A proposed ban on large-sized sugary sodas may drive consumers to sodas filled with formaldehyde. Action Alert!
On June 12, in an attempt to combat the obesity epidemic, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will ask the Board of Health to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces by movie theaters, restaurants, mobile food carts, and delis, though not grocery stores or convenience stores—so 7-Eleven’s 44-ounce Super Big Gulp is safe.
The proposal would exempt diet drinks—not to mention fruit-based drinks, dairy-based drinks, and alcoholic beverages, no matter how many calories they contain. There will then be a three-month comment period before the Board votes on the proposal. If the Board agrees, the ban could be in effect as soon as next March.
Most soft drinks are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. HFCS is a corn syrup that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert some of its glucose into fructose to produce a desired level of sweetness. HFCS may suppress the chemicals that signal when you should feel full. For this reason and others relating to the metabolism of sugar into fat, it has been linked to obesity. In addition, because of its processing, some brands of HFCS may contain mercury, a known neurotoxin.
We have ourselves pointed all this out in the past. But it is not the whole story. Note that the mayor has exempted so-called diet drinks featuring artificial sweeteners. The mayor seems to like them and his proposal will undoubtedly push more people into choosing them. There is evidence that these drinks are extremely dangerous, potentially more so than the drinks they would replace.
As we reported last year:
- Aspartame and Neotame (Equal and NutraSweet), which are used in more than 6,000 diet products, beverages, and pharmaceuticals, have carcinogenic effects at a dose level within range of human daily intake—effects that are magnified when exposure begins during fetal life. One packet of Equal contains 33 mg. of aspartame; one can of Diet Coke (355 ml.) contains 131 mg. of aspartame; and one-half cup of Jello Light contains 40 mg. of aspartame. A 44-pound child would only have to consume 400 mg., about the equivalent of three Diet Cokes per day, to reach the carcinogenic 20 mg./kg. bodyweight dose. Even the artificial coloring in diet soda is carcinogenic!
- Ten percent of aspartame is methanol, which is converted to formaldehyde—which, in turn, is converted to formic acid, which is used to strip epoxy. The other 90% is composed of phenylalanine and aspartic acid. These amino acids are normally harmless, but in isolation they are neurotoxic.
- Aspartame has been implicated in the development of Gulf War syndrome. Huge amounts of diet drinks were shipped to Gulf War troops, who were drinking it in high temperatures. In 1985, Coca-Cola apparently expressed reservations about proposed FDA approval of aspartame for beverages, noting that aspartame is uniquely and inherently unstable and breaks down in the can. When stored or heated above 85 degrees F, aspartame may decompose into formaldehyde (embalming fluid), methanol (wood alcohol), formic acid (ant sting venom), diketopiperazine (an agent in brain tumors), and other toxins. Of course, Coca-Cola started using aspartame in Diet Coke in 1983.
- In a study on seven monkeys, five had grand mal seizures and one died, a casualty rate of 86%. The Aspartame Consumer Safety Network has set up a hotline for pilots; ACSN reports that pilots are having grand mal seizures in the cockpits of commercial airline flights due to aspartame, and others are crashing the flight simulator at training facilities while in seizure. Aspartame also decreases the availability of tryptophan, which reduces the brain’s levels of serotonin—a chemical that regulates aggressive behaviors and sleep patterns.
- Sucralose (Splenda), which is increasingly used to sweeten diet drinks, alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to one Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!), and an elevation of liver enzymes, which negatively affects the bioavailability of nutrients. Sucralose is an organochloride—just like insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides. In an article entitled “The Lethal Science of Splenda, a Poisonous Chlorocarbon,” Dr. James Bowen warns that “any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs. The liver is a detoxification organ which deals with ingested poisons. Chlorocarbons damage the hepatocytes, the liver’s metabolic cells, and destroy them.”
- Diet sodas in general are linked to a 61% increase in strokes and heart attacks, according to the American Stroke Association. Interestingly, the population studied for this landmark report were all New Yorkers!
Mayor Bloomberg needs to seriously rethink his proposed ban; it demonstrates a complete ignorance of science on his part. When government tries to force people to behave a certain way on pain of fines or worse, there is always the risk of unintended consequences, as there is here, quite apart from the question of whether government should be telling people what to eat in the first place.
What even the most informed scientists know about food (and medical treatments) is continually changing. Beliefs should compete in the market of public opinion and consumer purchases. Over time people will become better informed and with luck better choices will be made. If government officials jump in with their heavy-handed punishments, there is too much risk that they will get the science wrong, as the mayor has, or they will freeze today’s science in law even though that science should continually evolve.
The mayor, in his usual “father-knows-best” style, says that opposition to his ban is “ridiculous.” But it isn’t. There are many reasons to oppose it, including scientific as well as civil libertarian ones.
Action Alert! Please write to Mayor Bloomberg and the New York Board of Health (even if you don’t live in New York City), and point out some of the science suggesting that diet sodas may be potentially even more dangerous than sugary ones! Take action now!
Time for government to get out of all aspects of our lives. Everything the government has approved for our betterment has proven in the end to be down right dangerous and in some cases lethal.
The problem is not fast food or HFCS or carbohydrates. It is the quantity of food the obese consume and the chips, crackers and popcorn the nibble on while watching TV. It is not a matter of the diet police governing what we eat. It is education. This is true of almost every area of life where there is a perceived problem. Legislation will not make the problem go away as people will find ways around the rules. Will the brain trusts say that a customer can only purchase one 16 ounce drink during any one visit? These “brains” never research beyond the end of their nose. It is a political ploy to allow them to show the votes what a great thing they did for the public.
There is just far too much of this kind of nonsense going on in this world. They don’t have anything to do but create a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Thanks for all the info on sweeteners.
BTW, Bloomberg probably isn’t seriously interested in combating the obesity epidemic. He’s a Republican, and Republicans don’t really do anything that benefits citizens, so they go through the motions, pretending to do something useful. This is one of those stunts to maintain the illusion they’re trying to do something to help citizens.
What about Stevia? Have studies been done such as those above?
I agree with your statements that there are always unintended consequences to decisions.
There is such a lot of useful information in this article.
I just want to ask however – what exactly are you trying to achieve by beating up on the mayor for trying to do something about the dangerous effects of HFCS?
Good on him for wanting to fix a problem. Is there some other way you could use his interest to achieve a better outcome? I imagine after a barrage of letters beating him up for this he will decide “stuff it – I won’t do anything.” Is that what you want?
A million thanks for publishing this. My thoughts exactly when I heard the proposed law. And dont forget diet sodas contribute to obsesity wrecking the kidneys and other organs in the process. I have friends who are horribly addicted to diet coke. Replacing aspartame with stevia cant come soon enough for diet coke.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
—C. S. Lewis
If this article is right, ban everything except pure water. (Especially milk, as the nutritive value is a major lie, and, should it go bad, people can get very sick).
Another misdemeanor is bottled water, which, through osmosis, and possible long storage, keeps us drinking plastic!
Alcohol leads to addiction, and is frequently abused (I once found a lady in N.Y.C. lying face-down drunk, in the middle of an intersection)!!!
Spigot water is monitored much more closely, and available (even relatively free) eveywhere!!!
I think many of your comments are misleading, some are valid. I think large drinks should be banned,
whether having HFCS or the artificiall sweeteners. I’m also opposed to milk with sugar in.
Sugary sodas and juices and teas are only the tip of the iceberg. Our food sources are corrupted for profit. It is God’s wrath on a disobedient world. In the last days, man will come close to annihilating all life from this planet and then Jesus will return to save us from ourselves.
Did he really announce it on June 12?
Eventually, we will reach the point where in the name of freedom, health, and political correctness, all we will be able to do is run around in a tight circle and munch on dried grass clippings.
Study after study, artifically sweetened soft drinks make fat people fatter. Simple, the body sees “sweet” fires up insulin, which stores whatever fats are in the bloodstream. Our solution is simple, we don’t need “empty calories so we don’t do those drinks at all. Green freshly bewed tea does fine for us, actually has beneficial nutrients and no artificial anything.
I have been reading about artificial sweetners for years. They are bad for all. People should be able to see what is wrong with this. Even though surgarey sodas and also juices aren’t the best. Plus the fact that diet drinks will make you hungrier. If you have to drink Hy-surgared drinks, please drink in modaration.
A ban like this is very strange. How is it that diet drinks will be allowed? Sugary drinks from corn are no doubt highly harmful to the body, but aspartame and Splenda are hugely harmful as well. Any size soda no matter the sweetener mentioned does a lot of damage to the body, teeth and bones. If one is banned, all should be banned.
As an Atkins’ dieter for 30 years, I know all about how bad sugar is and the good/bad artificial sweeteners. While aspartame is harmful for me, I can’t have it, thus no bottled/canned soda, aspartame gives me headaches, muscle aches, etc. like MSG, a brain excitoxoin, I CAN enjoy fountain soda, from 7-11 and fast food, etc. w/o problems. That’s because fountain diet soda still uses saccharin, NOT aspartame. I can assure you of it since I drink if freely w/no problems. Spenda/sucraclose affects the liver and it actually raises my blood glucose levels.
PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE CONDEMINING USEFUL FOUNTAIN DIET SODA PRODUCTS FOR DIABETICS AND THOSE WHO CAN”T HAVE REFINED SUGARS! and can’t tolerate more dangerous aspartame and sucralose. Saccharin and cyclamates, which is available in Canada and has been greatly retested and may be reintroduced into the USA as it des NOT cause cancer, were the original artifiicial sweetneners quite helpful to diabetics which, you may research, pushed out as carcinogens to allow Monsanto to get aspartame FDA approved with some obvious collusion by gov’t officiials.
GOOGLE ants aspartame to see youtube videos that it kills them!
Great Job, and many applauds from those of us who know the FDA, FTC, AMA, ADA, WHO, Pharma Industry, United Nations and other corrupt groups want us sick, weak, and non resistant.
This is worth copying!
I am Stan Soboleski and I approve of this brilliant factual research!
You toast the mayor, but you don’t offer much help to the heavy majority of people who are going to drink some sort of beverage besides water. What about the sacharin-based sweeteners? What about stevia–said to be used in cola products in Japan? What about plain sugar–frctose? What about the typical coffee or tea drinker–many of whom use dietary sweeteners?
My impression is that Stevia shows the most promise right now.. We need an article that tries harder to idenify the least harmful one or two choices, And lets not push plain water too hard–it has a serious problem with government-added fluoride. Most European governments have banned ,it.
Thanks for your comment, Robert. Please see our previous article on sweeteners, linked in the above article: http://www.anh-usa.org/how-sweet-it-isnt-cutting-through-the-hype-and-deception/
We must of course say that ultimately, drinking beverages other than pure clean water, black coffee, and unadulterated teas is going to have some detrimental effect on health. Asking for healthy options for those what prefer to drink other than water (or some coffee and tea) is like asking for exercise options for those who want to stay on the couch. Just like those “exercise without moving” devices are usually not what they claim to be, the various “calorie-free” sweetened beverages aren’t either. We would rather be honest about the fact that our bodies don’t handle sweet beverages well, and not accept as inevitable that people must and will drink sweet beverages, although it is certainly popular these days. Just as with anything that’s unhealthy, it’s your choice whether you enjoy sugar beverages enough that you’re willing to make the health trade-offs.
“Aspartame also decreases the availability of tryptophan, which reduces the brain’s levels of serotonin—a chemical that regulates aggressive behaviors and sleep patterns.”
I always thought the problem was the caffeine. Perhaps not.
Artificial sweeteners would have caused mass casualties if a fraction of the scare tactics were true. It is time to stop copy/pasting every scare story that one finds on the internet or in non-medical publications.
Several years back there was a scare about grapes from Argentina being injected with methanol or formaldehyde or cyanide depending on who one wanted to believe. The public health experts quickly showed that all of those chemicals would have been eliminated by exposure to the air and to the enzymes in the grapes. Furthermore, the quantities were less than what would be produced internally by normal human metabolism.
The neuro-toxicity of aspartic acid has also been overblown. As with glutamate, L-aspartic acid is not a particularly good stimulant to nerve metabolism. To do that it must first be converted to N-methyl-D-aspartic acid. Racemic aspartic acid which is half L form and half D form should be more toxic and straight D aspartic acid or its salts such as sodium D-aspartate should be even more toxic. A recent discovery that D-aspartic acid and its salts increase testosterone secretion has led to body-builders and fitness enthusiasts consuming 1-3 grams per day of D-aspartate often in a single bolus. Those guys are getting bigger and stronger with no apparent neurological harm and no cancers after consuming at least a hundred times your supposedly dangerous dose. Older folks who are at risk of cerebral infarction might want to avoid it because it would exacerbate post-stroke damage but it does no measurable harm when oxygenation is normal.
Let’s stop the BS and attack diet drinks “where they live”. It has been shown that they do not result in weight loss. In rodent studies, the weight gain from artificially sweetened drinks was similar to the weignt gain from sugar-sweetened drinks. The sweetness caused the mice to expect a certain number of calories and they accumulated that number through a combination of increased appetite and reduced activity.
If the real science makes one’s case more convincingly than the artificially-sweetened science, why consume or distribute the artificial version.
I agree with you that sugary drinks are unhealthy, leading to obesity, diabetes, and many other health problems. However, diet sodas are also very unhealthy, even more dangerous than sugary ones, since they contain chemicals that are not compatible with the human body. Diet sodas are sweetened with aspartame or sucralose, which contain substantial amounts of carcinogens and neurotoxins. Ten percent of aspartame is methanol, which is converted to formaldehyde, an embalming fluid. Sucralose is an organochloride—just like insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides.
It alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to one Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!), and an elevation of liver enzymes, which negatively affects the bioavailability of nutrients. In an article entitled “The Lethal Science of Splenda, a Poisonous Chlorocarbon,” Dr. James Bowen warns that “any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs. The liver is a detoxification organ which deals with ingested poisons. Chlorocarbons damage the hepatocytes, the liver’s metabolic cells, and destroy them.”
•Diet sodas in general are linked to a 61% increase in strokes and heart attacks, according to the American Stroke Association. Interestingly, the population studied for this landmark report were all New Yorkers!
Look, I’m not going to argue with the science presented and I’m trying
more and more every week to excise these sweeteners from my life. But I have to admit that I was a Diet Coke addict for 30 yrs. I can attest that I never hallucinated, never had a seizure, recently had a physical where my liver enzymes were checked and were completely normal, and I only weigh 15 lbs. more now than when I was 13.
So you can understand my hesitation at demonizing all diet soda all the time. I do believe that parents should monitor their kids’ diets better and that obesity has more deleterious effects than diet soda does.
I’m still trying to change nonetheless.
And one thing I didn’t see mentioned – that supposedly Splenda does not break down in the water table no matter how much you filter the water.
Even though you’re one of the lucky ones who has never had any symptoms from drinking aspartame or any other artificial sweetener in the diet sodas you drink, please be aware that for every diet drink you drink, your bones are being leached of potassium and calcium. I would watch for any bone issues later in life.
New York Board of Health:
I agree with Mayor Bloomberg that sugary drinks are unhealthy, leading to obesity, diabetes, and many other health problems. However, diet sodas are also very unhealthy, even more dangerous than sugary ones, since they contain chemicals that are not compatible with the human body. Diet sodas are sweetened with aspartame or sucralose, which contain substantial amounts of carcinogens and neurotoxins. Ten percent of aspartame is methanol, which is converted to formaldehyde, an embalming fluid. Sucralose is an organochloride—just like insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides. It alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to one Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!), and an elevation of liver enzymes, which negatively affects the bioavailability of nutrients. In an article entitled “The Lethal Science of Splenda, a Poisonous Chlorocarbon,” Dr. James Bowen warns that “any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs. The liver is a detoxification organ which deals with ingested poisons. Chlorocarbons damage the hepatocytes, the liver’s metabolic cells, and destroy them.”
•Diet sodas in general are linked to a 61% increase in strokes and heart attacks, according to the American Stroke Association. Interestingly, the population studied for this landmark report were all New Yorkers!
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Mayor Bloomberg:
I agree with you that sugary drinks are unhealthy, leading to obesity, diabetes, and many other health problems. However, diet sodas are also very unhealthy, even more dangerous than sugary ones, since they contain chemicals that are not compatible with the human body. Diet sodas are sweetened with aspartame or sucralose, which contain substantial amounts of carcinogens and neurotoxins. Ten percent of aspartame is methanol, which is converted to formaldehyde, an embalming fluid. Sucralose is an organochloride—just like insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides.
It alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to one Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!), and an elevation of liver enzymes, which negatively affects the bioavailability of nutrients. In an article entitled “The Lethal Science of Splenda, a Poisonous Chlorocarbon,” Dr. James Bowen warns that “any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs. The liver is a detoxification organ which deals with ingested poisons. Chlorocarbons damage the hepatocytes, the liver’s metabolic cells, and destroy them.”
•Diet sodas in general are linked to a 61% increase in strokes and heart attacks, according to the American Stroke Association. Interestingly, the population studied for this landmark report were all New Yorkers!
Banning sodas and not diet sodas is not the whole enchilada! One is good 2 is better Mr.
Bloomberg! Kids, especially, will not understand the meaning behind the new ban. Why
one and not the other? Nip it in the bud and do it all at once. COURAGE!
Great article. If the Mayor is so keen to ban something AND that it be something healthy for his constituancy, he should be banning products that contain artificial sweeteners from the shelves in his city. What a social experiment that would be!!! It would be like the death rate in hospitals going down when the Dr’s went on strike. Imagine it…no aspartame or HFCS on any shelves in the environs of NYC. Sure, some people would travel out to get what they wanted, but most couldn’t or wouldn’t be bothered…after 6 months and interesting phenomenon is publicized…admissions to hospitals are down, visits to Dr’s are down, absences from school and work? Way down. Road rage, misbehavior in school, ….all down. Think anyone ‘mainstream’ would admit it was that the sweeteners were off the shelves? Nah, me neither!
Mayor Bloomberg should stick to what he knows ( which I have no idea what that is) and stop with the neo-fascistic regulations. Banning large size drinks is totally out of his realm of authority. Besides if I want more soda, I’ll just buy two. When are the American people going to say ENOUGH already. More and more laws are being passed on a daily basis, restricting our God-given rights to eat, drink, LIVE as free Americans. Home of the free,HARDLY….
I finally, finally gave up soda pop–regular and diet–for good in March of 2012. I had managed to give it up for the 9 months I was pregnant twelve years ago–and then after giving birth, I went back to drinking it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I know that now. The darn stuff is so addictive, the only way to stay away from it is to NEVER drink it. Ever. Now I drink ice tea–black, herbal, white, any kind that tastes good cold and with ice. I use Stevia to sweeten–and then only enough Stevia to get just a hint of sweetness. The issue is that people are addicted to sugar. We have to cut out the sugar addiction. And stating that pop should be sweetened with Stevia–Whole Foods already makes a soda made with Stevia. It’s so sweet that my lips puckered up when I tasted it and I threw the can of pop away. I’d rather drink a can of soda made with real cane sugar than one with Stevia–the companies who make pop with Stevia have their formula WAY too sweet.
Like I said, I drink a variety of iced teas, and reserve-osmosis water–I swear by it! If I have an urge for something sweet, I eat a square or two of really dark chocolate. It kills my need for something sweet and gives me some good nutrition, like natural antioxidants.
Also wanted to state that since I quit drinking soda pop, my high blood pressure is now in the acceptable range without the use of any pharmaceutical drugs. I must use alternative methods in dealing with health issues due to a genetic liver mutation that doesn’t allow my body to detox or metabolize correctly. Actually, get this: an allopathic doctor was the one to cue me in to getting rid of soda pop to bring my blood pressure back into normal range without drug therapy. There are still some doctors out there who will tell you what to do “off the record.” Maybe the suggestion will help someone else.
Oh, and don’t completely eliminate salt from your diet; your body needs a certain level of salt to properly run and maintain itself. However, you want to use Himalayan or Celtic Salt or any type of REAL salt from the sea; not the salt you buy off the grocery shelf that is manmade from sodium and chloride. By using real sea salt you’re also getting a multitude of trace minerals your body needs to work with the salt. And sea salt has a very strong taste, so that you do not need a lot of sea salt to flavor your food.
Just a couple suggestions, especially if you prefer not taking pharma drugs for high blood pressure (in my case, I don’t take any pharma drugs. I used to take 10 different ones; now I take zero).
Another consequence is that people (and industry) will flood to alternative sweeteners they think are healthy, such as the crystalline fructose found in drinks like Vitamin Water (which is much higher in fructose than HFCS). We’ve already seen this with hydrogenated oils. Since partially hydrogenated oils have been related to trans fat, industry (and some consumers) have flocked to fully hydrogenated oils and shortenings, which have no trans fat, but are arguably just as unhealthy due to the massive processing of the oil.
Our government is so predictable. Instead of banning chemicals in our food at the manufacturing level, they allow the harmful practice to continue so that they can then charge nutritionally uneducated people a tax to do what they (the government) knows is harmful. A horribly corrupt money-making scheme if ever there was one.
He’d be better off banning HFCS IN THE DRINKS rather than the size. Anyway, society is losing this game given that the HFCS is GMO and full of poisons, just as the diet drinks.
Mexican Coke uses the original sweetener sucrose, not HFCS. It is sold at Costco and is also available at Passsover as HFCS is not Kosher for Passover. At least it is less highly refined than HFCS. For those saying that artificial sweeteners make you hungry and cause weight gain, sorry, the original ones, saccharin and cylamates don’t, i’ve been using them since the 1970s/. If they didn’t work, the Atkins Diet would not work. Aspartame/Nutrasweet and Sucralose/Spenda cause different problems. The former is an excitotoxin, tha latter dirsupts liver function which in turn can raise blood sugar level in diabetics.
Also not mentioned is agava syrup marketed as low glyemic and natural. It is not, it raises blood sugar and is refined like HFCS. you can read more about this at
http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/agave-nectar-worse-than-we-thought
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
I do not drink soda, nor would I even consider drinking diet soda because of the health issues associated with aspertame, a known carcinogenic and neurotoxin. If you really want to make a difference in peoples’ weight, a proper education in nutrition would be in order.
In third world countries where there is no access to processed foods there is virtually no obesity or any chronic diseases. This would be a much better place to start.
Sincerely,
Andrew Jacobson
337 Rowlee Rd
Fulton, NY 13069
315-402-0821
I don’t think banning the larger sizes will not really work. If someone wants that much soda, they’ll just buy more. As for the diet drinks, why don’t these companies use Stevia or Xylitol? Still not a perfect solution, but at least these sweeteners aren’t carcinogenic.
Pls re-post the article on produce labels re: codes starting with #’s like 4 = gmo?
So public are aware of Monsanto.
Would sure appreciate it, Ms. Ray. tc
“Mayor Bloomberg needs to seriously rethink his proposed ban”
Yes he does. I am very afraid when the government has the power to ban. Like the power and GUNS to ban salubrious fresh raw milk.
Just because a law promotes the general welfare, doesn’t mean it is legitimate. A court gave an example of how an expert on healthy living could suggest good rules to follow; the temperature of the air, size of the rooms, the hours of sleeping, retiring, and rising, the amount and kind of food to eat, the number of meals, amount and kind of exercise,
“…and other things too numerous to mention might be suggested for legislative interference, each with a provision for a severe penalty for its violation, with a division of the penalty, perhaps, between the informer and the public, till one would be placed in such a straight-jacket, so to speak, that liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the incentive to industry, to the acquirement and enjoyment of property, ― those things commonly supposed to make a nation intelligent, progressive, prosperous and great, ― would be largely impaired and in some cases destroyed. That such an extreme would be regulation run mad and is quite improbable, ’tis true, but it would be possible without limitations of some sort, if a police law be conclusively legitimate merely because it promotes, however trifling in degree, public health, comfort or convenience. State v. Redmon, 114 N.W. 137, 141 (1907).”
From the book “The LAWFUL Remedy to Tyranny,” http://www.NaturalLawRemedy.com.
Ah, the mayor of New York City wants to exert leadership in the area of junk food. Nanny state overreach or necessary course correction? Given that one-third of Americans are overweight and another one-third are obese, something needs to happen to change the status quo.
To those who would argue nanny state, let’s look at what we did with smoking. We (1) finally admitted it had negative health effects, (2) mobilized education campaigns, (3) put cautionary labels on packs, and (4) limited where you can smoke which makes it not as socially acceptable any more. All good moves.
The trouble with moving against salt and soda and other dietary issues is the quality of the education that gets to leaders like Mayor Bloomberg who want to take action. Shall he turn to the American Diabetes Association? Well, for 17 years one of their corporate sponsors has been Merisant Company, the makers of Equal® Sweetener. Splenda and Kraft Foods also give money to the ADA. So the Mayor cannot get good objective information there. Maybe the American Dietetic Association? No, their sponsors include Coke-Cola and Pepsi. What about the American Academy of Family Physicians? Whoops, that group announced a six-figure alliance in 2009 with the Coca-Cola Co. to fund “educational materials” about soft drinks.
And on it goes.
The Mayor is going to have to do his homework, and look for objective, accurate information. He will need to get beyond what amounts to 3rd party endorsements for junk food from organizations that have been bought.
How does ANH propose to help with this issue?
Hats off to the rich and powerful purveyors of brain damaging aspartic acid — the primary component of aspartame, neotame, aminoSweet, and whatever else the FDA will allow these people to call their toxic products. Who else but they (who also manufacture the neurotoxic free glutamic acid found in monosodium glutamate) could pull off focusing blame for the obesity epidemic on food such as high fructose corn syrup. When they know full well that their products disrupt the endocrine systems of the newborn and the very young and cause gross obesity.
This is a personal experience. My father drank diet cokes/pepsi all the time. He was in his late 40’s and always sick and lacked energy. He didn’t know why. Doctors didn’t know why. He started planning for his death in a few years as it was that bad and getting worst. One day he noticed he was feeling better and wondered what it was and why. He had stopped drinking diet sodas for awhile and drinking the regular sodas. Then when he started drinking diet sodas, he noticed getting sick again. He stopped diet drinks and never drank those again. He is now over 80 years old and in very good shape. I did research on Aspertame and found what it does to the pop inside when the temps go above 85 degrees and changes to formaldehyde. I related this information to my dad and he looked at his wife and said, wow, that’s the answer! No wonder. He had been wondering for quite some time what it was causing it.
Any artificial sweetener is not a good idea especially Aspartame in soda pops because the pop sits in warehouses, gets shipped and temps easily go above 85 degrees especially in the summer time. I wince at all the people at the stores who are stocking up diet drinks because I know an high percentage of them are not going to feel well or eventually get really sick and they won’t know why. Bottom line is natural sugar is the best as the body absorbs it the best and naturally. HFCS is not natural and should also be avoided.
I agree the government has no place in making rules on what people can do. What the government could do instead is bring in the trustworthy scientists that know this subject and have them comment on it and publish the findings and let the people decide to believe or not.
This topic have put me “on alert”. Last year I found a “Protein Water Mix” with several flavors. You add it to water to make drinking adaquate amounts of fluids easier. I liked the iced tea and the pink lemonade flavors, but I couldn’t always find the iced tea so I ordered several boxes from the company. After drinking it for a few weeks in the summer, I realized that I sometimes felt queezy at the end of a day. Thiinking it might just be the heat, I continued consuming up to 5 cups of this product a day. Later I lost my appetite, and didn’t feel like doing gardening or house work at the end of a day. I began to think that I was getting too much protein and cut back. I felt better after reducing my intake. The front declares: “naturally flavored” which is a good thing, however, the side panel says: “Sugars 0 grams” & “sweetened with non-nutritive sweeteners”. I am going to use up what I have over a number of months and never buy it again.
I’ll buy limes and lemons to squeeze into my cup of water.
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