Tag Archives: Food Safety

Dangers of Splenda

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Splenda (Sucralose) Found To Have Diabetes-Promoting Effects

four_splenda_packets2nd June 2013

By Sayer Ji

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Promoted for decades as a “safe” sugar alternative, presumably to prevent or reduce symptoms of diabetes, Splenda (sucralose) has been found to have diabetes-promoting effects in human subjects.

The artificial sweetener sucralose, which is approximately 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar), and marketed under a variety of brand names, such as Splenda, Cukren, Nevella and SucraPlus, has recently been found to have diabetes-promoting effects in human test subjects, despite containing no calories and being classified as a ‘nonutritive sweetener.’

A new study published in the journal Diabetes Care, lead by researchers at the Center for Human Nutrition, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, set out to test the metabolic effects of sucralose in obese subjects who did not use nonnutritive sweeteners.

Seventeen subjects underwent a 5-hour oral glucose tolerance test on two separate occasions preceded by consuming either sucralose (experimental condition) or water (control condition) 10 min before the glucose load in a randomized crossover design.

The results were reported as follows:

Compared with the control condition, sucralose ingestion caused 1) a greater incremental increase in peak plasma glucose concentrations (4.2 ± 0.2 vs. 4.8 ± 0.3 mmol/L; P = 0.03), 2) a 20 ± 8% greater incremental increase in insulin area under the curve (AUC) (P < 0.03), 3) a 22 ± 7% greater peak insulin secretion rate (P < 0.02), 4) a 7 ± 4% decrease in insulin clearance (P = 0.04), and 5) a 23 ± 20% decrease in SI (P = 0.01).

In other words, a single dose of sucralose lead to a 0.6 mmol/L increase in plasma glucose concentrations, a 20% increase in insulin levels, a 22% greater peak insulin secretion rate, and a 7% decrease in insulin clearance, an indication of decreased insulin sensitivity.

They concluded:

These data demonstrate that sucralose affects the glycemic and insulin responses to an oral glucose load in obese people who do not normally consume NNS.

Discussion

Despite the fact that pre-approval research on sucralose found a wide range of adverse health effects in exposed animals [read article The Bitter Truth about Splenda], national and international food safety regulatory bodies, including the FDA, now consider it completely safe for daily human consumption.*

The same applies for synthetic sweeteners like aspartame, which despite its well-known link with brain damage and over 40 documented adverse health effects, is safety approved in 90 nations.

Industry influence largely accounts for the fact that synthetic chemicals like asparatame, neotame, saccharin and sucralose are being foisted onto the public as ‘safe’ non-calorie sweeteners, despite obvious research to the contrary, and the fact that stevia, the non-calorie natural alternative, has over 1500 years of documented safe use.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA), for instance, does nothing to hide its explicit partnership with McNeil Nutritionals, maker of Splenda, despite the obvious conflict of interest. On its website, the ADA describes McNeil Nutritionals as a “national strategic partner ” and lauds them as “committed to helping people and their families with diabetes by focusing on the overall nutritional needs of the diabetes community.” McNeil Nutritionals sponsors the ADA’s “Recipe of the Day,” along with a variety of educational tools and information for consumers and healthcare professionals.

Despite these cozy relationships, the research on sucralose’s adverse health effects continues to accumulate.  Some of the more recent research on the chemical indicate that it may contribute to the following health and environmental problems:

  • Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A researcher from UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Newark NJ, proposes that sucralose may be causing a global increase in cases of IBS, including both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. [i] In an article titled “What made Canada become a country with the highest incidence of inflammatory bowel disease: could sucralose be the culprit?”, author Xiaofa Qin describes how Canada, which once had one of the lowest rates of IBS in the world, attained the highest levels after being the first country in the world to approve the use of sucralose in thousands of consumer products in 1991.[ii]
  • Harms Gut Flora and Gastrointestinal Health: A 2008 study found that the administration of sucralose to rats at a dose far below the US FDA Acceptable Daily intake level resulted in: 1) a decrease in the numbers of a wide range of beneficial gut bacteria. 2) “increase in fecal pH.”  3) “enhanced expression levels of P-gp, CYP3A4, and CYP2D1, which are known to limit the bioavailability of orally administered drugs.”[iii]
  • Migraines: A report was published in the journal Headache in 2006 indicating that physicians should be mindful of the possibility that sucralose can trigger migraines.[iv]
  • Environmental Persistence: Like many persistent organic pollutants in the pesticide category, sucralose is exceptionally resistant to degradation, both through environmental processes (microbial degradation, hydrolysis, soil sorption) and advanced treatment processes (chlorination, ozonation, sorption to activated carbon, and UV radiation). Sucralose, after all, was discovered accidentally by pesticide researchers, and is chemically related to DDT, a chlorinated hydrocarbon.  Some researchers now consider it an ideal “tracer of anthropogenic activity,” which is true also of lethal radioisotopes such as uranium 238 and plutonium 239, due to their resistance to degradation. [v]  Indeed, recent research found that sucralose has a low rate of removal (11%) in drinking water tested that presently serves 28 million people.[vi]
  • Environmental Toxicity: Sucralose was recently found to alter the physiological and behavioral status of crustaceans, leading researchers to warn that the chemical will likely have wider ecological consequences.[vii

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2013/06/02/splenda-sucralose-found-to-have-diabetes-promoting-effects/

 

App Tells you What is in Food

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Two Free Smartphone Apps That Will Eliminate Monsanto, Aspartame, HFCS And Processed Foods

Last updated on May 25, 2013 at 12:00 am EDT by in5d Alternative News

by Gregg Prescott, M.S.
www.in5d.com
www.HolisticCancerResearch.com

Despite numerous outcries for GMO labeling, no one really knows if the food they are buying contains GMO’s or not… until now.

Two Free Smartphone Apps That Will Eliminate Monsanto, Aspartame, HFCS And Processed Foods | in5d.comA new app called ‘Buycott” was unleashed in May of 2013 but was temporarily taken off the market because their server could not handle the traffic to their website.  At one point, the Buycott app was being downloaded at a rate of up to 10 downloads per second!

The app is once again available for all smartphones but as of this date of publication, I am receiving the following message:

“We’re experiencing an unexpected influx of users. No activity yet.”

That being said, I was still able to scan products.

Developer Ivan Pardo stated on the company’s Facebook page that they were working on moving to a new server that can handle the traffic.

Buycott is a free smartphone app that allows you to scan any given product at the grocery store and not only tells you which foods are ultimately linked to Monsanto and their GMO’s but also companies who are engaging in cruelty to animals or other negative behaviors.

Buycott is a free smartphone app that allows you to scan any given product at the grocery store and not only tells you which foods are ultimately linked to Monsanto and their GMO's but also companies who are engaging in cruelty to animals or other negative behaviors.

You can also view the “Family Tree” of any given product to see which companies are tied into corporate conglomerates who have a record of unethical testing and practices.

Additionally, you can start user created campaigns to either support or boycott specific products.  Two Free Smartphone Apps That Will Eliminate Monsanto, Aspartame, HFCS And Processed Foods | in5d.comFor example, you could start a campaign against any given company who did not support GMO labeling or Prop 37 in California.

Another beneficial app is called “Fooducate”.  While this app does not tell you if a product contains GMO’s or not, it does tell you the many negative ingredients in any given product, such as nitrates, aspartame, high fructose corn sugar, etc… and gives you nutritional advice on why certain ingredients are not beneficial to your health.

Fooducate will also recommend “Better Options” for any product you scan, but keep in mind that these products may contain GMO’s.

Two Free Smartphone Apps That Will Eliminate Monsanto, Aspartame, HFCS And Processed Foods | in5d.com

Official Buycott Website
Official Fooducate Website

It has become apparent that the FDA is as corrupt as the Monsanto officials who have been promoted to various government positions, such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was a corporate lawyer for Monsanto in the 1970’s.

According to OpenSecretsBlog, Monsanto has plenty of other ties to Washington. Eight lawmakers own stock in Monsanto, including Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

At one point in time, aspartame was banned by the FDA.  According to an article on Rense,

In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame’s clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it “might induce brain tumors.”

The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (former Secretary of Defense) vow to “call in his markers,” to get it approved.

On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame in food sweetener, and Reagan’s new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry’s decision.

It soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally broke the tie in aspartame’s favor. Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle. Since that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.

The FDA never approved of fluoride in our drinking water, either.

The FluorideDebate reports:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that fluoride is not a mineral nutrient; it is a prescription drug. Every prescription drug has side-effects, including fluoride. Fluoride has never received FDA approval and does not meet the legal requirements of safety and effectiveness necessary for such approval. Once this drug is put in the water there is no control over individual dosage.

If the government and the FDA will not protect the people against bioterrorism and eugenics through genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) then it is up to the people to take a stand against Monsanto.  For anybody who has a smartphone, I highly suggest that you upload these apps and make a statement against Monsanto by boycotting ALL of their products.

Your body will thank you as well.

 

from:    http://in5d.com/2-free-smartphone-apps-you-need-today.html

It isTime to Label GMO’s Prop 37

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Defeat Monsanto — Vote YES on Prop 37

15th October 2012

By Jack Adam Weber

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

On November 6th this year all of us that despise GMOs and Monsanto will be waiting with bated breath for the outcome of one single proposition that, if passed, could topple the GMO empire in the United States and trickle down to other countries around the world.

Proposition 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,

is a citizen generated ballot initiative for mandatory labeling of GMO products in California. If Proposition 37 is voted in, it will:

a) Require labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if the food is made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways.

b) Prohibit labeling or advertising such food as “natural.”

c) Exempt from this requirement foods that are “certified organic; unintentionally produced with genetically engineered material; made from animals fed or injected with genetically engineered material but not genetically engineered themselves; processed with or containing only small amounts of genetically engineered ingredients; administered for treatment of medical conditions; sold for immediate consumption such as in a restaurant; or alcoholic beverages.”

Friends, this is the moment we have been waiting for. This is our most promising opportunity to achieve what we have all been working so hard for, for so long. If we don’t win this, we may never have the chance again.

According to the Organic Consumers Association, we are currently ahead 3 to 1 in California on this vote (passing Prop 37). But we can’t rest easy. Monsanto and other biotech companies know how big this is. Recent statistics show they have already contributed some 37 million dollars to television ads full of misinformation and lies as a last-ditch effort to defeat Proposition 37. They have succeeded with these tactics in the past in other states.

We cannot let them win this time.

Many states have tried to adopt GMO labeling legislation in the past and failed because the legislation was not citizen generated and government officials cowered under threats of a lawsuit by Monsanto. The most recent was Vermont. California is the eighth largest economy in the world, if it were considered a country. Passing this legislation will set a precedent for GMO labeling in other states. Many experts say that if Prop 37 passes in California, GMO labeling might as well be a national law. This is what we want.

Believe it or not, many Americans still don’t even know what a GMO is.

When foods are labeled as GMO, even Monsanto admits it is equivalent to putting a skull and crossbones on it. Sales will plummet; the good word on bad GMOs will spread like wildfire. This is what we want, and now is our chance to deliver the fatal blow to the GMO horror machine.

90% of Americans want GMO labeling. Why don’t we have it? You know the answer—power, greed, money, lies, and corruption at the expense of our health. Let’s all do our part now to make sure the majority of Californians know what’s up. We don’t want Monsanto and friends to have any chance at winning. Here is what you can do; please do this today so that we have as much time as possible for the word to spread:

1. Send an email to everyone you know in California and tell them to vote YES ON PROP 37.

2. Post this on your FB page, along with this link to this article:

  • California friends, please vote YES on Prop 37 this November for the mandatory labeling of GMOs in our food.
  • Please tell all your California email and Facebook contacts to vote “YES on Prop 37.

3) Please join GEM (GMO Eradication Movement).

It is safe to say that the future of food, our own health, and the health of our planet hinges on this vote, now less than one month away. If we don’t win this, we will have lost a crucial chance, and perhaps our last good chance for a while. If we do win this, we will have the biggest party ever!

Please do your part, today. WE need YOU.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/10/15/defeat-monsanto-vote-yes-on-prop-37/

More on Safety of GMO’s

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This Food Knowingly Causes Cancer in Rats – Are You Eating it?

Posted By Dr. Mercola | October 05 2011 |

By Dr. Mercola

When it comes to products with the potential to devastate the planet, Monsanto takes the cake.

This company has single-handedly created some of the most destructive products known to man, including polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, and dioxin (Agent Orange). They are also the world leader in genetically modified (GM) seeds — and if we don’t take action soon, the entire planet could soon become contaminated with these toxic seeds, leading to the complete destruction of the natural food supply.

United States Chooses to Ignore the Precautionary Principle, Embrace Monsanto’s GM Foods

Dr. Philip Bereano has spent the last three decades looking into genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods, crops, animals, and humans—both nationally, here in the United States, and internationally. His work led him to participate in the negotiation of two international treaties under the United Nations that dealt with issues relating to GMOs.

In my interview with him earlier this year, he shared his perspective on the safety of GM foods — or rather the lack thereof.

“First of all, we need to understand what we mean by the word safe. Actually, in terms of the academic literature, “safe” refers to “an acceptable level of risk.” It doesn’t refer to situations where there is no risk. Most of us drive in cars all the time and consider it to be safe even though we know that people are killed and injured in automobiles frequently. We have to understand that safe equals acceptable risk.

The problem with calling genetically engineered organisms safe is that there are no valid risk assessments being done on them. There is no research, really, being done into the health or environmental effects of a genetically engineered organism. Certainly no work that is published in the open peer-reviewed literature, or that isn’t proprietary. Corporations promoting these things claim that they have done research, but you can’t get any information on it because it’s all claimed to be proprietary.

Under what is known now as the precautionary principle—which is what your grandparents used to teach you about “looking before you leap”—the only prudent course of action is to NOT proceed with something which has potential risks and only potential benefits until you know a little bit more about it.”

The United States is one country, however, that has fully embraced GM foods on a regulatory level, and does not appear to have any intentions of following the precautionary principle. GM corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets have made their way into approximately 80 percent of current U.S. processed grocery store items, now that up to 90 percent of several U.S.grown crops are grown with genetically engineered seed.

So if you live in the United States, you have most certainly already been exposed to GM foods — most likely a lot of them.

Meanwhile, GM seeds are banned in Hungary, as they are in several other European countries, such as Germany and Ireland. These countries have chosen NOT to allow their land to be used as a testing ground in a massive uncontrollable experiment, which is essentially what the introduction of GM crops is.

Not surprisingly, according to information from Wikileaks, there are also indications that the U.S. State Department has been active in defending Monsanto in other countries, particularly in response to the French documentary, “The World According to Monsanto,” which condemned Monsanto’s criminal behavior.

Do You Know the Risks of GMOs?

GM foods are, from my perception, one of the most significant threats that we have against the very sustainability of the human race. Why? In a nutshell, these toxins are being linked to a growing repertoire of assaults against human health and the environment – and they are already migrating into fetal blood, which means future generations are now at risk.

Some GM crops, such as GM sugar beets and certain varieties of GM corn and soy, are engineered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. Other GM crops, such as Bt corn, are designed to produce their own pesticide internally.

Earlier this year, Cry1Ab, a specific type of Bt toxin from GM crops, has for the first time been detected in human and fetal blood samples. It appears the toxin is quite prevalent, as upon testing 69 pregnant and non-pregnant women who were eating a typical Canadian diet (which included foods such as GM soy, corn and potatoes), researchers found Bt toxin in:

  • 93 percent of blood samples of pregnant women
  • 80 percent of fetal blood samples
  • 69 percent of non-pregnant women blood samples

According to Jeffrey Smith:

“There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in GM corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood supply, and that is passes through the placenta into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

In government-sponsored research in Italy, mice fed Monsanto’s Bt corn showed a wide range of immune responses. Their elevated IgE and IgG antibodies, for example, are typically associated with allergies and infections. The mice had an increase in cytokines, which are associated with “allergic and inflammatory responses.”

As you may know, chronic inflammation is at the root of many increasingly common diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Food allergies are also skyrocketing, as is infertility, which could also be a potential side effect of GM foods, based on results from animal studies. Monsanto insists that GM foods are no different from conventionally grown varieties, but the research does NOT support this claim. Here is just a sampling of the unsavory findings associated with GM foods:

to read more and see the videos, go to:   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/05/has-any-company-ever-harmed-the-planet-more-than-this.aspx?e_cid=20111005_DNL_art_1