Another End Of Another Weekend

Run You Clever Boy, And Remember
Saturday, Sept 10, 2016

Sunday, Sept 11, 2016

Oh For Fuck's Sake

Hey, a new section!  Another section for me to rant away about shit that bothers me!  wooo!

Starbucks is adding a stevia-based sweetener to its menu ... here's a couple of articles ... or just google "Starbucks stevia"

"Starbucks switches up the sweetener" - Toronto Star

"Starbucks to serve stevia-based sweetener in select cafes" - Reuters

My initial reaction?  "Sounds good ... what's the catch?".  Always RTFA man, always RTFA.

Starbucks intends to roll out a sweetener called "Nature Sweet", from Whole Earth Sweetener Co.

Groovy.  Looking at the ingredients for "Nature Sweet" ... oh look!

Erythritol, Fructose, Chicory Root Fiber, Stevia Leaf Extract, Monk Fruit Extract

• Erythritol - a sugar alcohol, that  
• Fructose ... da fuq?  second ingredient is an actual sugar!   And a shitty one, too!  Fructose needs to be broken down by the liver, and results in glucose and triglycerides ... seriously, straight glucose is better than that!
• Chicory Root Fiber - aka Inulin ... non-digestible fibre, typically used as a bulking agent
• Stevia Leaf Extract ... finally!
• Monk Fruit Extract ... another natural sweetener that has a zero glycemic index (I have heard some describe it as negative) ...

Somehow a sweetener that has a thing as its fourth (and second-last) ingredient can be called a "thing-based" sweetener?

Let's pick on Doritos!  Here's the ingredients for Nacho Cheese Doritos!

Corn, Vegetable Oil, Maltodextrin, Salt, Cheddar Cheese, Whey, and a bunch of other stuff.

By the above news media logic, one could legitimately describe Nacho Cheese Doritos as a "cheddar cheese-based snack".  And we all know *that's* a fucking bullshit statement.

The packet is a total of 2g, with 0 calories, and less than 1g sugar ... thanks to nifty nutritional labeling guidelines, you can round down!  so, doing the math

• the packet claims 0 calories, so it has less than 0.5 calories in total
• sugar has 4 calories per gram
• 0.5 calories / 4 cal/g  = 0.125 grams sugar max
• so there's at most 0.12 grams of fructose in each packet

Which may be no big deal, in the grand scheme of things,   Why am I getting ranty over something as minuscule as 0.,12g of fructose?  I find the whole situation frustrating ...

• the media's coverage of this gives it a health halo - "ooo!  Stevia!  Stevia's not sugar so that's good, right?"
• the sweetener in question barely has any stevia in it
• AND THERE'S STILL FUCKING SUGAR IN THERE!

sigh.

From Ranty To Schwifty! (But Still Ranty)

Sarah Hallberg and Osama Hamdy had a great piece in the New York Times this weekend ... "Before You Spend $26,000 on Weight-Loss Surgery, Do This".

I think it's fantastic that this kind of information made its way to a publication as large as The New York Times,  It also along a similar theme to a post Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt made on his dietdoctor.com website - "Why Weight Loss Surgery is Not the Solution".

It's a message that I now understand clearly, because I'm living it.  The message is simply "To both avoid and reverse some nasty shit, all I have to do is change what I put in my fucking mouth".

-tak!  thbbft!