Sweetness and Fight: Sugar and its substitutes take on the reigning champ, Claudia Kalb, Anne Underwood, Vanessa Juarez, Newsweek 2005.11.07 issue: Murray 2005.10.30

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1240
Sweetness and Fight: Sugar and its substitutes take on the reigning champ,
Claudia Kalb, Anne Underwood, Vanessa Juarez, Newsweek
2005.11.07 issue: Murray 2005.10.30

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9865076/site/newsweek/

Sweetness and Fight: Sugar and its substitutes take on the reigning champ

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By Claudia Kalb and Anne Underwood With Vanessa Juarez

Nov. 7, 2005 issue -- One recent fall day, 11 celebrity chefs gathered at
New York's French Culinary Institute to show off their latest concoctions.
The delicacies ranged from stir-fried veggies and candied-ginger salad
to blueberry-peach cobbler and chocolate-coconut macaroons.

But they all had one ingredient in common: the sugar substitute Splenda.

As guests indulged, the chefs, wearing jackets branded with the Splenda
logo, gave testimonials.
One said Splenda had helped him lose 20 pounds;
another praised the product's baking quality.
And then there was Sylvia Woods, of Sylvia's soul-food restaurant
in Harlem, who said simply, "Hello Splenda, goodbye sugar."

The battle over America's sweet tooth is hotter than ever.
In the beginning there was old-fashioned sugar cane.

Then came the artificial sweeteners: Sweet'N Low, Equal and now
Splenda, the darling of the market.
After its debut in 1998, diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins boosted the brand;
today, thanks to savvy and aggressive marketing, it has garnered a
cultlike following of consumers.
It's raking in big bucks: retail sales hit $188 million in the last 12
months
- more than those of Equal and Sweet'N Low combined.
And it's driving competitors crazy.

The $2 billion-plus artificial-sweetener business has become,
says Don Montuori of the market-research firm Packaged Facts,
"an intensely bitter competition."

The sweetener wars heated up late last year when both the
Sugar Association, representing producers and growers,
and Merisant, Equal's manufacturer, went after Splenda in the courts.
Their problem: Splenda's slogan,
"Made From Sugar, So It Tastes Like Sugar."
Their charge: false advertising. Splenda is in no way natural, they say.
Its manufacturing process uses chlorine
to modify the chemical makeup of sugar.

"They're clearly misleading consumers,"
says Sugar Association president Andy Briscoe.
The association even launched a scary Web site
("Do You Know What Your Children Are Eating?"),
citing a lack of long-term studies on Splenda's health effects.
Briscoe calls the Web site "educational."

In a complaint filed back against the association,
Splenda manufacturer McNeil Nutritionals says
its product has been extensively studied and is safe.
It calls the site a "malicious smear campaign."

Sweetener makers have been on the defensive about safety for decades.
Animal tests have prompted cancer scares in the past,
and Web sites today are rife with alleged reactions, from migraines to
seizures.

But the products have been heavily scrutinized by scientists,
says George Pauli of the FDA.
"You can't be absolutely certain about anything, but when the FDA
approves a substance, it has a reasonable certainty that
no harm will result," he says. "I'm confident about their safety."

Manufacturers want to boost sales.
After 10 ad-free years and a drop in consumption, the Sugar Association
has launched a new TV, radio and print campaign, with lines like
"Trust Nature to Make Life Sweet."

Sweet'N Low has teamed up with the new "Pink Panther" movie,
to be released early next year. The character will appear on
Sweet'N Low's pink packaging, and
he'll help promote the sweetener on 525 New York taxicabs.

Merisant, meanwhile, is launching new Equal Flavor Sticks
in peach, lemon and vanilla, and a $10,000 sweepstakes.
It's all about bringing "variety and excitement to the market,"
says Merisant CEO Paul Block.

Excitement for the futu an all-natural and no-cal sweetener.

One new product, Shugr, claims to be first.
But it contains trace amounts of sucralose, the active ingredient in
Splenda.

The race, market watchers say, is on. In the meantime, bakery chef
Rebecca Rather has become a Splenda convert.
She even named her new horse after the brand.
No, Splenda the Thoroughbred doesn't eat sugar cubes.
"I give him carrots," says Rather. About as natural as it gets.
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Wednesday, October 26 2005

Any unsuspected source of methanol, which the body always quickly and
largely turns into formaldehyde and then formic acid, must be monitored,
especially for high responsibility occupations, often with night shifts,
such as pilots and nuclear reactor operators.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1237
ubiquitous potent uncontrolled co-factors in nutrition research are
formaldehyde from wood and tobacco smoke and many sources, including
from methanol in dark wines and liquors, in pectins in fruits and
vegetables, and in aspartame: Murray 2005.10.26


As a medical layman, I suggest that evidence mandates immediate exploration
of the role of these ubiquitious, potent formaldehyde sources as co-factors
in epidemiology, research, diagnosis, and treatment in a wide variety of
disorders.

Folic acid, from fruits and vegetables, plays a role by powerfully
protecting against methanol (formaldehyde) toxicity.

Many common drugs, such as aspirin, interfere with folic acid,
as do some mutations in relevant enzymes.

The majority of aspartame reactors are female.

In mutual service, Rich Murray
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Rich Murray, MA Room For All
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 146 members, 1,240 posts in a public, searchable
archive http://RoomForAll.blogspot.com
http://AspartameNM.blogspot.com

Dark wines and liquors, as well as aspartame, provide
similar levels of methanol, above 100 mg daily, for
long-term heavy users, 2 L daily, about 6 cans.

Methanol is inevitably largely turned into formaldehyde,
and thence largely into formic acid.
It is the major cause of the dreaded symptoms of "next
morning" hangover.

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol -- 1,120 mg aspartame
in 2 L diet soda, almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg
methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of the methanol is turned
into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde, 37 mg,
is 18.5 times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in
drinking water, 2.0 mg in 2 L average daily drinking water,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1237
ubiquitous potent uncontrolled co-factors in nutrition research are
formaldehyde from wood and tobacco smoke and many sources, including
from methanol in dark wines and liquors, in pectins in fruits and
vegetables, and in aspartame: Murray 2005.10.26

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1238
Let's put aspartame toxicity facts on the table in public debate in The New
Mexican: Paul R. Block, CEO, Merisant Co.: Uleha: Murray 2005.10.26

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1239
your laptop will be ten million times faster in 15 years: Human life, the
next generation, Raymond Kurzweil, The New Scientist 2005.09.24; also his
1993 book, The 10% Solution For a Healthy Life: Murray 2005.10.30
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