may not be getting the ideal combinations in the wild. Ancient humans spread all over the world into environments that did not really provide the perfect diet, and they survived but were probably less healthy.
I'm OK with it, the only fizzy drink I have is Pepsi Max Cherry as it's the only one I've tried where I can't really taste the artificial sweetener (and the last thing I need is more actual sugar in my diet from regular versions).
I do wish they'd make a version with Xylitol instead though, I have that (Brown Shuga) in coffee and on cereal and like it, it's actually good for your teeth to. It is expensive but I'd be happy to pay a premium for fizzy drinks that use it.
There may or may not be weight loss benefits but not drinking sugary drinks regularly during the day is probably good for your teeth.
One of my former colleagues drank something like eight or nine cans of Monster a day - his dentist must absolutely despair!
Apart from red meat is there any natural food which causes a cancer risk though? Genuine question, I am not aware of any apart from processed foods.
What foods do most people eat that aren’t processed? Raw, freshly picked fruit and vegetables, and freshly caught fish and raw meat, and that’s about it, because most foods are processed in some way or another. It’s the heavily processed packets of things with lots of added ‘extras’ that are really the issue.
Many things can be problematic if consumed to excess, even water.
100% this.
theres plenty of ‘natural’ things in our diet that are far worse, obesity gives a 15-20% increase in cancer risk
youre better off with coke zero
I'd agree except drinking low-sugar drinks does absolutely nothing to prevent obesity and rots your teeth. The affect on your gut microbiome is also poorly understood, although it seems unlikely to be positive.
My main feeling on diet drinks is they've allowed the drinks industry to promote a "healthy" alternative to sugar drinks when really they're both expensive and shite . They should be treats, not a staple part of kids diets.
