More about Truvia, Nectresse, Ace-K, Aspartame, and all the other Toxins

One of the hardest things for the populace in this country to understand is the simple fact that the government whose sworn duty is to protect the citizens, no longer does so. We have seen that the major corporations pretty much decide policy for not just the FDA and the USDA, but the big guys pretty much all have their hands into decisions by most of the rest of the entities that make the rules determining our lives.  (See why I say this) And as we have seen, the decisions of the big guys generally are made for their particular branch of the government as to allow themselves to make more money.  It isn't a conspiracy as you might think, it is simply one business entity buying the favors of regulators with the intent to better their position in the marketplace with respect to their competition.  And there are a lot one businesses out there with a lot of cash to pave the way to higher profits.  With that said, let's look at fake stuff.

To begin, this is what the FDA says about the use of the word natural in labeling, "FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives" from (ACTUAL FDA site)  I've spent some time at the store looking at ingredient lists and so far I have not found one single product with the words "All Natural" on the label that I would buy.  So this leads me to my first set of sweeteners to avoid and the reasons to avoid them. 

Truvia, Nectresse and any of the sugar alcohols.  Sugar alcohols are the group of compounds that generally are made from genetically modified corn and are fermented using specific strains of bacteria to give the desired end product.  These include Erythritol, Maltitol, Xylitol, Sorbitol and a whole host of them that have various combinations of carbon groups.  Weird, but event Ethylene Glycol, a base form of radiator coolant, is a sugar alcohol.  And that one is pretty toxic, the worst of the bunch.  However, long term studies on rats show that ingestion of sugar alcohols over time in fact lead to lesions and degradation of the kidneys.  Contrary to the claims of the manufacturers, only about 60% of the compound is excreted as is.  They claim the reason the stuff is a good sugar substitute is because 98% is excreted.  (Tell me it isn't so)  Oh, and yeah, wood alcohol, the stuff that makes you go blind, is a sugar alcohol.  But even though they are all made from GM corn, processed out the ying yang, the feds don't give a rat's patootey that they call the stuff "All Natural".  What does that have to do with Truvia and Nectresse?  Look at the package, the main ingredient in both, and pretty much most of the new "All Natural" sweeteners on the market; is a sugar alcohol.  Plus the actual Coke patent for their stevia product uses a 40+ step process to refine the stevia using some very nasty chemicals to achieve their end product.  Which to me, doesn't resemble real stevia.  And the product Nectresse?  The same. If it was all monkfruit, it would cost an arm and a leg and not be very profitable for them.

Sucralose, or Splenda.  This one is scary from the get go.  Sucralose is a chloro-carbon.  The makers take sucrose, simple table sugar and replace three oxygen hydrogen groups with chlorine atoms.  Not so bad most people think, until you find out that this new compound is just three atoms different from DDT.  In fact one of the cool things that you can do with Splenda is dust it in your shelves and on your garden plants, it kills insects.  Sucralose was approved by the FDA with nearly one hundred short term animal studies, and two human studies that show that 15% of the chemical is retained and broken down by the human body in complete and total opposition to their advertising claim that ALL of it is excreted in the urine.  Even with that info, the FDA approved the stuff.  It is now the number one selling fake sweetener.  A year ago, the CSPI, the Center for Science in the Public Interest downgraded sucralose from OKAY to USE WITH CAUTION!  Yikes.  The director of the FDA that approved sucralose was Jane Henney, who was given the post by good old Clinton and two years after approving sucralose as well as a whole host of drugs that are in dispute now, left to go work at the drug giant AstraZenaca.  This is just one example of the pattern of jobs selection that occurs between private industry and those that make the policies that govern our everyday lives. 

Ace-K, Acesulfame Potassium   The company website (Ace-K) states that over 90 studies have been done proving that this stuff is harmless. All the manufacturers of all this stuff make the same claims.  However in several independent studies there were far different findings, from large increases in cancers in male rats to moderate destruction of neurometabolic functions.  It has been discovered that the stuff also stimulates the excretion of insulin.  It has been found to pass through the placenta into unborn babies and is thought to influence human desire for sweets.  As well as that neurometabolic thing within any fetus. A whole host of possibilities open up there, and yet the manufacturer Hoechst,(now NutriNova) in all of its testing, did not in any way find anything wrong.  Here is info from the NCBI on their review (Ace K and NCBI) The stuff contains methylene chloride, a known carcinogen.  Again, more testing NEEDS to be done, but money is tight for protection of humanity, and pretty loose when it comes to buying the approval from regulators to use toxins to make more money. Frank E Young, the director that approved the stuff in 1988 was forced out because of corruption scandals at the FDA in 1989.  Eventually ending up at a pharmaceutical firm.  I for one am not at all surprised about this info.  Now, he's at a venture capital business.  But, no conflicts there.  

Aspartame - The absolute worst most toxic sweetener on the market (Aspartame)  There are 92 side effects listed by the FDA including death.  Yet is is still available for the manufacturers to make buttloads of money on.  92, with death in there as well.  (Side Effects)  In 1981 Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. the commissioner for the FDA approved Aspartame for use in human foods.  He then left the agency to work at the PR firm for Searle, the manufacturer of Aspartame, at a whopping one thousand dollars a day on a ten year contract.  His approval of the crap was done despite the fact that there was overwhelming evidence the stuff was carcinogenic and neurotoxic as well and that 70% of FDA staff researchers went on record as stating objections to any such approval.  Let's not make any bones about it, approval was all about MONEY!  Aspartame in theory is pretty cool, it is basically just two common amino acids held together with a methyl ester bond.  The problem is that methyl ester, it breaks down into methanol.  Which as we learned earlier, is an acute neurotoxin.  The manufacturer tells us that methanol in small amounts is harmless, that eating overripe fruit gives you methanol.  Most people don't consume overripe fruit as the main part of their diet as people do now that aspartame is in a huge percentage of processed foods.  And soda, of which many people drink cans and cans of the stuff daily. 

High Fructose Corn Syrup, HFCS  This stuff is just sugar.  According to the HFCS manufacturers, The Corn Refiners Association.  And they can't be wrong can they?  I don't want to get into that discussion, all I want to point out here is the problem (and it's a BIG problem) with Mercury contamination.  It's not just me, but the Washington post reported on the Mercury in January 2009 (The Post) The original research was done by a woman, Renee Dufault that in 2004 discovered that the method used to make caustic soda which is required to make HFCS, was made by most of the manufacturers using a rather interesting technique of passing salt through Mercury.  She and her team tested 18 samples of HFCS as well as 55 different products containing HFCS right off the shelves of stores.  They found Mercury in over half of both groups.  The Mercury contamination was so great that it was estimated that Americas, whose intake of HFCS accounts for 1 out of every 10 calories consumed, could be ingesting as much as 200 micrograms daily just from HFCS containing products.  That is three times the EPA deems as safe.  She brought this to the attention of her bosses at the FDA.  They instructed her to cease and desist any further research.  She decided it was too important to sweep under the mountains of money being made.  Her findings were published in the January 2005 issue of "Environmental Health".  And again she published further findings about the problem of Mercury in 2009 in the Behavioral and Brain Functions Journal.  Her info is here, (The Hero of our times) She is doing quite well, despite the backlash of controversy over her findings from the Corn Refiners Association and her employer, the Federal Government.  She retired, honorably, from the Feds.  Not sure what to make of that, they make a big deal of mentioning that word, honorably.  Here is the thing, the FDA was informed of the contamination, the FDA had the option, actually it was the FDA directive, to protect the populace from foods that are found to be toxic.  The FDA ignored her findings, they chose not to do their own testing to determine the accuracy of her initial findings.  Th FDA decided that a nationwide recall of products containing HFCS that might be contaminated with Mercury, would be too expensive to the food processing industry.  In fact, it would have been DEVASTATING.    But then again they also denied that it did not exist in the test samples done in 2004 by an extremely competent researcher.  But then again, in 2009 another private study found Mercury in 9 out of 20 commercial products on store shelves, including stuff from such well known brands as Quaker, Hunt's, Hershey's, Smuckers, Kraft, Nutri-Grain, Yoplait and Manwich.  But then again, didn't the Corn Refiners tell us in 2005 that the Mercury wasn't in their products?  Yeah, they did.  So to date, the only testing done of HFCS for Mercury has been done by the industry itself, and they have of course found no Mercury. And look at how much money they made by not recalling their products, and not updating the technology used to make the stuff. 

Honestly, I don't think it is a conspiracy.  People, want to make money.  They want an edge on the competition.  They do that by making their products the cheapest way possible while still achieving that most important thing in food production, the Bliss Point.  That point where the mixture of fat, salt and sweet make the food virtually irresistible.  Read about the Bliss here (The Bliss Point)  But to do that, to get a leg up on their competitors, they need cheap ingredients.  GM corn, soy and canola fit those criteria.  And to make stuff sweeter, cheaper, have longer shelf lives, and taste good requires the addition of additives that whose safety is questionable.  When new additives are found, the FDA is more than willing to approve them for use in our food, with the ever so innocuous belief that a little bit won't hurt you.  And if consumers eat a little bit in everything they buy that is processed or from fast food purveyors, then they are getting a little bit all the time. 

Read the ingredients, it is after all, your health.