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

[Guest guest]

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> Cane sugar and seaweed are not being compared. If we compare

> something like seaweed soup and egg custard, the latter is far

> higher in essential protein and fat than the former.

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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.

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> You also implied that certain " natural " flavors could stand

> in place for them, which I think is total unrealistic and

> purely motivated by your personal dietary ideology, one which

> I, and others on the list, don't necessarily share.

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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!

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> I don't believe that either fruit or honey are healthy in

> the quantities that we (humans) usually want them. So this

> is no long-term solution. Some kind of non-caloric sweetener

> is still needed. I keep my daily consumption of carbohydrates

> at around 60 grams. Do you really think that this is possible

> if one daily consumes fruit and honey?

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

necessary to consume such a small amount of carbs, and plenty of long-

lived healthy people take in much than that. if your body has special

requirements different than most, then using a non-caloric sweetener

is a great idea, just like using eyeglasses is a great idea if you're

visually impaired.

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> See, here again we disagree on basics. I think that honey, even

> organic raw unfiltered honey blessed by Greek Orthodox priests,

> is still little more than sugar.

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

important nutritional differences between honey and other sugar-dense

foods, 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. 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. your point that

too much honey is still too much sugar any way you look at it, is

something that nobody would disagree with.

@@@@@@@@@ :

> 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.

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

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

@@@@@@@@@@@@ Mike/:

> > honey could be used in perfect health if one's diet is balanced

by

> > the presence of other tastes, hence avoiding large quantities of

> > honey. if the degree to which you desire sweetness exceeds the

> > degree to which you could use honey without excess, then your

> > desires are not in harmony with your physiology.

>

> I don't believe that. I think that you, like so many others,

> are indulging in unrealistic idealism. You think that what

> is " natural " , or what you believe to be natural, must always

> be good and right, and that nature always provides a way. But

> that's an article of faith, not a scientific fact.

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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.

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> 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.

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that's a great point.

mike parker