http://www.cspinet.org/new/200808281.html
funny how Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) includes sugar, alcohol, burgers, tainted fries and beef, stimulants, shelac...etc...but the FDA and others get word that we may use stevia as a sweetener...and the loopholes come out..."but is it safe?"...will there ever really be an answer?
how many studies do i have to show you that rats were in that created cancer in them to make you realize humans are different in many ways?
it'll now take 15 years and numerous policy changes before we can make this available..instead, sugar and caffeine and paint and tar (i.e. Coke ) - sure - put it on the shelf...it's fine - i mean GRAS
Our challenge is to reduce processed foods. The further a "food" goes down the processing chain the closer it becomes an "edible food like substance" (read Michael Pollan for more on this; he has had a long term twinkie on his desk that refuses to grow mold). Sugar cane is tolerable in reasonable quantites but once it is refined & processed it should be avoided as white sugar and is probably toxic as sucralose when refined/altered even further (read Dr. Mercola's link on the right hand side of OPT's blog). Same for Stevia which has been consumed for 1500 years in South America (in reasonable quantites; many times sweeter than sugar so one drop is all they use) but now Coke/Pepsi want to add an altered version of it ("Rebiana") to pop & quatities will go through the roof & health will suffer. The biggest question regarding sweeteners for me is why do you need them at all or at least so much? The vast majority of usage is just cravings.
ReplyDeleteGRAS today will not be so in the near future. Mercury fillings in teeth seems to have hit a silient tipping point. Fluoride seems to have hit the same tipping point in Europe but not North America (read the Fluoride Deception). I have not read The Tipping Point that OPT recommends in his book section but would be interested in doing so. Seems like it would speak to a lot of this GRAS stuff. The trick with all this is be informed without developing "orthorexia".
Very true about Michael Pollan, Grant. Anyone interested in looking behind the curtain of industrial agriculture and food processing should read The Omnivore's Dillemma. It's the 21st Century's equivalent of Sinclair's The Jungle.
ReplyDeleteAs a paleo eater guy, the idea of GRAS really makes me cringe. I'll stick to eating what I can spell and pronounce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
ReplyDeleteTom; had never heard of The Jungle but ya gotta love Wikipedia. Now I know.
Pollan's last two books were incredible. Everyone should read them.
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