Bodies By M.E.

Sugar is found naturally in fruit, sugar cane, and sugar beets. Sugar, corn syrup, and other refined sugar make up about 15% of the average diet, but provides no vitamins, minerals, fiber, or protein. It can promote tooth decay, obesity and heart disease.

Artificial sweeteners are getting negative press and most of us know by now that sugar should not be used in excess, the answer to the question which is better artificial sweeteners or sugar, in my opinion let your taste buds lead the way, but remember moderation is key.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved five low-calorie sweeteners for use in a variety of foods. The FDA has established an “acceptable daily intake” (ADI) for each sweetener. This is the maximum amount considered safe to consume each day over a lifetime. ADIs are intended to be about 100 times less than the smallest amount that might cause health concerns.

Artificial sweetener	ADI*	Estimated ADI equivalent**	OK for cooking?
Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal)	50 milligrams (mg) per kilogram (kg)	18 to 19 cans of diet cola	No
Saccharin (Sweet’N Low, SugarTwin)	5 mg per kg	9 to 12 packets of sweetener	Yes
Acesulfame K (Sunett, Sweet One)	15 mg per kg	30 to 32 cans of diet lemon-lime soda***	Yes
Sucralose (Splenda)	5 mg per kg	6 cans of diet cola***	Yes
Neotame	18 mg a day	No consumer products available yet in the U.S.	Yes

*FDA-established acceptable daily intake (ADI) limit per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight.
**Product-consumption equivalent for a 150-pound person.
***These products usually contain more than one type of sweetener.

Safety of artificial sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners are often the subject of stories in the popular press and on the Internet, claiming that they cause a variety of health problems, including cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, however, there’s no scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the United States cause cancer. And numerous studies confirm that artificial sweeteners are safe for the general population.

Aspartame does carry a cautionary note, however. It isn’t safe for people who have the rare hereditary disease phenylketonuria (PKU). Products that contain aspartame must carry a PKU warning on the label.

Still empty calories

Just removing sugar from cookies and chocolates doesn’t make them low-calorie, low-fat foods. If you eat too many, you’ll still get more calories than you need, and you may not get enough nutritious foods. Unlike fruits, vegetables and whole grains, sugar-free soft drinks, candy and desserts often provide few — if any — beneficial nutrients.

Use artificial sweeteners sensibly. It’s OK to substitute a diet soda for a regular soda, for example, but diet soda shouldn’t be the only beverage you drink.

Sugar:

Sugar (Serving size)	Calories
Table Sugar, 1 level teaspoon (4g)	15
Table Sugar, 1 heaped teaspoon (6g)	25
Table Sugar, 1 cup	770
Table Sugar, average (1 cube)	25
Icing Sugar, 1 average tablespoon (12g)	48

Asparagus, just six spears are packed with 2 grams of fiber, 10% of a day’s vitamin C, 20% of a day’s vitamin A, and 30% of a day’s foliate for the grand total of 20 calories. That’s a nutritional bargain

The best way to cook asparagus is (also the healthiest) just steam. Try an olive oil drizzle, sea salt and pepper. What I have tried in the past is adding a small amount of a healthy nut such as slivered almonds or walnuts. Try not to over cook; look for the bright spring green color.

Here’s a plus; Asparagus is ranked one of the most consistently clean vegetables and it rarely contains pesticides.

*** McDonalds announced it’s considering a more humane way of slaughtering its animals. You know they fatten them up and then kill them. You know the same thing they do to their customers, isn’t it?
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Are Raw Veggies Always Better?

You’d think that boiling veggies would suck the nutrients right out of them. But in the case of carrots and broccoli, that may not be so.

Seems that lightly boiling these two veggies can actually increase the concentration of carotenoids. The downside? It also depletes their phenolic compounds.

Settle for a Happy Medium
Steaming may be your best bet for both preserving phenolic compounds and boosting bioavailable carotenoids — at least for broccoli. For carrots, you’ll have to choose what’s more important to you.

Whatever cooking method you choose for your veggies, keep in mind that frying or sauteing kills off the most antioxidant compounds.
All They’re Cooked Up to Be
Try out these other tips and tricks to make your veggies extra nutritious:

• Skip the thaw. Cooking straight from frozen retains more vitamin C..)
• Spice them up. Adding cumin, ginger, and these four herbs will boost the antioxidant punch of both raw and cooked veggies.

Drizzle a little. Olive oil, that is. Your body better absorbs the nutrition in RealAge Benefit: Eating a diverse diet that includes 5 servings of vegetables per day can make your RealAge as much as 4 years younger.

References Published on 04/30/2008.

Effects of different cooking methods on nutritional and physicochemical characteristics of selected vegetables. Miglio, C., Chiavaro, E., Visconti, A., Fogliano, V., Pellegrini, N., Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry 2008 Jan 9;56(1):139-147.

 

American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.
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Low calorie sweeteners are a common substitute for sugar because they lend food the sweetness of sugar without the calories or carbohydrate. The average can of soda contains 100 calories most from sugar compared to diet soda which contains virtually none.

• Nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame have fewer calories than sugar and are much sweeter.
• Non- nutritive sweeteners such as saccharin are not metabolized like other foods and pass through the body without contributing calories.

The Food and Drug Administration approves these low calorie sweeteners.

• Aspartame (equal, NutraSweet)
• Sucralose (Splenda)
• Acesulfame potassium (Sweet one, Sunsett)
• Neotame

The FDA regulates low-calorie sweeteners as a food additive and has approved the safety of the available sweeteners after reviewing hundreds of studies assessing their safety. There has been reports suggesting that some sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin do carry the increased health risk of cancer. According to the FDA, National Cancer Institute and the American Diabetic Association there is no clear evidence that these risks exist.

Keep in mind just because a food is low in calories does not mean it is nutritious. Many new studies are now expressing concern that low-calorie sweeteners may be adding to our obesity epidemic.

My Advice: Balance; there is nothing wrong with adding a little sweetness to a already nutritious dish.

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. ~Jim Davis

For all artificial sweetener fans, here is some very sad news, if you want to lose weight you may need to pour the diet soda down the drain (OUCH). The February issue of Behavioral Neuroscience researchers reported evidence that the widespread use of no-calorie sweeteners may actually make it harder for people to control their food intake and control body weight.

Authors Susan Swithers, PhD, and Terry Davidson, PhD, surmised that by breaking the connection between an artificially sweetened food and and high calorie food, the use of saccharin changes the bodies ability to regulate intake. Problems with self regulation may explain why obesity has risen in parallel with artificial sweetener use. The researchers wrote that sweet foods provide a “salient orosensory stimulus” that strongly predicts when someone is about to overeat.Ingestive and digestive reflexes gear up for the intake , but when false sweetness isn’t followed by excessive calories, the system gets confused. As a result we eat more and expand less.