Sugar - the bitter truth

LiftAllThePizzas

Stevia tastes bitter to some people? Weird, what kind of stevia are you eating?

The gross kind, Coder! I can taste some of the aftertaste in Quest bars, but not too much. My husband can't even choke them down (thank goodness, those things are expensive). It's the reason that I hated their peanut butter cups. When I've tried beer (and I've tasted a number), I can't taste anything besides the bitter taste :sick: It's my one superpower, I am a SUPERTASTER!! da da da dum!

Supertaster too. Were we separated at birth or something?

Achrya

I have been avoiding sugars and carbs for a while now and I have to say I have never felt better. So, personally, I couldn't give a **** who is right. Low carb works for me. And, in the end, that's all that counts as far as I'm concerned.

I can't help but notice that people seem more keen to prove themselves right than to help other members on these boards. Sad, really.

Otterluv

Stevia tastes bitter to some people? Weird, what kind of stevia are you eating?

The gross kind, Coder! I can taste some of the aftertaste in Quest bars, but not too much. My husband can't even choke them down (thank goodness, those things are expensive). It's the reason that I hated their peanut butter cups. When I've tried beer (and I've tasted a number), I can't taste anything besides the bitter taste :sick: It's my one superpower, I am a SUPERTASTER!! da da da dum!

Supertaster too. Were we separated at birth or something?

Since it's largely genetic, we must have been! Wait, following the same logic: if I'm a supertaster, and my husband is a supertaster, then that means: mmm, hmmmm. Nevermind.

FunkyTobias

I always laugh when someone learns the difference between correlation and causation, then stops there and learns no further. Keep going! Correlational studies are not altogether without value and many scientific advancements have been achieved using correlation to understand data. It's a step in the process. Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff. Once enough evidence piles up for a hypothesis, it becomes theory and we have reasonable certainty that it is true.

Correlational studies are useful insofar as they are hypothesis-generating, nothing more. No firm conclusions about causation can be drawn from them and no scientific theory is supported by correlational evidence alone.

Rats/mice are not people - this one makes me snicker as well. When someone points out that mice and rats aren't people, therefore a study done on rats is not definitive, they are just failing to understand how experimentation works, and that this is one step in the process. Of course it's not definitive. But rats are incredibly similar to humans and a really great way to experiment. Sure, experimenting on people would technically yield quicker results, but that would be massively unethical and immoral.

See above. Rats bear just enough resemblance to make them useful for preliminary studies (and they're cheap too). One cannot draw conclusions about humans from rat studies alone (especially when they are injected with insanely high doses of said substance).

Aspartame - it is still being studied and we have no actual conclusions about it to turn to from any research - yet. Which means either "side" could turn out to be right. HOWEVER, if you will ingest anything as long as it is not PROVEN to be harmful, you are not playing smart with your health. At some point in time, smoking was not proven to be harmful. First there were correlations, way before we had nailed down causation. Am I equating aspartame with cigarettes? No. I'm just saying some of the reasoning here doesn't really fly. I was in the Philadelphia area not long ago and Rutgers was looking for test subjects to participate in a study looking at weight loss and artificial sweeteners. There are still questions to be answered and sometimes I do wonder if we are a bit quick to ignore the precautionary principle and put things on the market. Is it PROVEN to be harmful? No. But has it been PROVEN to be safe? Also no. So question- who has the burden of proof, and why?

What happened to "Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff." ? There is a mountain of evidence for the safety of aspartame, which far outweigh the few poorly-designed studies that claim otherwise (none of which were ever replicated BTW).

FunkyTobias

That is why diet soda is very bad because of the aspartame which takes a huge bad toll on the body.

Just so you know, there is not one bit of credible evidence which links to aspartame damaging humans.

Oops, sorry...just had a flashback. I thought it was 1950 and you were discussing cigarettes. My bad.

Hey, I think vegetables are bad for us.

You know, since no proof is required.

I haven't seen a single study showing that broccoli is safe. Better avoid it.

LiftAllThePizzas

I have been avoiding sugars and carbs for a while now and I have to say I have never felt better. So, personally, I couldn't give a **** who is right. Low carb works for me. And, in the end, that's all that counts as far as I'm concerned.

I can't help but notice that people seem more keen to prove themselves right than to help other members on these boards. Sad, really.

Did you intend for that to apply to your own post as well, or was that just a coincidence?

brower47

Awesome, another "sugar is the devil" thread.

It's not a specific food or food component that causes problems. It is over-consumption that does.

MsEndomorph

Awesome, another "sugar is the devil" thread.

It's not a specific food or food component that causes problems. It is over-consumption that does.

I think it's fair to say that certain foods require more care or are more easily over-consumed, though.

How many people are on MFP because they ate too many green beans?

snazzyjazzy21

Awesome, another "sugar is the devil" thread.

It's not a specific food or food component that causes problems. It is over-consumption that does.

I think it's fair to say that certain foods require more care or are more easily over-consumed, though.

How many people are on MFP because they ate too many green beans?

Define 'too many'. Cause I love me some beans.

LiftAllThePizzas

Awesome, another "sugar is the devil" thread.

It's not a specific food or food component that causes problems. It is over-consumption that does.

I think it's fair to say that certain foods require more care or are more easily over-consumed, though.

How many people are on MFP because they ate too many green beans?

The only thing that proves is that green beans suck.

pcastagner

I always laugh when someone learns the difference between correlation and causation, then stops there and learns no further. Keep going! Correlational studies are not altogether without value and many scientific advancements have been achieved using correlation to understand data. It's a step in the process. Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff. Once enough evidence piles up for a hypothesis, it becomes theory and we have reasonable certainty that it is true.

Correlational studies are useful insofar as they are hypothesis-generating, nothing more. No firm conclusions about causation can be drawn from them and no scientific theory is supported by correlational evidence alone.

Rats/mice are not people - this one makes me snicker as well. When someone points out that mice and rats aren't people, therefore a study done on rats is not definitive, they are just failing to understand how experimentation works, and that this is one step in the process. Of course it's not definitive. But rats are incredibly similar to humans and a really great way to experiment. Sure, experimenting on people would technically yield quicker results, but that would be massively unethical and immoral.

See above. Rats bear just enough resemblance to make them useful for preliminary studies (and they're cheap too). One cannot draw conclusions about humans from rat studies alone (especially when they are injected with insanely high doses of said substance).

Aspartame - it is still being studied and we have no actual conclusions about it to turn to from any research - yet. Which means either "side" could turn out to be right. HOWEVER, if you will ingest anything as long as it is not PROVEN to be harmful, you are not playing smart with your health. At some point in time, smoking was not proven to be harmful. First there were correlations, way before we had nailed down causation. Am I equating aspartame with cigarettes? No. I'm just saying some of the reasoning here doesn't really fly. I was in the Philadelphia area not long ago and Rutgers was looking for test subjects to participate in a study looking at weight loss and artificial sweeteners. There are still questions to be answered and sometimes I do wonder if we are a bit quick to ignore the precautionary principle and put things on the market. Is it PROVEN to be harmful? No. But has it been PROVEN to be safe? Also no. So question- who has the burden of proof, and why?

What happened to "Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff." ? There is a mountain of evidence for the safety of aspartame, which far outweigh the few poorly-designed studies that claim otherwise (none of which were ever replicated BTW).

Yeah, way to agree with me while appearing to disagree. One step in the process I said. And I never claimed all rodent studies are well designed. I take issue with language here that implies ALL rodent studies are useless.

I didn't take sides here, so please don't put me in the anti aspartame camp. I like my aspartame gum. I'm just tired of hearing people pat themselves on the back for being able to understand correlation vs. causation only when it suits them, while using correlation to make important judgements all the time.

I do believe in a high standard of evidence to show that a new substance is safe before it is introduced to the food supply. Not because every substance not proven safe must be dangerous, but because of the precautionary principle.

When it comes to broccoli, we don't need a study to prove it is safe because it was already part of the food supply. It is "generally regarded as safe", or GRAS.

2essie

Bump to read later.

Sarauk2sf

I always laugh when someone learns the difference between correlation and causation, then stops there and learns no further. Keep going! Correlational studies are not altogether without value and many scientific advancements have been achieved using correlation to understand data. It's a step in the process. Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff. Once enough evidence piles up for a hypothesis, it becomes theory and we have reasonable certainty that it is true.

Correlational studies are useful insofar as they are hypothesis-generating, nothing more. No firm conclusions about causation can be drawn from them and no scientific theory is supported by correlational evidence alone.

Rats/mice are not people - this one makes me snicker as well. When someone points out that mice and rats aren't people, therefore a study done on rats is not definitive, they are just failing to understand how experimentation works, and that this is one step in the process. Of course it's not definitive. But rats are incredibly similar to humans and a really great way to experiment. Sure, experimenting on people would technically yield quicker results, but that would be massively unethical and immoral.

See above. Rats bear just enough resemblance to make them useful for preliminary studies (and they're cheap too). One cannot draw conclusions about humans from rat studies alone (especially when they are injected with insanely high doses of said substance).

Aspartame - it is still being studied and we have no actual conclusions about it to turn to from any research - yet. Which means either "side" could turn out to be right. HOWEVER, if you will ingest anything as long as it is not PROVEN to be harmful, you are not playing smart with your health. At some point in time, smoking was not proven to be harmful. First there were correlations, way before we had nailed down causation. Am I equating aspartame with cigarettes? No. I'm just saying some of the reasoning here doesn't really fly. I was in the Philadelphia area not long ago and Rutgers was looking for test subjects to participate in a study looking at weight loss and artificial sweeteners. There are still questions to be answered and sometimes I do wonder if we are a bit quick to ignore the precautionary principle and put things on the market. Is it PROVEN to be harmful? No. But has it been PROVEN to be safe? Also no. So question- who has the burden of proof, and why?

What happened to "Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff." ? There is a mountain of evidence for the safety of aspartame, which far outweigh the few poorly-designed studies that claim otherwise (none of which were ever replicated BTW).

Yeah, way to agree with me while appearing to disagree. One step in the process I said. And I never claimed all rodent studies are well designed. I take issue with language here that implies ALL rodent studies are useless.

I didn't take sides here, so please don't put me in the anti aspartame camp. I like my aspartame gum. I'm just tired of hearing people pat themselves on the back for being able to understand correlation vs. causation only when it suits them, while using correlation to make important judgements all the time.

I do believe in a high standard of evidence to show that a new substance is safe before it is introduced to the food supply. Not because every substance not proven safe must be dangerous, but because of the precautionary principle.

When it comes to broccoli, we don't need a study to prove it is safe because it was already part of the food supply. It is "generally regarded as safe", or GRAS.

I may have missed it, but where were studies using rats dismissed purely because they were rats?

And who exactly is patting themselves on the back?

pcastagner

I always laugh when someone learns the difference between correlation and causation, then stops there and learns no further. Keep going! Correlational studies are not altogether without value and many scientific advancements have been achieved using correlation to understand data. It's a step in the process. Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff. Once enough evidence piles up for a hypothesis, it becomes theory and we have reasonable certainty that it is true.

Correlational studies are useful insofar as they are hypothesis-generating, nothing more. No firm conclusions about causation can be drawn from them and no scientific theory is supported by correlational evidence alone.

Rats/mice are not people - this one makes me snicker as well. When someone points out that mice and rats aren't people, therefore a study done on rats is not definitive, they are just failing to understand how experimentation works, and that this is one step in the process. Of course it's not definitive. But rats are incredibly similar to humans and a really great way to experiment. Sure, experimenting on people would technically yield quicker results, but that would be massively unethical and immoral.

See above. Rats bear just enough resemblance to make them useful for preliminary studies (and they're cheap too). One cannot draw conclusions about humans from rat studies alone (especially when they are injected with insanely high doses of said substance).

Aspartame - it is still being studied and we have no actual conclusions about it to turn to from any research - yet. Which means either "side" could turn out to be right. HOWEVER, if you will ingest anything as long as it is not PROVEN to be harmful, you are not playing smart with your health. At some point in time, smoking was not proven to be harmful. First there were correlations, way before we had nailed down causation. Am I equating aspartame with cigarettes? No. I'm just saying some of the reasoning here doesn't really fly. I was in the Philadelphia area not long ago and Rutgers was looking for test subjects to participate in a study looking at weight loss and artificial sweeteners. There are still questions to be answered and sometimes I do wonder if we are a bit quick to ignore the precautionary principle and put things on the market. Is it PROVEN to be harmful? No. But has it been PROVEN to be safe? Also no. So question- who has the burden of proof, and why?

What happened to "Science is about asking questions, not having answers and being sure about stuff." ? There is a mountain of evidence for the safety of aspartame, which far outweigh the few poorly-designed studies that claim otherwise (none of which were ever replicated BTW).

Yeah, way to agree with me while appearing to disagree. One step in the process I said. And I never claimed all rodent studies are well designed. I take issue with language here that implies ALL rodent studies are useless.

I didn't take sides here, so please don't put me in the anti aspartame camp. I like my aspartame gum. I'm just tired of hearing people pat themselves on the back for being able to understand correlation vs. causation only when it suits them, while using correlation to make important judgements all the time.

I do believe in a high standard of evidence to show that a new substance is safe before it is introduced to the food supply. Not because every substance not proven safe must be dangerous, but because of the precautionary principle.

When it comes to broccoli, we don't need a study to prove it is safe because it was already part of the food supply. It is "generally regarded as safe", or GRAS.

I may have missed it, but where were studies using rats dismissed purely because they were rats?

And who exactly is patting themselves on the back?

Don't worry, not you Sara. I can't play the quote game too well on my iPad. It's in there, and out there in general. Enough to be a pet peeve of mine.

Like I said , I reserve the most scorn guys like Lustig. And the most love for ice cream, the fourth macro.

Sarauk2sf

Don't worry, not you Sara. I can't play the quote game too well on my iPad. It's in there, and out there in general. Enough to be a pet peeve of mine.

Like I said , I reserve the most scorn guys like Lustig. And the most love for ice cream, the fourth macro.

Looks at ticker...I can dig that fourth macro.

pcastagner

Right?

You can't do iifym if you are missing a whole macro!

NonnyMary

Good morning!

Re my above comment about Stevia tasting bitter. I tried it mixed in a hot drink a while back - I think it was hot tea. It tasted bitter. So why if it supposed to be a natural sugar why does it have that nasty bitter chemical taste? Compared to real sugar, it has that fake chemical taste and that is why I question if it is so good.(compared to the sweet taste of real sugar)

What I am saying is that it "might" be ok for you to eat, but my tastebuds are detecting a fake chemically taste.

I thought about this just now, and I could taste that fake sweetener in diet Coke. Not sure but they might use Equal. I also used a few Equal packets on cold food and I detected that fake chemical taste. So compared to sugar, I dont think a bit of real sugar will kill you, unless you are diabetic or something, however, why would i want to put some nasty chemical tasting fake food in my mouth? blech!

I did try some rather bitter tasting greens - arugula for one, and yes it does taste bitter, but that is a raw vegetable, so any bitterness is from the thing that makes it green - celery is bitter the darker green it is. (chorophyll).

I must have sensitive taste buds as I can tell when food has things in it, like when they put whiskey in bbq sauce, the waitress said you cant taste it, but blech, i could.

so for me, I would ratehr eat natural foods, and not some fake chemical ingredient which taste is terrible, I'd rather not eat any of it. why bother? why make your food full of fake chemical stuff when you can have sweet tasting other food choices?

thats just my opinion of course. Telling me to eat that nasty stuff and saying you enjoy it is like telling me to get a kiss from a cold dead stone statue!

by the way have you read about that Frankenstein food - they have created a hamburger in a petri dish. Now, thats appetizing haha NOT! Guess who wont be standing in line for a taste!

Nikki31104

That is why diet soda is very bad because of the aspartame which takes a huge bad toll on the body.

Just so you know, there is not one bit of credible evidence which links to aspartame damaging humans.

I haven't done a lot of research on this but my Neurologist told me absolutely no aspartame. It is possible that it is in fact damaging in some way.

pcastagner

Good morning!

Re my above comment about Stevia tasting bitter. I tried it mixed in a hot drink a while back - I think it was hot tea. It tasted bitter. So why if it supposed to be a natural sugar why does it have that nasty bitter chemical taste? Compared to real sugar, it has that fake chemical taste and that is why I question if it is so good.(compared to the sweet taste of real sugar)

What I am saying is that it "might" be ok for you to eat, but my tastebuds are detecting a fake chemically taste.

I thought about this just now, and I could taste that fake sweetener in diet Coke. Not sure but they might use Equal. I also used a few Equal packets on cold food and I detected that fake chemical taste. So compared to sugar, I dont think a bit of real sugar will kill you, unless you are diabetic or something, however, why would i want to put some nasty chemical tasting fake food in my mouth? blech!

I did try some rather bitter tasting greens - arugula for one, and yes it does taste bitter, but that is a raw vegetable, so any bitterness is from the thing that makes it green - celery is bitter the darker green it is. (chorophyll).

I must have sensitive taste buds as I can tell when food has things in it, like when they put whiskey in bbq sauce, the waitress said you cant taste it, but blech, i could.

so for me, I would ratehr eat natural foods, and not some fake chemical ingredient which taste is terrible, I'd rather not eat any of it. why bother? why make your food full of fake chemical stuff when you can have sweet tasting other food choices?

thats just my opinion of course. Telling me to eat that nasty stuff and saying you enjoy it is like telling me to get a kiss from a cold dead stone statue!

by the way have you read about that Frankenstein food - they have created a hamburger in a petri dish. Now, thats appetizing haha NOT! Guess who wont be standing in line for a taste!

Those sweeteners taste bitter to some people. It's not that you are sensitive to bitter. Someone suggested the wrong reason you can taste it.

Some people can't smell asparagus pee.

Birds aren't affected by hot pepper.

Meh. It doesn't support either position, sorry.


I recommend sticking to sugar.

ritchiedrama

That is why diet soda is very bad because of the aspartame which takes a huge bad toll on the body.

Just so you know, there is not one bit of credible evidence which links to aspartame damaging humans.

I haven't done a lot of research on this but my Neurologist told me absolutely no aspartame. It is possible that it is in fact damaging in some way.

Too bad that qualified people seem to only say "possible" that is damaging in some way.