So if you read my post on Artificial sweeteners, you probably are as scared as I am to ever drink a diet Coke or crystal light product again, and you are probably looking at your food labels and finding a lot of things have these (what I will refer to as) poisons in them.
Now are you thinking... what now? Isn't there anything I can drink that doesn't have these poisons in them?
Yes there is. You won't find most of these things at your local Grocery stores though. I went to my health food store first and then I went to Sunflower Market next. Any market or store that has more natural, organic foods, go there.
These are some things I have found, I am sure there are a lot more, maybe there will be so many more products that I find I might have to do a follow up post on this one.
Stevia liquid flavorings. Stevia is a plant that when ground up is a safe natural sweetener with no Glycemic index. It has no carcinogens, it is natural and safe for ingestion. And it is no calories, no carbs.
There is one brand that I have been using, called SweetLeaf. It is made by Wisdom Natural Brands out of Gilbert AZ. They have a website, www.sweetleaf.com.
I have been using these drops in my water to give it some flavor and in my tea. The flavors that I have tried are Vanilla Cream, Chocolate, Raspberry Chocolate, Rootbeer, Valencia Orange, and Lemon Drop. I found it a little funny to drink chocolate water, so I tried finding something to compare to crystal light to go packets.
I found a product called Zenergize. Thaey are tubes of effervescent tablets. Each tube has ten in them. They are not just for flavoring water, they have different formulas to help burn calories, give you an energy boost, or an immunity boost. They also have a website,www.Zenergizehealth.com.
I have recently found another flavoring product called Stevita. I haven't tried them but would like to find a good website to order them from. so far, the websites I have tried have had error pages and such but I am going to keep trying.
My favorite product so far is Zevia. This is a canned soda, an alternative to Diet Coke!! I am very excited about this one! They have a cola flavor that I think tastes a lot sweeter than Diet Coke but is a very fair trade for all that poison I was ingesting. This Zevia product also has other flavors, Black Cherry, Rootbeer, Orangeand Lemon Lime. And... they also have a website, www.zevia.com. They are out of Seattle WA.
Check into these products and let me know what you think. I am just so excited about all these healthy alternatives, I would love to know how others feel about it.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Artificial Sweeteners
I have been a user of all kinds of these artificial sweeteners, and was shocked to find out that they are so detrimental to our good health. I love Diet Coke, I have used Crystal Light for years as a way of increasing my daily water intake, anything that said it was diet or sugar free, I used to get all excited about. NOT ANY MORE!
Did you know that there were five known types of Artificial Sweeteners? I didn't. I have found out about them all and will highlight them for you.
By the way... the medical world seems to be referring to these as "nonnutritive" I personally don't want to ingest something that is nonnutritive!
First there is Saccharin. Saccharin has been around for over 100 years and claims to be the best researched sweetener. Saccharin is also known as Sweet and Low, Sweet Twin, Sweet'N Low, and Necta Sweet. It does not contain any calories, does not raise blood sugar levels and is 200 to 700 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar).
Even being the safest of all nonnutritive sweeteners, it has still been tagged to cause allergies and bladder cancer.
Next lets talk about Aspartame. Aspartame is also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin. It does provide calories, but because it is 160 to 220 times sweeter than sucrose, very small amounts are needed for sweetening so the caloric intake is negligible.
The positive side is that if you want to lower your calories it can be done with all of the consumer products available today that contain this. The bad news is:
Aspartame disease: H.J. Roberts, MD, coined the term "aspartame disease" in a book filled with over 1,000 pages of information about the negative health consequences of ingesting aspartame. Dr. Roberts reports that by 1998, aspartame products were the cause of 80% of complaints to the FDA about food additives. Some of these symptoms include headache, dizziness, change in mood, vomiting or nausea, abdominal pain and cramps, change in vision, diarrhea, seizures/convulsions, memory loss, and fatigue. Along with these symptoms, links to aspartame are made for fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, and various cancers. While the FDA has assured us that the research does not show any adverse health complications from aspartame, there has been some evidence to suggest that some of these symptoms can be related to aspartame.
Next is Sucralose. Sucralose is the newest nonnutritive sweetener on the market. It is most well known for its claim to be made from sugar. It is as sold as Splenda and is 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). It provides essentially no calories and is not fully absorbed. In 1998, it was approved for limited use, and in 1999, it was given approval for use as a general-purpose sweetener. It is currently found in over 4,500 products, including foods that are cooked or baked.
The bad side for Sucralose scared me the most. It was discovered while formulating a pesticide. Splenda is a form of sugar, but this is what they did. They took out some natural cells and substituted them with chlorine. According to the book Sweet Deception, sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, making it unlike anything found in nature.
Wow!!! I am shocked!!!
Next in the list is a sweetener that is put into products that we buy ready to eat. We don't even know were eating it until we read the label.
Acesulfame K. The problems surrounding acesulfame K are based on the improper testing and lack of long-term studies. Acesulfame K does contain the carcinogen methylene chloride.
Long list but we have come to an end, another sweetener that we have to check labels for;
A new version of aspartame called Neotame. Again it has not been tested enough and there are no long term studies done making it a bad choice for me, but you decide for yourself.
this information taken from the website http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/page5.htm
Did you know that there were five known types of Artificial Sweeteners? I didn't. I have found out about them all and will highlight them for you.
By the way... the medical world seems to be referring to these as "nonnutritive" I personally don't want to ingest something that is nonnutritive!
First there is Saccharin. Saccharin has been around for over 100 years and claims to be the best researched sweetener. Saccharin is also known as Sweet and Low, Sweet Twin, Sweet'N Low, and Necta Sweet. It does not contain any calories, does not raise blood sugar levels and is 200 to 700 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar).
Even being the safest of all nonnutritive sweeteners, it has still been tagged to cause allergies and bladder cancer.
Next lets talk about Aspartame. Aspartame is also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin. It does provide calories, but because it is 160 to 220 times sweeter than sucrose, very small amounts are needed for sweetening so the caloric intake is negligible.
The positive side is that if you want to lower your calories it can be done with all of the consumer products available today that contain this. The bad news is:
Aspartame disease: H.J. Roberts, MD, coined the term "aspartame disease" in a book filled with over 1,000 pages of information about the negative health consequences of ingesting aspartame. Dr. Roberts reports that by 1998, aspartame products were the cause of 80% of complaints to the FDA about food additives. Some of these symptoms include headache, dizziness, change in mood, vomiting or nausea, abdominal pain and cramps, change in vision, diarrhea, seizures/convulsions, memory loss, and fatigue. Along with these symptoms, links to aspartame are made for fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, and various cancers. While the FDA has assured us that the research does not show any adverse health complications from aspartame, there has been some evidence to suggest that some of these symptoms can be related to aspartame.
Next is Sucralose. Sucralose is the newest nonnutritive sweetener on the market. It is most well known for its claim to be made from sugar. It is as sold as Splenda and is 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). It provides essentially no calories and is not fully absorbed. In 1998, it was approved for limited use, and in 1999, it was given approval for use as a general-purpose sweetener. It is currently found in over 4,500 products, including foods that are cooked or baked.
The bad side for Sucralose scared me the most. It was discovered while formulating a pesticide. Splenda is a form of sugar, but this is what they did. They took out some natural cells and substituted them with chlorine. According to the book Sweet Deception, sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, making it unlike anything found in nature.
Wow!!! I am shocked!!!
Next in the list is a sweetener that is put into products that we buy ready to eat. We don't even know were eating it until we read the label.
Acesulfame K. The problems surrounding acesulfame K are based on the improper testing and lack of long-term studies. Acesulfame K does contain the carcinogen methylene chloride.
Long list but we have come to an end, another sweetener that we have to check labels for;
A new version of aspartame called Neotame. Again it has not been tested enough and there are no long term studies done making it a bad choice for me, but you decide for yourself.
this information taken from the website http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/page5.htm
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Nature Didn't Intend This
I am no scientist or physician so all of this information I tell you is based on my own conversations with homeopathic professionals and my own research I have done on the internet. I have tried to have conversations with the traditional medicine professionals but I really think they are stuck in a rut of dolling out prescriptions and getting you in and out of there in their eight minute time frame. They simply won't listen or entertain ideas of nature. There are some doctors out there who are starting to retrain themselves to think more natural in terms of healing and preventative medicine and I need to give them credit here.
It is a simple idea, one that needs to be re-evaluated. All things that nature provides to us cannot be patented. So there is no money to be made by researching how they work and what benefit they can give. On the other hand, look at all the money there is to be made in coming up with the newest chemically made drug. That is patentable and therefore the government and pharmaceutical companies jump into each others pockets and start spending money to research it. When they finally tweek the formula enough to have it passed by the very rich and deep pocketed FDA, they start to sell it. Television ads, magazines, pharmacies and doctors clinics make these new chemically brewed products out to be the best thing since sliced bread but then, the FDA only approved them to put it on the shelves after they give you all the warnings of side effects. Come on... those warnings are just like the warnings on cigarettes. If it were truly SAFE to use, they wouldn't need warnings.
There is plenty of money to go around when someone comes up with a new drug to sell. If someone comes up with a new way to use something that nature provides, they have to get that information out on their own. they have to pay to have it tested, they have to pay to have the research done. And they can't get a patent on it, it is something nature provides.
All this information I was starting to listen to and understand that there was something going on, something that shouldn't be going on was going on. Modern medicine has it's place and don't get me wrong, we need some of these lifesaving drugs that are on the market today. The more I look into things though, the more I find that most things have a natural means of being healed. We need to start looking into these gifts of nature and quit relying so much on the next miracle cure. The more artificial we become, the harder it is going to be to let nature run it's course.
It is a simple idea, one that needs to be re-evaluated. All things that nature provides to us cannot be patented. So there is no money to be made by researching how they work and what benefit they can give. On the other hand, look at all the money there is to be made in coming up with the newest chemically made drug. That is patentable and therefore the government and pharmaceutical companies jump into each others pockets and start spending money to research it. When they finally tweek the formula enough to have it passed by the very rich and deep pocketed FDA, they start to sell it. Television ads, magazines, pharmacies and doctors clinics make these new chemically brewed products out to be the best thing since sliced bread but then, the FDA only approved them to put it on the shelves after they give you all the warnings of side effects. Come on... those warnings are just like the warnings on cigarettes. If it were truly SAFE to use, they wouldn't need warnings.
There is plenty of money to go around when someone comes up with a new drug to sell. If someone comes up with a new way to use something that nature provides, they have to get that information out on their own. they have to pay to have it tested, they have to pay to have the research done. And they can't get a patent on it, it is something nature provides.
All this information I was starting to listen to and understand that there was something going on, something that shouldn't be going on was going on. Modern medicine has it's place and don't get me wrong, we need some of these lifesaving drugs that are on the market today. The more I look into things though, the more I find that most things have a natural means of being healed. We need to start looking into these gifts of nature and quit relying so much on the next miracle cure. The more artificial we become, the harder it is going to be to let nature run it's course.
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