Do you drink fruit juices but not artificial sweeteners?

paperpudding

The whole angst on this forum about using artificial sweeteners IN SMALL SENSIBLE AMOUNTS - never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, you may get bladder cancer or whatever if you swallow 10 buckets of it every day for 100 years or suchlike - but the risk in having a few glasses of diet coke a week is miniscule to nil so I will happily carry on doing so.

CoachReddy

this. i mean, if it someday turns out that homeopathy is real, then I'll be quite surprised, but at this point i pretty much consider it placebo...

holistic medicine is herbal, mental and physically based medicine that encompasses everything from chiropractors to acupuncture to herbal supplements to yoga to meditation, etc etc etc

Oh well I can have your back on this one. I have had chiropractors fix me multiple times. I had my back thrown out in wrestling and that was fixed in two visits. I was rear ended in my car and that gave me severe whiplash. I was fixed in about 2 months. I fell off a snow mobile and went rolling down a mountain. I was fixed in only one visit on that one which surprised me. As far as herbalism goes it depends on what you are trying to do with them. I know that they can be used as sleep aids for sure. Eucalyptus can be used to help open up airways. It is used to help severe smokers get back some of their lung capacity and in some rare cases it has been employed by doctors to improve the quality of life for asthmatics. So I haven't done enough legwork to give a truly qualified perspective based on what I have seen so far it sounds like holistic medicine may just have something going for it.

yeah man. i've done things to fix my reflux using natural herbals that PPIs and drugs never could. suffered through a chronically hoarse voice for over a year. started following an herbal regimen and it's pretty much gone away. definitely has value. but you have to be smart and do your research. with ANYTHING there are people trying to screw you and scam you, whether it's over-prescription of medication from MDs or raspberry ketones - no matter what you have to do your homework.

Education is key. The things that are created in labs are often extracted from something else. The reason for this is in higher concentrations you can get more potent results from things. So it stands to reason that if I ingested the thing that it was extracted from I could still get a result and if it is one of this things that the body likes to store up you could compound over time and get the same things. It would cost less and it may even work just as well. This is just speculation on my part but it could be possible.

I can see why holistic medicine will bonk heads with traditional medicine however. When you are a hammer all of your problems look like nails. If you had two practitioners from each respective school of medicine and you showed them one problem I am sure they would each pose a solution from their own school of thought. I highly doubt either of them would recommend the patient to the other because they have not trained themselves to think that way.

absolutely. it's funny though, the GI doc I saw yesterday used the EXACT same hammer/nail phrase you just did, but when speaking about ENTs (because he feels they overdiagnose refux when they don't know what's wrong) so it exists within science and medicine as well

obviously people will try to diagnose based on their own training and experience. I wouldn't really expect them to do otherwise - but to take one side's argument as gospel (regardless of side) is problematic to me. you've got to be your own advocate. why else do people look for second opinions? not all doctors agree, not all scientists agree, we're learning new things all the time - learning we were wrong about things all the time. to blindly trust a scientific study or to blindly trust holistic medicine - both positions are highly flawed.

skepticism is a good trait when it comes to your own health, because no one cares about you as much as you do.

ryanwood935

I am skeptical of the existence of something that is contrary to the laws of nature and I disagree with the conclusions that people draw about things based on that definition. There exists a stigma that something created in a lab must be less than that which you find in a forest or a stream or what have you. When in reality a chemical found is a lab is no different from that same chemical being found in an apple.

It is even fashionable in today's vernacular to label behaviors that you disapprove of as unnatural. I grow tired of people trying to use the monicker as a prop for an argument that has no logical basis. Which is why I would require anyone who uses the term unnatural to explain to me what they mean by it. It sounds like the definition that you use means that something being unnatural is not by itself a sufficient justification to avoid it.

I would never say someone's opinion is less valid in and of itself. People are entitled to their own opinions. People are not entitled to their own facts. Now if someone makes a statement and they say "in my opinion" then we can discuss whether I agree or disagree but we can't discuss if they are right or wrong. In my opinion cake is better than pie. Now if you hate cake and love pie then we disagree but both are correct because nobody is asserting a fact that is true for anyone outside themselves. If I claim the earth is flat like a pancake and you say it is a spheroid then you would actually be right and I would be wrong regardless of my opinion making my statement invalid because it is untrue.



un·nat·u·ral
[uhn-nach-er-uhl, -nach-ruhl] Show IPA
adjective
1. contrary to the laws or course of nature.
2. at variance with the character or nature of a person, animal, or plant.
3. at variance with what is normal or to be expected: the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
4. lacking human qualities or sympathies; monstrous; inhuman: an obsessive and unnatural hatred.
5. not genuine or spontaneous; artificial or contrived: a stiff, unnatural manner.

Agreeing or disagreeing with the healthiness of artificial sweeteners has no bearing on your stance on natural vs unnatural.

Citric acid found in fruit is natural. Citric acid made in a lab is unnatural. That said, they are exactly the same chemical formula, and provide exactly the same taste/feel/weight.

Read your definitions over again, looking specifically at number 1 and number 5. Being made in a lab means it is contrary to the laws or course of nature. If man was not on this planet, that citric acid would not have been made. Now number 5 says "not genuine or spontaneous; artificial or contrived..." Being made in a lab qualifies that citric acid as artificial (made or produced by humans) and contrived (deliberately created rather than arising naturally).

Arguing against the common definition of a word doesn't work any better than saying driving drunk doesn't cause accidents. No matter how many times you say it, it will never be true.

If I really wanted to nitpick, I would go so far as to say you incorrectly used the word moniker up there as well, but I would assume it's probably more acceptable in a broader context than a proper name where you live.

soldier4242

I am skeptical of the existence of something that is contrary to the laws of nature and I disagree with the conclusions that people draw about things based on that definition. There exists a stigma that something created in a lab must be less than that which you find in a forest or a stream or what have you. When in reality a chemical found is a lab is no different from that same chemical being found in an apple.

It is even fashionable in today's vernacular to label behaviors that you disapprove of as unnatural. I grow tired of people trying to use the monicker as a prop for an argument that has no logical basis. Which is why I would require anyone who uses the term unnatural to explain to me what they mean by it. It sounds like the definition that you use means that something being unnatural is not by itself a sufficient justification to avoid it.

I would never say someone's opinion is less valid in and of itself. People are entitled to their own opinions. People are not entitled to their own facts. Now if someone makes a statement and they say "in my opinion" then we can discuss whether I agree or disagree but we can't discuss if they are right or wrong. In my opinion cake is better than pie. Now if you hate cake and love pie then we disagree but both are correct because nobody is asserting a fact that is true for anyone outside themselves. If I claim the earth is flat like a pancake and you say it is a spheroid then you would actually be right and I would be wrong regardless of my opinion making my statement invalid because it is untrue.



un·nat·u·ral
[uhn-nach-er-uhl, -nach-ruhl] Show IPA
adjective
1. contrary to the laws or course of nature.
2. at variance with the character or nature of a person, animal, or plant.
3. at variance with what is normal or to be expected: the unnatural atmosphere of the place.
4. lacking human qualities or sympathies; monstrous; inhuman: an obsessive and unnatural hatred.
5. not genuine or spontaneous; artificial or contrived: a stiff, unnatural manner.

Agreeing or disagreeing with the healthiness of artificial sweeteners has no bearing on your stance on natural vs unnatural.

Citric acid found in fruit is natural. Citric acid made in a lab is unnatural. That said, they are exactly the same chemical formula, and provide exactly the same taste/feel/weight.

Read your definitions over again, looking specifically at number 1 and number 5. Being made in a lab means it is contrary to the laws or course of nature. If man was not on this planet, that citric acid would not have been made. Now number 5 says "not genuine or spontaneous; artificial or contrived..." Being made in a lab qualifies that citric acid as artificial (made or produced by humans) and contrived (deliberately created rather than arising naturally).

Arguing against the common definition of a word doesn't work any better than saying driving drunk doesn't cause accidents. No matter how many times you say it, it will never be true.

If I really wanted to nitpick, I would go so far as to say you incorrectly used the word moniker up there as well, but I would assume it's probably more acceptable in a broader context than a proper name where you live.

In its most literal uses the word moniker is referring to a person's nickname. I have used it to mean label. Either way I do acknowledge that I have taken some liberty here and used the word in a fashion that deviates from the dictionary definition. So we can call that a point in your favor.

What I was saying was that calling something unnatural is not a sufficient reason for avoiding it. I can't help but notice that you are still counting man as unnatural. I have already stated that if you count all of the creations of man as unnatural than it cannot be used as a justification for avoiding something.

Definition 1 was the definition we were talking about and you would have to defend the assertion that being made in a lab means "contrary to the laws and course of nature" since I am asserting that man and the lab itself are both natural.

Definition 5 is actually using unnatural in a different context. As in a director might say "Your acting is unnatural." We are talking about things in the natural world and not the mannerism of an individual.

In your own rebuttal you stated that the citric acid is identical in every way which is another way of saying indistinguishable. You have basically stated what I have been stating all along. You don't really have a way of distinguishing a natural thing from an unnatural thing in an objective sense. It would be entirely dependent upon your ability to discern its origins. If you believed it was created you would call it unnatural and if you felt it grew out of the ground you would label it as natural. Unnatural is simply a label that you apply to something arbitrarily.

Let me be clear on this since your opening seems to indicate that you did not understand what I was saying. It is likely you only read the post you quoted so you did not see the entire evolution of the conversation so it is understandable. I am only addressing the justification itself. You can still claim that artificial sweeteners are bad. What I am contesting is the statement "X is bad because it is unnatural." It does not matter what X is. In order for that statement to hold any weight the "...because it is unnatural." part would have to be a valid statement.

iAMsmiling

The whole angst on this forum about using artificial sweeteners IN SMALL SENSIBLE AMOUNTS - never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, you may get bladder cancer or whatever if you swallow 10 buckets of it every day for 100 years or suchlike - but the risk in having a few glasses of diet coke a week is miniscule to nil so I will happily carry on doing so.

Sensible posts have no place in this discussion.
Reported

soldier4242

The whole angst on this forum about using artificial sweeteners IN SMALL SENSIBLE AMOUNTS - never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, you may get bladder cancer or whatever if you swallow 10 buckets of it every day for 100 years or suchlike - but the risk in having a few glasses of diet coke a week is miniscule to nil so I will happily carry on doing so.

Sensible posts have no place in this discussion.
Reported

I don't see this thread as being that bad. There has been some back and forth but people are making proportionate responses for the most part. The number of ad homonyms has been kept to a minimum. This has been about as good a dialogue as one can expect given that we are communicating on an open forum.

iAMsmiling

The whole angst on this forum about using artificial sweeteners IN SMALL SENSIBLE AMOUNTS - never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, you may get bladder cancer or whatever if you swallow 10 buckets of it every day for 100 years or suchlike - but the risk in having a few glasses of diet coke a week is miniscule to nil so I will happily carry on doing so.

Sensible posts have no place in this discussion.
Reported

I don't see this thread as being that bad. There has been some back and forth but people are making proportionate responses for the most part. The number of ad homonyms has been kept to a minimum. This has been about as good a dialogue as one can expect given that we are communicating on an open forum.

I've certainly seen and taken part in worse.

soldier4242

The whole angst on this forum about using artificial sweeteners IN SMALL SENSIBLE AMOUNTS - never ceases to amaze me.

Yes, you may get bladder cancer or whatever if you swallow 10 buckets of it every day for 100 years or suchlike - but the risk in having a few glasses of diet coke a week is miniscule to nil so I will happily carry on doing so.

Sensible posts have no place in this discussion.
Reported

I don't see this thread as being that bad. There has been some back and forth but people are making proportionate responses for the most part. The number of ad homonyms has been kept to a minimum. This has been about as good a dialogue as one can expect given that we are communicating on an open forum.

I've certainly seen and taken part in worse.

Yeah I think we have to lower the bar a bit when you are chatting on the internet. You will find the occasional thread where everyone is contributing in a positive way to the conversation but they just don't seem to last long. I think the Jerry Springer style of argument is just more ubiquitous.