7 thoughts on “Food Police to FDA: ‘Coke, Pepsi… unsafe for regular human consumption’”
I heard a blip on the radio this morning about malt liquor and the “need” to label it appropriately. Seems like a 24-ounce malt liquor can have four times the alcohol of “a can of beer”.
Okay, first question: are we comparing a 24-ounce malt to a 12-ounce beer? Beer in the store downstairs comes in 12-, 16- and 24-ounce cans.
Second point: If malt liquor runs 5.5% and beer runs 3.2%, we’ve got more than 50% more alcohol per ounce in the malt liquor, a fact that most users of malt and beer know perfectly well.
Third: if you double the amount of beverage and then increase the proportion of alcohol by more than 50%, you’re going to bet “nearly four times as much alcohol” in the larger can of stronger brew. Easy math.
Fourth: alcohol levels in beer and malt liquor vary by brand and type. A low-end malt liquor product may have only about 1/3 again the level of alcohol as a high-end beer, so the comparisons are inconsistent.
Last: I have the idea that most people who choose 24-ounce malt liquor servings prefer the higher alcohol total anyway.
That’s right. The real agenda with CSPI and others like them is anti-food business. Here, there focus is on enacting regulations that reduce the salt, fat, sugar and FLAVOR from processed foods so that they become so unpalatible no one will eat them and so expensive no one can afford to buy them.
CSPI’s definition of a safe level of anything: too low for anyone to enjoy it. And I do object to anyone tampering with your sugar: you have the same right to use it or reject it as anyone else has. My comment on the amount of sugar was just because I thought it might be overstated, but I was wrong.
You can get a lot of sugar suspended in water. But that’s not the point. There is no “epidemic”. Nobody can catch an illness from me just because I consume too much sugar. Yes, I may cost society more, but that’s mainly because the government has taken on the role of supporting everyone. Outside of that, to the extent that my activities may impact others, that’s the cost of freedom.
You may not object to them taking my sugar, but what about when they try to take your coffee or tea?
Doing a little research: a 12-ounce soda has (typically) 150 calories, essentially all sugar, for 9-ish teaspoons, figuring 4 gm/tsp. Extended to 20 ounces, there’s something like 62.5 gm of sugar, which is just short of 16 tsp. Fair is fair, the number is correct.
The only part of “Center for Science in the Public Interest” that is true is the “Center”, as in I’m sure they have a building and an organization. But the agendas and credibility problems of CSPI are well known to thinking people.
Is that 16-teaspoon reading on a 20-ounce soda correct? I guess it could be, but it seems like an awful lot to fit into 20 ounces of liquid. I put a couple of packs of sugar into a restaurant ice tea, usually around 20 ounces, and I can’t imagine putting in 16 packs.
The FDA already did that, CSPI just doesn’t like the results. The FDA’s commissioned Sugar Task Force completed a comprehensive review of the research and specifically examined and rejected hypotheses that sugars might play a causal role in “glucose tolerance, diabetes mellitus, lipidemias,
cardiovascular diseases (hypertension and atherosclerotic coronary artery disease), behavior, obesity, malabsorption syndromes, food allergies, calciuria-induced renal disease, gallstones, nutrient deficiencies, and carcinogenicity.” It found no credible evidence that sugar represents any hazard to the general public (other than contributing to cavities). These were the same findings of the 1997 Joint Report of the WHO-FAO and even Healthy People 2000 of the HHS. The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences also examined the evidence and found no evidence for setting a tolerable high intake.
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I heard a blip on the radio this morning about malt liquor and the “need” to label it appropriately. Seems like a 24-ounce malt liquor can have four times the alcohol of “a can of beer”.
Okay, first question: are we comparing a 24-ounce malt to a 12-ounce beer? Beer in the store downstairs comes in 12-, 16- and 24-ounce cans.
Second point: If malt liquor runs 5.5% and beer runs 3.2%, we’ve got more than 50% more alcohol per ounce in the malt liquor, a fact that most users of malt and beer know perfectly well.
Third: if you double the amount of beverage and then increase the proportion of alcohol by more than 50%, you’re going to bet “nearly four times as much alcohol” in the larger can of stronger brew. Easy math.
Fourth: alcohol levels in beer and malt liquor vary by brand and type. A low-end malt liquor product may have only about 1/3 again the level of alcohol as a high-end beer, so the comparisons are inconsistent.
Last: I have the idea that most people who choose 24-ounce malt liquor servings prefer the higher alcohol total anyway.
That’s right. The real agenda with CSPI and others like them is anti-food business. Here, there focus is on enacting regulations that reduce the salt, fat, sugar and FLAVOR from processed foods so that they become so unpalatible no one will eat them and so expensive no one can afford to buy them.
CSPI’s definition of a safe level of anything: too low for anyone to enjoy it. And I do object to anyone tampering with your sugar: you have the same right to use it or reject it as anyone else has. My comment on the amount of sugar was just because I thought it might be overstated, but I was wrong.
You can get a lot of sugar suspended in water. But that’s not the point. There is no “epidemic”. Nobody can catch an illness from me just because I consume too much sugar. Yes, I may cost society more, but that’s mainly because the government has taken on the role of supporting everyone. Outside of that, to the extent that my activities may impact others, that’s the cost of freedom.
You may not object to them taking my sugar, but what about when they try to take your coffee or tea?
Doing a little research: a 12-ounce soda has (typically) 150 calories, essentially all sugar, for 9-ish teaspoons, figuring 4 gm/tsp. Extended to 20 ounces, there’s something like 62.5 gm of sugar, which is just short of 16 tsp. Fair is fair, the number is correct.
The only part of “Center for Science in the Public Interest” that is true is the “Center”, as in I’m sure they have a building and an organization. But the agendas and credibility problems of CSPI are well known to thinking people.
Is that 16-teaspoon reading on a 20-ounce soda correct? I guess it could be, but it seems like an awful lot to fit into 20 ounces of liquid. I put a couple of packs of sugar into a restaurant ice tea, usually around 20 ounces, and I can’t imagine putting in 16 packs.
The FDA already did that, CSPI just doesn’t like the results. The FDA’s commissioned Sugar Task Force completed a comprehensive review of the research and specifically examined and rejected hypotheses that sugars might play a causal role in “glucose tolerance, diabetes mellitus, lipidemias,
cardiovascular diseases (hypertension and atherosclerotic coronary artery disease), behavior, obesity, malabsorption syndromes, food allergies, calciuria-induced renal disease, gallstones, nutrient deficiencies, and carcinogenicity.” It found no credible evidence that sugar represents any hazard to the general public (other than contributing to cavities). These were the same findings of the 1997 Joint Report of the WHO-FAO and even Healthy People 2000 of the HHS. The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences also examined the evidence and found no evidence for setting a tolerable high intake.