gay-friendly ice cream

[baratron]

Huh. I've just found out that First Foods' Supreme Lite low-fat vegan ice cream is made with sucralose. I previously would not have touched said ice cream with a bargepole, because I'm very anti artificial sweeteners, but if it's sucralose, that's different.

I generally avoid artificial sweeteners because they scare me. While I have a lot of friends with lots of allergies to naturally-occurring foodstuffs, the people I know who are sensitive to aspartame are generally healthy and have no other allergies. That worries me. I know the case against aspartame is based on smoke and mirrors, and hysteria, but I prefer not to ingest it. Especially as it doesn't even taste good.

Sucralose is different. It's made from sucrose, with a few -OH groups swapped out for -Cl groups. Woo. A completely mundane nucleophilic substitution reaction. How terrifying. Well, it is to those who don't understand chemistry. Apparently, "sucralose is actually a chemical substance". No shit. Those essentials of life DNA and water are not chemicals, you understand. And sucralose absorbed by the body "has been found to concentrate in the liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal tract" - how unlike the places where sugar is stored? But the real evidence for sucralose's evil is this: "Some chlorinated molecules serve as the basis for pesticides such as D.D.T., and accumulate in body fat. You would just as soon have a pesticide in your food as sucralose because sucralose (Splenda) is a chlorocarbon." Oh noes! Let's ban fungi, eucalyptus trees, seaweed and coral, because they pollute our world with toxic organochlorines.

We must be aware that "Any animal that eats chlorine (especially on a regular basis) is at risk of cancer. The Merck Manual and OSHA 40 SARA 120 Hazardous Waste Handbook states that chlorine is a carcinogen and emergency procedures should be taken when exposed via swallowing, inhaling, or through the skin." Yes, if I was eating, drinking or breathing elemental chlorine, I would be concerned. But chlorine atoms as part of a bigger molecule? Please.

I admit I'm a snob about avoiding aspartame because it's "artificial", and that makes me no better than the various people who won't eat anything with "chemicals" in, but at least I don't make up science to suit me. Unlike these people: .

Aspartame is such a heinous poison the FDA stopped counting, after reporting 92 known symptoms caused by Aspartame. These symptoms, btw, include blindness "in one or both eyes", multiple sclerosis and lupus.

Aspartame is a very serious health issue and those who ignore the warnings may deeply regret it someday. Then again, they might not.

On the European Common Market, Aspartame is banned for all children's products. Why is this not the case in Canada and the U.S.? Because Monsanto - which owns the NutraSweet Company which manufactures Aspartame - pays off the FDA, the American Medical Association, The American Dietetic and Diabetic Associations, Congressmen and Senators and virtually anyone who gets in the way, and in other countries too. This one is pure bollocks. Last time I checked, I live in Europe, and "Tooth-Friendly" Ribena is most definitely a children's product. It contains teh evill aspartame.

Diet Coke is poison. And it's addictive, some victims drink several liters a day and keep it on their nightstands. If Coke changes the formula to remove aspartame the world will heal and the surge of hatred and vengeance by the disabled and bereaved shall certainly destroy Coca Cola. Who wouldn't want to heal the world?

And my favourite insane quote of all:
Adolph Hitler's Third Reich killed my grandmother and aunt, Robert Shapiro's NutraSweet® killed my mother. [...] We need to tell the world that the NutraSweet Company is guilty of MURDER and we need to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law as well as all individuals who stood by them and protected them such as the media, Medical Associations(AMA, ADA, JDF, IFIC, Public Voice, etc) congress, FDA, and the Justice department just as they did with Nazi war criminals.

Google if you want the sources - I cba to link to these loons.

I'm particularly amused by the person who's making a living selling a 10 step "get rid of aspartame and save your life" program, which includes the steps:
Be happy with yourself.
Restore depleted nutrients.
Exercise and get plenty of rest.
Eat 75% raw foods at every meal.
Drink water, water, water.
Get control of your life.

Now funnily enough, those steps would probably help most people with long-standing serious health problems. So it must be removing teh evill aspartame that saves them, right?

Also, my favourite "Sucralose is evil!!" quote: Splenda shrinks the thymus (the Christ chakra). *blinks*

In other news, I am profoundly cuted by this site: Mood-brighteners and antidepressant structures and delicious Opioids. Yay, molecules! Although it transpires that mirtazapine has a too many hexagon error (c) barakta.

Comments

[redbird]

Has anyone told the anti-chlorine ranters about sodium chloride?

[baratron.livejournal.com]

They seem to think that chloride ions are "different" from chlorine in covalent bonds, without really having much idea what either an ion or a covalent bond is.

Hmmm.

[ceno.livejournal.com]

The amount of rubbish about aspartame on the web is what made it tricky to find any useful information fairly recently.

When you eat that, you're eating chemicals! CHEMICALS!

[erik]

Yesterday at a barbeque event, someone was making much of the fact that the ears of sweetcorn roasting on the grill were Organic. Finally I said "As opposed to inorganic corn? What would that be like, then?"

No one is going to get very far without Cl...Last I checked NaCl was pretty important to most everyone.

[barakta]

Gotta love pseudo chemistry. I'm not actually a fan of diet drinks and find the taste of most sweetners very icky. Diet coke makes me really nauseated and yucky, so I tend to avoid diet drinks, only ever drinking them when I don't realise what they are.

Mirtazapine definitely does have tooManyHexagonError, but then most interesting things do. I'm actually wearing my caffeine tee-shirt which looks like the starbug off Red Dwarf...

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I avoid artificial sweeteners for a much simpler and less scientific reason: They all taste AWFUL to me. I don't know what the deal is. Even when I've been sure that I've been getting something naturally sweetened, I've made a face and said, "Eugh! This tastes like it has artificial sweetener in it, which is weird, because I know it doesn't," and then checked only to find out that it does. I'd have to double-check but I *think* I've had the same reaction to sucralose.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, I saw a TV ad for Splenda, which mentioned how, since it was made from sugar, it therefore had to be as safe as sugar. And I thought that, well, couldn't one as easily say that since it's some large percent chlorine by mass, it therefore must be evil?

It did not occur to me, at the time, that someone would actually do that.

[ludy]

i've been wondering how people who are sensitive to aspartame etc are with sucralose because i get a bit nervous about experemnting on myslef when i'm in a-getting-more-sensitive-to-more-things phase. So you being ok with it is a hopeful sign.