Figmentations

This particular food is good for you, then it’s not. We’ve heard this many times in the news before. Ok, so now they say there isn’t enough evidence to show that tomatoes have the cancer prevention ability that was once thought….and drinking alcohol may not be bad for you since they now believe that brain cells don’t die and keep growing throughout our lifetime…and bottled water is not as safe as tap water since the FDA has lower safety standards than the EPA…and more evidence mounts that soda (in it’s current form) really can be bad for you.

Now this last fact, about soda, I kind of just stumbled upon by accident when clicking through a link stating that there are FiveThings That Are Worse Than Global Warming. (Of course, that is if global warming really exists or not. But that’s another post for another day…)

Now the thing about soda doesn’t really surprise me too much. Given all the chemicals in soda it just doesn’t seem like it could be good for you. But the food industry isn’t saying that. And even my doctors tell me there is nothing wrong with diet soda, that it’s actually the first thing recommended for diabetics. But at the same time, there are enough references out there that suggest otherwise; some of the “facts” out there are as follows:

• Recent news reports state that Sodium benzoate, a preservative in soda, can cause cellular damage by attacking the mitochondria in DNA
• Aspartame/Nutrasweet (in diet sodas) causes you to crave carbohydrates, thus diet sodas cause you to gain weight
• Aspartame/Nutrasweet breaks down to a poison at over 86 degrees (and may be a potential cause of Gulf War Syndrome).
• Sucralose also breaks down into a pesticide-like chemical.
• Carbonated beverages are highly acidic which makes the blood less alkaline which then leads to calcium depletion as the body works to neutralize the acidity. The increased phosphorus from soda consumption, as well as caffeine, also contributes to calcium loss.
• Carbonated beverages also deplete oxygen levels in the blood, as the less alkaline blood loses its negative electrical charge, thus causing red blood cells to stick together thus inhibiting blood flow.
• Caffeine causes dehydration.

Undoubtedly there is significant lobbying going on here. Michael Moore and OpenSecrets.org points out the amount money spent on the lobbying of politicians by the health care sector. The food industry can’t be that much different. Politics definitely complicate things. Will there ever be facts that are simply facts? Or, do “facts” not exist any more thus every scientific study can be spun one way or the other depending on whichever results you want them to support?