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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1244
Discerning good sweeteners from bad ones [aspartame, etc],
Rebecca Wood, Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon:
Murray 2005.11.10

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/1109/life/stories/03life.htm

November 9, 2005

Discerning good sweeteners from bad ones
BY REBECCA WOOD For the Mail Tribune Medford, Oregon

If you're one of the many people who suffer from sugar cravings
(as did I for decades), you can free yourself.
I have, and so have many of my students. Here's what we've discovered.

When a meal satisfies, you don't nibble on carbohydrates between meals.
When, however, you skip a meal, or you eat sweets that are empty of
other nutrients, then you'll feel empty and reach for something to fill the
hole. It's predictable.

So your first step in freeing yourself from the sugar teeter-totter
(and to prevent diabetes) is to, as your mother admonished,
eat three good meals a day.

This takes some doing as packaged foods and restaurant meals often fall
far short. Because their denatured ingredients lack oomph, they can't
deeply satisfy. Furthermore, most are laced with cheap sugars or -- even
worse -- with faux sweeteners that actually goad your cravings for more
sweets.

Let's examine the quality sweeteners so that, as part of a good diet,
you can enjoy a great cookie -- and stop there. In order to skillfully
navigate through marketing hype to discern the good sweeteners,
I'll also mention the ones to avoid.

But first, it's useful to reflect that no sweetener is a whole food;
each has had something removed to concentrate its sugars.
Nectar is refined by bees into honey, maple sap is concentrated into maple
syrup, and cane's fiber and nutrients are removed to make table sugar.

Your opportunity is to avoid the empty ones and to delight in the minimally
refined sweeteners that retain their trace minerals and rich flavor.

CANE SUGAR:
Worldwide, the most common sweetener is table sugar (sucrose),
which is typically extracted from sugar cane.
The most wholesome cane products have their trace nutrients intact.
Two such domestically available cane sugars, Rapadura and Sucanat,
are 90 percent crystalline sucrose enveloped in 10 percent mineral-rich
cooked cane juice.
Of the two, I find Rapadura more flavorful and satisfyingly sweet.

Rapadura and Sucanat are available in quality food stores and on line.
(In import stores they're available as jaggery, gur, piloncillo or panela.)
Use them cup for cup as you would sugar in any recipe.
Whole sugars imbue a buff to tan color and wonderful flavor to your
finished dish.

In comparison, white sugar is 99.85 percent sucrose and tastes harsh,
cloyingly sweet and one-dimensional.
Chemically pure sucrose, like any drug, plays havoc in your system.
Also, avoid the numerous highly refined cane products that attempt to
convey a healthful image but are as drained of nutrients as is white sugar.
(An exception is blackstrap molasses,
the mineral-rich by-product of sugar cane production.)

CANE SWEETENERS MASQUERADING AS "HEALTHFUL":
Typically, the following cane products are refined to pure sucrose and
then "painted" with a little molasses to lightly color and flavor the sugar.

They are NOT recommended because they lack trace nutrients.
Unfortunately, "natural," "whole" and "unrefined" are open terms
without legal protection.

Brown Sugar
Demrerara
Evaporated Cane Juice
Florida Crystals
Muscovado
Naturally Milled Organic Cane Juice
Organic Plantation Milled Sugar
Organic Whole Cane Sugar
Raw sugar
Sugar-in-the-Raw
Turbinado
Unrefined Cane Juice
Whole Cane
Yellow-D
Honey

Take away the water from honey and it's about as sugary as white sugar.
Honey does, however, retain nearly all of the flower nectars' original
nutrients. In comparison to table sugar, it is "minimally" refined.

Favor local, unpasteurized, wild flower honey.
Buying locally supports the local economy and, if you have pollen allergies,
may decrease your allergic response to pollen.
Unlike pasteurized honey, raw honey is not mucus-forming
and it retains its medicinal properties (it helps ease constipation and
fluid retention, and, according to Oriental medicine, tones the pancreas).

Because of wild flowers' genetic diversity, honey gathered from wild
blossoms is superior in flavor and essence to cultivated crops,
like clover or orange.
At the Rogue Valley Grower's Market, I buy honey from
Wild Bee Honey Farm in Eagle Point.
You can reach them at 826.7621.

Their blackberry honey has a wonderful fruity aroma and taste.
Whereas, their poison oak honey is deeply sweet but leaves
an almost persimmon-like tingle on my tongue.
Given my druthers of a poison oak rash or its antidote,
I say, "Yes!" to the tingle in a spoonful of honey.

Other Sweeteners

As with sugar, your guideline for judging quality sugar alternatives is to
favor those which are minimally refined and higher in trace nutrients.
Because the following are higher in fructose and/or maltose,
some people regard them as more healthful than white sugar.

With all purchases, read labels carefully and bypass any product that
contains cheap additives like corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup,
dextrose or artificial sweeteners.

Agave Syrup
The sap of a cactus-like desert plant, agave, is a remarkably abundant
source of fructose (70%). This ranks it low on the glycemic index
and makes it a healthy sweetener for non-insulin dependent diabetics.
Thanks to agave syrup's pleasant sweetness, versatility and moderate
price, it is quickly becoming a popular food and beverage sweetener.

Maple and Birch Syrup
Two excellent and delicious sweeteners are concentrated sap from
maple and birch trees. The sap is collected and its water is reduced
(historically by evaporation, today by reverse osmosis).
While maple syrup comes from northeastern United States,
birch syrup is produced in Scandinavia and Alaska.
Both are energy intensive and therefore pricey --
it takes 40 gallons of maple sap, or 80 gallons of birch sap,
to make one gallon of pure syrup.

Grain Sweeteners
Any grain can be malted into sweet, maltose-rich syrup.
Enzymes digest the grains' complex carbohydrates into a more simple
sugar. Barley malt and rice or sorghum syrups are the most common.

(Corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are pure hydrolyzed products,
devoid of trace nutrients and are not recommended.
They're cited by some nutritionists as leading causes of obesity.)

Artificial Sweeteners - Not Recommended

The non-caloric sweeteners are a chemical rather than a food -- please
avoid them.
Please note: When doing on-line research about their toxicity,
you'll find conflicting data.
The manufacturers' web pages claim their safety;
numerous alternative publications report otherwise.

Of the artificial sweeteners, xylitol has been highly marketed as a
"healthy" sweetener.
Xylitol is dangerous -- even life-threatening -- for pets,
according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
A byproduct of the plywood industry, xylitol is a pure crystalline chemical,
or hydrogenated polyol.

Yes, data correlates xylitol with the reduction of dental caries,
however there are more wholesome ways of preventing tooth decay.

Neither do I recommend
Acesulfame-K (Sunette, Sweet & Safe, Sweet One),
Aspartame (Equal, Canderel and NutraSweet),
cyclamates,
saccharine
or sucralose (Splenda).

Rebecca Wood is an award-wining cookbook author and local cooking
teacher.
To ask a question, to find a recipe or, or to post your comment about this
article, visit: www.RWood.com

Recipe: Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookies
1 cup white or brown, short-grain rice (or 11/3 cup rice flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup Rapadura or Sucanat (or other quality sugar)
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Heat oven to 350 F. Grease cookie sheet.
Grind rice in a flour or nut or seed mill (or use 11/3 cup rice flour).
Stir in baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and Rapadura until light and fluffy.
Add yolks and vanilla and beat to incorporate.
Fold in dry ingredients until blended.
Pinch off pieces of dough and roll between palms of hands
to form ¾ -inch balls.
Set the balls 2 inches apart on a prepared cookie sheet.
Flatten the cookies by pressing into each
with the tines of a fork or with two fingers.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the bottom is lightly browned
and the cookies are lightly colored.
The cookies are fragile when hot and so carefully transfer
to a cooling rack (or allow to cool on the cookie sheet).
VARIATION:
For raspberry tartlets, spread a cookie with raspberry jam
(warm the jam if necessary to facilitate spreading).
Arrange fresh raspberries on cookie. Makes 2 dozen cookies.
NOTE:
When I want an exceptionally tender sugar cookie,
I make this shortbread using rice flour and whole cane sugar.
You may purchase rice flour
or grind your own in a flour or nut or seed mill.
When making your own rice flour,
use only short-grain brown or white rice
(curiously enough, long-grain rice flour yields a soggy, coarse crumb).

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http://www.rwood.com/biography.htm KitchenCoach@...

Biography
Rebecca Wood, who learned to garden and forage from her
grandparents, studied with leading experts in traditional Oriental medicine.
She has taught and written about healing with a sustainable diet since 1970.

Her book, The Splendid Grain, won both a James Beard Award and a
Julia Child/IACP Award.

Her most recent book, The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, was a
One Spirit Book Club (Quality Paperback Book division) main selection.

An Educational Consultant to numerous organizations in the Natural
Foods Industry, Rebecca co-founded and directed the East-West Center
in Boulder, Colorado.

She has established two cooking schools.

Rebecca's food columns have appeared in Whole Foods Magazine,
Health Foods Retailer, and other publications, and she was food editor for
East-West Journal and Whole Foods Digest.

Her articles appear in various publications including Ladies' Home Journal,
Yoga Journal, Veggie Life, Men's Fitness, American Health, Utne Reader
and Delicious!

Rebecca is currently writing her next book,
Be Nourished: A Six-Week Healthy Eating Program.
It enables busy people to implement a diet
that addresses their specific health and energy needs.

Rebecca resides in Ashland, Oregon.


A Personal Note

I come from a lineage of cooks. At our clan gatherings, grandma prepared
the selection of game, other meats and trimmings; each daughter brought
her signature dish. It was Aunt Mick's pickles, Aunt Barbara's hand-
dipped chocolates, Aunt Roselyn's huckleberry pies, Aunt Anna's home-
brewed root beer and my mom's tender crescent rolls.

Water and food were respected for their intrinsic worth. They were never
wasted. Food was richly shared with friends and people in need. And a
focal point of our many celebrations and gatherings was feasting.

At home, it was a given that my siblings and I would help mom and dad
with the gardening and canning. We set aside hundreds of quart jars of
tomatoes, peaches, apricots, pears, raspberries, tomatoes and cherries
plus grape juice and assorted jams and jellies -- a respectably appointed
fruit larder for our Mormon family of six.

These days, I appreciate my precious visits home during canning season to
help my now 84-year old parents. I wish you could see the litany of their
hands as they prep, scald, peel, pit, jar and then share the bottled peaches
with their family. Such nurture in their kitchen duet!

Shortly after college in 1969, I relocated to Boston and the home of
macrobiotic teachers Aveline and Michio Kushi. We were a school of 25
living in two large "study houses" and eating a simple, whole foods diet.
As a community, we observed and discussed how diet affected physical,
emotional and mental health and we explored the effects of diet on world
cultures. We learned how changing our eating changed our consciousness.
It was a fascinating education.

Before long I was cooking at a study house, teaching my first five-week
cooking program and writing food columns. For me, macrobiotics' most
valuable gift was engendering the kind of respect for food that I'd
experienced at home.

After twenty years of carefully following macrobiotics, I was shocked to
have developed invasive third class cervical cancer. Fortunately, I was
able to reverse the cancer by using natural methods which included adding
meat and dairy back into my diet. Despite macrobiotic theory, some
people do not thrive on a vegetarian diet. In all, it was an effective lesson
in moderation.

As a food writer, I've delved deeply into our food sources. A big pleasure
has been helping introduce whole and new grains to our market. All of us
eating organic whole grains back in the 1960s were considered, at best,
"health nuts". So eight years ago it was personally satisfying when my
book, The Splendid Grain, received the two highest cookbook awards.
Today, whole grains are actually in vogue! What a delight to have so many
joining us at table.

After three decades of writing in the alternative media about health
advantages of organic and whole foods, it's a great pleasure to see the
message reaching critical mass. It's been my privilege for my articles to
help expose fraudulent marketing claims about sweeteners, processed soy
and refined oils.

On several continents I've walked the fields with farmers and visited
cottage-crafted food producers. My studies of traditional food ways and
Five-Element Chinese Medicine have formed my understanding of healing
with food. Reinforcing this are my dietary counseling practice and being a
mother and grandmother.

May the information on these many pages serve you well and may all be
well nourished.
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Thursday November 10, 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 2005.11.10


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 rmforall@...
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 146 members, 1,241 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 "morning after" 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/1226
USA National Institutes of Health National Toxicology
Program aids eminent Ramazzini Foundation, Bologna, Italy,
in more results on cancers in rats from lifetime low levels
of aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde), Felicity Lawrence,
www.guardian.co.uk: Murray 2005.09.30

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1186
aspartame induces lymphomas and leukaemias in rats, full plain text,
M Soffritti, F Belpoggi, DD Esposti, L Lambertini: Ramazzini Foundation
study 2005.07.14: main results agree with their previous methanol and
formaldehyde studies: Murray 2005.09.03

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1236
Banning aspartame in New Mexico children's medications and vitamins,
petition to Board of Pharmacy on Nov 14-15:
Fox: Stoller: Murray 2005.10.16

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1243
rationale to ban thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines and to ban aspartame
(methanol, formaldehyde), speech from Kenneth P Stoller, MD
to New Mexico Board of Pharmacy: Murray 2005.11.10
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