Jewish Coke, 9 months and counting (or is it?)

Yours truly | Post-Neolithic

[Mase]

and polyethylene glycol

You're absolutely correct. Apparently it's used as an anti-foaming agent. There must be something in the flavors that causes foaming and requires this to be added. Bizarre. Must be important and effective otherwise they'd undoubtedly choose another anti-foaming product. It's not something I'd worry about in such small quantities. The body either passes it through the gut or easily metabolizes it. I've never seen PEG used in foods before. Weird.

[gondramB]

>>You're absolutely correct. Apparently it's used as an anti-foaming agent. There must be something in the flavors that causes foaming and requires this to be added. Bizarre. Must be important and effective otherwise they'd undoubtedly choose another anti-foaming product. It's not something I'd worry about in such small quantities. The body either passes it through the gut or easily metabolizes it. I've never seen PEG used in foods before. Weird<<

It also has a side effect of a very sweet taste.

[LurkingSince'98]

"Polyethylene glycol is a bunch of ethylene glycol (anti-freeze) molecules stuck together so its pretty darn related."

No it is NOT pretty darn related.

ethylene glycol is a monomer

polyethylene glycol starts with the some monomer after polymerization it IS different - CHEMICALLY.

good grief man - table salt is made from (horrors): sodium - a flammable metal and (shudder) chlorine - a suffocating corrosive gas. When you put them together they are different CHEMICALLY from what you start out with.

Living better through chemistry,
Lurking'

[gondramB]

I'll just let that go....

I was an engineer in a polyethylene plant so if I never taste another ethylene glycol deriviative it will be too soon.

[Mase]

But even without this article the Coke with sugar is still tons better then the HFCS type

I agree. You can thank the US sugar industry for forcing food manufacturers to make the unfortunate change.

HFCS in soft drinks is comprised of 55% fructose and 42% glucose. HFCS is a monosaccharide - a free sugar. Sucrose is comprised of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. The molecules are bonded so sucrose is a disaccharide. All disaccharides are completely hydrolyzed in the gastrointestinal tract into their simple sugar (monosaccharide) components prior to absorption. In order to hydrolyze sucrose into fructose and glucose, the small intestine secretes an enzyme known as sucrase that is abundant and quickly converts the disaccharide into a monosaccharide like HFCS. At this point the glucose and fructose from sucrose and HFCS are metabolized identically and the body cannot distinguish between the source of either. The GI values of sugar, HFCS, honey and other invert sugars are almost identical. They all fall in the 55-60 range.

According to Nutrition Today: Volume 40(6) November/December 2005 pp 253-256 by: Gayle L. Hein, BS, and Maureen L. Storey, PhD, Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy, University of Maryland-College Park, College Park, MD:

• "At this time, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that humans utilize either HFCS-42 or HFCS-55 any differently than sucrose, invert sugar, or honey. All disaccharides are completely hydrolyzed in the gastrointestinal tract into their simple sugar (monosaccharide) components prior to absorption. Consequently, the rate of absorption for the monosaccharide components of sucrose and HFCS is likely to be equal in both speed and completeness."

• "Fructose and glucose are absorbed and metabolized differently by the human body. However, fructose is fructose and glucose is glucose regardless of the source-HFCS, sucrose, invert sugar, or honey. In other words, after hydrolysis in the gut, the monosaccharides derived from these sweeteners are physiologically indistinguishable to the human body."

The authors of your article want to blame HFCS for lots of things because consumption has increased so much since 1970. I don't know how HFCS can be the cause when it's made up of the same ingredients as sucrose. Additionally, per capita HFCS consumption in this country has replaced sugar consumption by nearly a one-for-one ratio since 1970. Per-capita fructose and glucose consumption is almost the same today as it was 30 years ago. The stats are provided by the USDA, which supports both sugar and corn farmers so they have no reason to be biased on this issue.

The increase in the rate of obesity and diabetes stems from people consuming more calories, mostly from carbohydrates, than they burn. Blaming HFCS is blaming something other than the cause.

[stuartcr]

Then why design the other stuff, which has similar specs, or why design the original to be able to use various fuels?

[norraad]

..by the USDA, which supports both the sugar & corn industry......

Duh, that's the crux of the whole matter!

Plain old sugar was great, grass juice, plain & simple.

It was cheap & plentiful until the lobby boys bribed the government to "support" prices.

So we're being taxed so we can't afford sugar and taxed so corn can be "supported in the market".

That's not what our tax dollars are for.

Btw~When the synthetic HFCS molecule enters our body, it is handled differently, do your own research, you bug me.

[Mase]

Thanks for the history on how we came to use HFCS in so many products. Maybe some day you'll tell us something we don't already know.

When the synthetic HFCS molecule enters our body, it is handled differently...

How is it different and what effect, if any, does it have on the body? Are you still trying to argue that a molecule of fructose or glucose from HFCS is chemically different than one from hydrolyzed sucrose? If so, prove it.

do your own research

Is this your way of admitting that you just made it up in post #29 when you said the synthetic manufactured molecule HFCS has a cascading hormonal effect that dulls the satiety mechanism?

Why not just admit you believe in something you don't understand and can't support.

[norraad]

Why are you the only one who cares?

It unbalances insulin reactions, you know that already, that's why you always argue off point.

Our bodies are not designed to handle the ratios.

[trumandogz]

Mexican Coke is the only soft drink I buy.

Dublin Dr. Pepper is not all that bad either.

[Mase]

It unbalances insulin reactions

What unbalances insulin reactions? The fructose or the glucose? Why would this be any different with regular sugar when they are both (sucrose and HFCS) made up of the same ingredients?

Our bodies are not designed to handle the ratios.

What ratios? Honey is very similar in composition to HFCS. Are you saying that our bodies are not designed to handle honey? We've been consuming it for thousands of years. Sucrose is made up of the same ingredients in almost identical proportions. Why would we be unable to handle this?

[norraad]

The fructose part interferes with the insulin process and causes micro-nutrient imbalance starting with copper.

[Cedar]

"Coke made with good old sugar, not HFCS"

This is news to me...I'm interested. I drink one Coke a day usually, would like to try one with real sugar.

My grandmother always claimed she was the first to drink a Coca-Cola in Yazoo City (she was just a young lady). She then proceeded to drink one Coke a day until she passed away at age 96.

Think that first Coke she drank in those early days had some real "coke" in it....or is that just a rumor?

[norraad]

Yes, sadly, the formula has degraded over the years to the ilky diabesity syrup of today.

One of the missing ingredients has even become extinct due to agent orange spraying in Columbia.

It was the root of a plant that grew near the cocoa plant.

It was only a small fraction of the formula, yet gave a very special good flavor and finish.

[Mase]

The fructose part interferes with the insulin process

How is that possible when fructose doesn't stimulate insulin production? You realize that both HFCS and sucrose contain large amounts of fructose, don't you? Therefore, how can one be better for you than the other? Can you cite a situation where someone consumes straight fructose? I can't. Fructose is always consumed with glucose. HFCS used in baked good and most processed foods contains only 42% fructose -- compared to 50% for sucrose. If what you say is true, why isn't using HFCS in this instance better for you and worthy of your support?

and causes micro-nutrient imbalance starting with copper.

There were suggestions that this occurred in tests where lab rats were fed straight fructose in quantities that have no relationship to real world situations. No one eats straight fructose. No one relies on fructose for 20% of their daily caloric intake. These studies may be good for creating alarm with those who don't know any better, as well as generating additional research money, but they are otherwise meaningless.

[Old_Mil]

The USDA suggests most of us limit our intake of added sugar -- that's everything from the high fructose corn syrup hidden in your breakfast cereal to the sugar cube you drop into your after-dinner espresso -- to about 10 to 12 teaspoons a day. But we're not doing so well. In 2000, we ate an average of 31 teaspoons a day, which was more than 15 percent of our caloric intake. And much of that was in sweetened drinks.

So, the answer is to just avoid soda, right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple, because the inexpensive, versatile sweetener has crept into plenty of other places -- foods you might not expect to have any at all. A low-fat, fruit-flavored yogurt, for example, can have 10 teaspoons of fructose-based sweetener in one serving.

Because high fructose corn syrup mixes easily, extends shelf-life and is as much as 20 percent cheaper than other sources of sugar, large-scale food manufacturers love it. It can help prevent freezer burn, so you'll find it on the labels of many frozen foods. It helps breads brown and keeps them soft, which is why hot dog buns and even English muffins hold unexpected amounts.

...and herein lies the problem. As a society, we've increased our dependence on processed and ready to eat foods. We eat out a lot. We eat a lot of fast food, and we drink a lot of soda. We get fat.

Which is why if you switch to Dr. Atkins diet, you may end up saving your life, recovering the figure, and recovering the energy level you had in high school. Incidentally, do not think that this diet is a license to eat steaks every night for 30 years. Also, if you cheat on this diet, it will kill you..

[Cedar]

Interesting.

Seems like many products have degraded over the years. But they call it progress...

[norraad]

You got that right!

I just returned from seeing Who Killed The Electric Car.

I highly advise seeing it, it gives great insight into the "mentality" driving all this insanity.

[norraad]

Go to Google type in copper hfcs hormone, the first couple of returns should bring you up to speed.

[Mase]

From the first article I found:

Rats normally live for about two years. However, when fed a high-fructose, low copper diet they died after 5 weeks. Researchers abruptly stopped one of the few human studies of low-copper, high-fructose diets when four of the 24 subjects developed heart abnormalities.

The Human Nutrition Research Center found that fructose reduces stores of chromium, essential for normal insulin function. Fructose can also damage your liver. Your liver is the only part of your body that can metabolize fructose. Animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty livers, cirrhosis and alcoholic-like liver damage.

I've said on every thread that these researchers force feed these rats quantities of fructose that has no relationship to real world human consumption. No one eats straight fructose so why do these researchers feed these animals straight fructose? We always eat fructose with glucose. Glucose has a tempering effect on fructose within the human body. These guys do these stupid things to get the results they desire. Why do you insist on citing research that is absolutely meaningless to this debate?