Sweeteners (was Re: Guilt, satiety, calorie restriction...)

[Guest guest]

>

> i was specifically comparing seaweed and cane. if you want to

> compare seaweed soup and egg custard, then i'll put eggs in my

> seaweed soup and then it's still a blowout victory for the seaweed.

Seaweed and egg soup sounds delicious, in fact I've put dulse

in my egg drop soup before. But my point is, that when I want

egg custard, I mean _sweet_ egg custard, soup is not going to do.

> it's not unrealistic, because people do this all the time, making

> sweet and delicious dishes with fruits, eggs, cream, etc, without

> any concentrated sweetener. i've even done it myself!

Yes, that's a different thing from seaweed, oysters and raw meat.

I myself make almost all deserts exactly as you describe here, but

then from my point of view, many of the fruits are considered

concentrated sweeteners too.

> there's nothing writ in our genes or the laws of nature that it's

> necessary to consume such a small amount of carbs, . . .

I can't really say, or more importantly back up, that it

is genetically dictated, but I suspect that on an average

cave man's or woman's day they often got even less 60 grams,

with occasional periods of feasting on much much more. It's

difficult to tell how this all averages out for the modern

human.

> as i'm sure you're well aware, many people believe there are

> important nutritional differences between honey and other sugar-

dense

> foods, . . .

Yes, I was one of those people for many years.

> and there are various sugars with different effects. i'm not

> an expert on any of this, but it's very controversial to say that

> honey is little more than sugar.

Oh there's nothing in this area that isn't controversial. (-:

> my key point is just that sugar is not bad for you, whether it's

> honey or minimally processed cane or beets, as long as the

> quantities are not too high.

I agree with that.

> @@@@@@@@@ :

> > You obviously follow a belief

> > that " natural " , whatever that means, is better, and that foods

> > should be eaten " whole " , whatever than means (do you eat egg

> > shells, stems and leaves on fruit, etc.?), but I don't.

> @@@@@@@@@@

>

> i definitely don't follow such a belief. see my anti-teleological

> post on eating egg whites (#22359) for evidence of the opposite.

Oh now I do feel stupid, because I took special note of that

post at the time, though apparently not of the name of the

author. I made a copy of it and was excited to see someone

saying what I often try to say, but much more eloquently than

I've ever been able to. Obviously I would not have used the

argument if I had realized you were the same guy who wrote

that post. I tried to make the same point on the kefir_making

list once, but like I say, I was not able to express myself

as well as you did in #22359.

>i don't have any universal, well-defined concept of " whole food " ,

just

> the concept of opportunism and nutritionally optimal types of

> processing taken on a food-by-food basis.

> i definitely don't have that worldview, as clarified above. nature

> is an expression of combinatoric possibility and chemical

> fragility; " good " , " right " , " natural " , values, beliefs, morals, etc

> are part of a tiny, complex, and diverse biological (i.e., wet,

> fragile, messy) system in the central nervous systems of certain

> mammals, often called " thought " , " mind " , etc, and the vast majority

> of natural phenomena pre-date this amazing recent development.

O.K. good, go on... I'm adding all of this to my copy of #22359.

> @@@@@@@@@@@@@ :

> > I think

> > that for the most part humans have a nearly unlimited appetite

> > for carbohydrates. When a primitive band of humans came across

> > the very occasional honey-comb or field of ripe berries, they

> > gorged on as much as their bellies would hold, then laid around

> > and digested and converted it to fat. When their stomachs were

> > empty enough again, they gorged on more, and repeated until there

> > was nothing left. This is how they survived. The inevitable

> > periods of hunger between these wind-falls got rid of the excess

> > fat, and allowed the blood-sugar regulatory system to rebuild

> > itself. The real, or " natural " , check on our desire for carbs

> > no longer exists. It was the brutal reality of ancient life.

> > Personally, I'd rather use stevia than move to South Africa and

> > join a band of pygmies.

> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

>

> that's a great point.

Thank you.