opinion: not a “10″ in my book
I am sure you have all seen the major marketing campaign by Glaceau to promote the new “Vitamin Water 10″.
You see… it’s that “naturally sweetened” part that gets me. That’s the part that I needed to explore. So I did.It is produced by allowing HFCS (not natural.. made in a factory) to crystallize. It is then dried and milled into the desired particle size for packaging. As a result, it is 100% fructose.
Fructose is not the best thing for your body. Fructose exists in foods as either a monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a disaccharide (sucrose). Free fructose does not undergo digestion; however when fructose is consumed in the form of sucrose, digestion occurs entirely in the upper small intestine. As sucrose comes into contact with the membrane of the small intestine, the enzyme sucrase catalyzes the cleavage of sucrose to yield one glucose and fructose unit. Fructose, passes through the small intestine, virtually unchanged, then enters the portal vein and is directed toward the liver.
Although, this might be deemed “natural” by many people, it still has to go through a manufacturing process to be made. Of the limited information that is out there, this is what I have discovered about the process. (please understand this is being pasted from patent papers and scientific references… so it may be hard to understand as it is not in everyday English.)
The present method of producing erythritol by fed-batch and repeated fermentation of sugars by microorganisms which produce erythritol.By fed-batch fermentation is meant a fermentation in which microorganisms are fed by the successive addition of substrates, and in which the product and the co-products of the fermentation remain in the medium until the end of fermentation.By sugars is meant in the present invention all the carbonaceous sources which may be directly assimilated by the microorganisms which produce erythritol. Such sugars are chosen for example from the group consisting of glucose, saccharose, fructose, maltose, xylulose and maltulose, on their own or in a mixture. By extension, sugars also means certain sugar alcohols (or polyols) such as mannitol or sorbitol which, being assimilated by said microorganisms, will also lead to the production of erythritol.
Reproductive problems. Stevioside “seems to affect the male reproductive organ system,” European scientists concluded last year. When male rats were fed high doses of stevioside for 22 months, sperm production was reduced, the weight of seminal vesicles (which produce seminal fluid) declined, and there was an increase in cell proliferation in their testicles, which could cause infertility or other problems.1 And when female hamsters were fed large amounts of a derivative of stevioside called steviol, they had fewer and smaller offspring.2 Would small amounts of stevia also cause reproductive problems? No one knows.
If you use stevia sparingly (once or twice a day in a cup of tea, for example), it isn’t a great threat to you. But if stevia were marketed widely and used in diet sodas, it would be consumed by millions of people. And that might pose a public health threat.
news-in-brief, 1/9/09
In Obama’s Team, Two Camps on Climate, via The New York Times
Today, as the climate-change debate once again heats up, Mr. Summers leads the economic team of the incoming administration, and Ms. Browner has been designated its White House coordinator of energy and climate policy. And Mr. Gore is hovering as an informal adviser to President-elect Barack Obama.
As Mr. Obama seeks to find the right balance between his environmental goals and his plans to revive the economy, he may have to resolve conflicting views among some of his top advisers……
This CAFE Is Closed: Bush admin. won’t implement fuel efficiency rules, via GRIST.org
The administration’s move drew a sharp reaction from one of the biggest congressional backers of CAFE. “Apparently the Bush administration was too busy giving midnight regulatory handouts to its corporate cronies to complete its work on fuel economy standards for consumers,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. “I look forward to working with President Obama to implement this landmark CAFE legislation and get our national energy policy back on track.”
The new administration of president-elect Barack Obama takes over on January 20. Obama has selected Republican representative Ray LaHood to head the agency.
US judge dismisses pollution case against Cargill, via MSNBC
The Cargill lawsuit alleged the company used chemicals linked to illnesses including lung congestion and organ damage, and that the hazardous substances eventually reached the groundwater and several private wells.
Cargill processed and stored agricultural seed at the plant from 1981 to about 2000.
For those who don’t know, Cargill is one of the main manufacturers of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Many credit Cargill and Monsanto as being the leading corporations that has turned our agriculture away from food farming and into commodity farming.
Tehran looks to the skies for cheap power from the sun, via The Guardian UK
Mention energy and Iran in the same sentence and you’re duty-bound to express some concern about the country’s ambitions for nuclear power and, as a result, raise dangerous questions about weapons. But while that are-they-aren’t-they game has been going on between the country’s leaders and the wider international community, renewable energy experts in Iran have been quietly working on capturing sunlight to power their country.
According to officials, Iran has started 2009 by inaugurating a pilot solar plant in Shiraz, Fars province. It is a concentrating solar power (CSP) system, using parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight onto a tube of water that is super-heated to make steam that is then used to turn electricity-generating turbines.
Stumble it!