Sugar, HFCS, artificial sweeteners?

[LVGeneration]

they are all bad for you, but I read a lot of negative information about artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose) and high fructose corn syrup. It's so hard to avoid them too... They're everywhere! I always read the labels of everything I buy, and it's horrific to see how the American diet relies so much on sugar, HFCS and artificial sweeteners.
I am an European living in America, and I can tell you Americans have a really really sweet tooth. HFCS can be found in BREAD, meat products, juice, sodas, cereal, soup, artificial sweeteners in yogurt... I think the food industry just thinks "as long as it tastes sweet, they'll like it".

Are you consuming diet products with artificial sweeteners? Are you avoiding products with HFCS?
I would love to read your opinions on this one, I know I could learn a lot from all of you.

[WordKeeper]

I don't share that sweet tooth - never have - so I read every label and inquire about recipes and ingrediants at restaurants. I live in the deep south where it is common for restaurants to put sugar in vegetables and cornbread and anything and everything that passes for a drink.

When I sweeten things at home, if I do, I use honey or stevia or organic forms of processed sugar for baking. Occassionally I use Splenda. I NEVER use aspertame as it is a neurotoxin, nor saccharin as it is unpalatable.

[LVGeneration]

Originally Posted by WordKeeper

I don't share that sweet tooth - never have - so I read every label and inquire about recipes and ingrediants at restaurants. I live in the deep south where it is common for restaurants to put sugar in vegetables and cornbread and anything and everything that passes for a drink.

When I sweeten things at home, if I do, I use honey or stevia or organic forms of processed sugar for baking. Occassionally I use Splenda. I NEVER use aspertame as it is a neurotoxin, nor saccharin as it is unpalatable.

That is great! I live in Las Vegas, and everything seems to have sugar in it. I was surprised to find out a while back that even yogurt had aspartame. At home I use honey and organic cane sugar in small proportions.
When I first came to America HFCS was a novelty for me. Never heard of it. Never heard of equal or splenda either. I had to adapt and read about these things to inform myself.

Now it seems such a challenge even a simple thing as going to the supermarket to fill my fridge! I honestly feel more and more like I'm 'at war' with the food industry and, although the shelves of the supermarket are endless and might seem huge to anybody else, to me they seem to shrink day by day! I feel that my choices are very limited. Just last night I was buying yogurt and there was only ONE in the whole section that was organic (and about 3-4 times more expensive) and two others that were plain (no sugar),out of hundreds of choices.

[Dreamline]

You basically have to give up processed foods. Which isn't a bad idea for other reasons beside the sweetners.

It's not easy, just an adjustment.

Jennifer

[LVGeneration]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

You basically have to give up processed foods. Which isn't a bad idea for other reasons beside the sweetners.

It's not easy, just an adjustment.

Jennifer

It would be great if I managed to do that. I have been flirting with the idea for a while, and I think I made a lot of progress from where I was a year ago. I started reading labels and avoiding many things, but still haven't completely given up processed foods

[Dreamline]

My body gave up on them for me. I'd have rather had a choice in the matter but it's made it easier.

Jennifer

[ginkgo]

The U.N. rated America as the un-healthiest country out of 100 countries. America is not the land of healthy, thin people. It is the land of opportunity where you can get rich and very fat.

By eating what you mentioned, it makes people fat and sick. That is great for the economy. Then people spend more on food and medicine. That is why they are in so many foods. You will make much more for American corporations by being fat and sick than being thin and healthy. If all Americans became healthy, then the doctors, nurses, researchers and others would all be jobless. Fat people eat more food than thin people.

Remember that lead is bad but to lead is good. Same word but different meaning. So sugar1 is bad but sugar2 is good. It is good to have a sweet tooth. Fruit is sweet and the healthiest food. But the artificial fruit that man makes is bad for you. There are many in America who eat nothing but fruit (fruitarians).

[LVGeneration]

It's sad that America was considered the unhealthiest country out of the 100, I think there's really not enough information getting to people and at the same time not enough willingness of people to research information.
I mentioned on some occasions to people I know about aspartame, and they said they never heard of it. The reason why I mentioned it was because I noticed they were consuming diet coke a lot. One day I even printed out a short sheet of facts about aspartame and gave it to friends, and they were shocked. I mean, these are people that drink diet coke on a regular basis and put equal in coffee, and had never heard about aspartame. They didn't know it was the ingredient in equal.
So, maybe not enough mainstream information?

[ginkgo]

People learn things from the media. That is how we will learn if Martians land on the earth. They also learn from the ads on media. The ads are for taking your money, not making you healthier.

[Dreamline]

People trust advertisements more than health news. They are exposed to more ads than health news. People accept what they are told on TV and just move on without questioning anything.

A fabulous book about how literally awful artificial sweetners and preservatives are is called: Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, by Russell Blaylock, MD.

Jennifer