The Hemp Connection [Search results for fructose] 

There has been a lot of information circulating around the Internet recently about the dangers of agave nectar. It prompted me to take a little closer look. And I'm glad I did. What I've learned will be part of an ongoing series about the benefits and disadvantages of different types of sugar. It's a complex issue, so to make it more understandable, I thought I'd break it into installments. If you have comments about any of this, please feel free to post. I do moderate comments and won't be putting any up until the series is finished, in case you get ahead of me. I will take your comments into consideration as I proceed with this topic. Thanks for understanding.

According to a 2010 report in the European Journal of Food Safety, a comprehensive review of studies evaluating the effects of various carbohydrates and sugars on metabolism, simple sugars begin to have negative effects on health when they exceed 20% of total calories. That is simple sugars of all kinds--sucrose, fructose, and galactose. Here is how that translates into diets of varying calorie levels, so you can put this information into perspective.

Calorie level Healthful limit for sugar intake, calories Healthful limit for sugar intake, grams
1500 300 75
1600 320 80
1700 340 85
1800 360 90
1900 380 95
2000 400 100
2100 420 105
2200 440 110
2300 460 115

With fructose, the threshold is 7.5% of total calories; more than that, and negative health effects, such as elevated triglycerides, begin to appear. In other words, fructose should be used judiciously, even though it has a lower glycemic index.

Calorie level Healthful limit for fructose intake, calories Healthful limit for fructose intake, grams
1500 112 28
1600 120 30
1700 128 32
1800 136 34
1900 144 36
2000 152 38
2100 160 40
2200 168 42
2300 176 44

A can of soda would contain the following, based on the type of sweetener it contained. It mathematically fits into the above guidelines, but in a way that makes it hard to consume fruits, which also contain fructose, and stay within the calculated limits.
Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams
Cane sugar 150 38 75 19
Beet sugar 150 38 75 19
High fructose corn syrup 140 35 77 19
Agave nectar* 102 25 87 22

*Agave nectar was a little bit harder to figure out. I did manage to find a Denver-based company called Oogave that makes sodas using agave nectar. Their Esteban's Root Beer is what I used for the above analysis.

My first find in a Google search brought me to Full Throttle, an energy drink manufactured by Coca Cola. Unbelievably, the"blue agave" flavor of this product contains no agave nectar at all, is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and contains 220 calories in a can! They are definitely hoping the consumer would jump to conclusions about this product.

Are you juicing at home?

Here's how the same volume of a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 mix of beet, carrot, and spinach juice compares.
Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams
120 24 31 7.8
Calories are not that much different, and total sugar, but the sugar type does. If you were to add fruit, that value would go up.

To give you an idea of what happens when you switch from sugar to agave nectar in the same recipe, I analyzed the same amount of watermelon Arnold Palmer recipe from last week's post. I adjusted the amount of agave nectar based on the fact that agave nectar is 72% sweeter than sugar.

Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams
Made with sugar 20 5 9 2.3
Made with agave 18 4.5 10 2.5
Takeaway messages:
1. Any sweetened beverage,"healthy", or homemade, soda or juice, regardless of how it is sweetened, is a significant source of sugar and fructose. It is a dietary choice that should be made with respect, and sparingly.
2. Soda made in Mexico, even though it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup in it, is still problematic in large quantities.
3. The advantage to agave nectar is that it can help you to cut your total sugar intake, and reduce your glycemic load, but you still need to be aware of the quantity you consume.
European Food Safety Authority. Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for carbohydrates and dietary fibre. EFAS Journal 2010; 8(3): 1462.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/

http://www.livestrong.com/

Hello inCYST Readers,

It has been brought to my attention that the Corn Refiners Association has launched an advertising campaign promoting high-fructose corn syrup. On their home page, there is a statement that reads, in part:

High fructose corn syrup provides many important characteristics, such as texture, flavor and freshness, to your favorite foods and beverages. It is nutritionally the same as table sugar and has the same number of calories, too. As many dietitians agree, sweeteners should be enjoyed in moderation.

In response to the advertising campaign and this statement, I would like to clarify:

1. I am a registered dietitian.
2. I do promote foods in moderation.
3. I do not promote the use of high fructose corn syrup.
4. I am not one of the dietitians this campaign or this web page is attempting to connect their product with.
5. Just as I am exercising my freedom of expression by posting this statement to this blog, I respect the right of the Corn Refiners Association to promote their product. I simply wish to clarify that I have no professional association with their statement or their association.
6. If anyone reading this blog chooses to consume high-fructose corn syrup, it is their personal choice and freedom of expression. It is not a choice based on any perceived endorsement related to the fact that I am a registered dietitian that may have been insinuated based on the wording of these advertisements and the Corn Refiners Association web page.

Respectfully,

Monika M. Woolsey, MS, RD

Graphic courtesy of Renata Mangrum, MPH, RD

I got started on a series recently about agave nectar, and then had to put it down to attend to other business projects. Today I wanted to focus on an aspect of agave nectar that may be one of its most important nutritional contributions.

A disclaimer must be included before I continue. This information is only going to be helpful if the agave is consumed in conjunction with the guidelines as described in my earlier post. If your diet is high in sugar, it is NOT a license to simply switch to a different sweetener and use ad libitum.

Agave contains compounds known as fructans, which researchers in Mexico recently reported may help prevent osteoporosis by increasing intestinal calcium absorption. These same researchers, based at the National Polytechnic Institute, Guanajuato, Mexico, have suggested that these same fructans"may be beneficial in diabetes, obesity, stimulating the immune system of the body, decreasing levels of disease-causing bacteria in the intestine, relieving constipation, and reducing the risk of colon cancer".

Fructans do their job by functioning as"prebiotics"--they provide nutrition for the healthy bacteria in the colon.

These bacteria have been reported to change the way fat is absorbed, leading some researchers to suggest that agave may have some weight loss-enhancing qualities (again, when used according to the guidelines for upper limit of intake. A calorie is a calorie, regardless of where it comes from).

Fructans are simply long, non-digestible chains of fructose. It explains why the fructose content of agave nectar is so high. However, it appears to be in a different chemical form than that of simple fructose. If you're familiar with the differences between simple sugar, complex carbohydrate, and fiber…fructans, the way fructose is packaged in agave, is a soluble fiber. It's not digested or absorbed, and because it stays in the large intestine, it promotes the growth of beneficial, disease-fighting bacteria.

If you are still skeptical, and I don't blame you, given the plethora of conflicting information on the Internet, I would recommend measuring your own triglycerides before using any agave nectar. Then re-check those levels 3 months later to see if there is a difference.

It is important on this blog that we get it right…so if you take the challenge and you DO experience elevated triglycerides, I'd love to hear from you. That is important information to share.

While working on another project this week, I ran across an eye-opening statistic.

The average American consumes 70 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in one year! That's the equivalent of a grade-school child!

Most arguments I have seen about high fructose corn syrup are limited to discussions about whether it is better or worse than sugar. Did you know, though, aside from that, our consumption of HFCS is potentially harmful to our ecosystem?

Corn is primarily grown in the Midwest. There has been growing concern that fertilizer runoff from corn farms, the source of the base ingredient for HFCS, travels down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizer does to water plants what it does to corn…it promotes growth.

Algae overgrowth related to fertilizer promotes the growth of bacteria that decompose all of this algae as it dies. In the process, it consumes oxygen, which would normally be used by other sea life. Dead zones, therefore, are aquatic zones where no other seafood can live, because there is no oxygen for them to live on.

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone in 2009 is predicted to be the size of the state of New Jersey! That makes it one of the largest years on record.

You all know how much I value seafood for PCOS and hormone health. I thought I'd share this with you readers to help you understand the interconnectedness of all the seemingly independent choices we make.

The less HFCS we consume, the less corn needs to be grown. The less corn that is grown, the less polluted our rivers and waters. The less polluted our rivers and waters…the more seafood for your brains and your hormones. Plus, the less sugar and the more seafood we all consume…the healthier we are in the process!

One of the most important choices we might make, in order to insure that there are enough omega-3 fatty acids for all of our brains…is to reduce our consumption of HFCS.

If you're interested in learning more, I found a great bilingual interactive website that explains dead zones.

So you've been told you need to clean up your nutrition act, and you've stopped eating the Fritos. You've decided to stop being the reason the stock price of your local fast food restaurant has weathered the Wall Street willies. Your salad dressing shelf in your refrigerator is now half of what's in your refrigerator.

Still no luck.

Hey, isn't eating better supposed to be the answer?

Depends on how you define eating better.

I'm noticing with my inCYST classes that a disproportionate percentage of women coming for information have adopted vegetarian practices. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't part of the problem.

No, the problem isn't that you're vegetarian. It's how you're defining vegetarian, and it's how you go about being one that matters. Here are my simple rules for being the healthiest (potentially fertile) vegetarian you can be.

1. Define your vegetarianism by what you DO eat.

Most people I know who become vegetarian after eating meat, define that practice in terms of what they DON'T eat. They DON'T do red meat. They DON'T do dairy. They DON'T do fish. DON'T, DON'T, DON'T.

Therein lies the problem.

A most important rule of nutrition is, when you eliminate an entire category of food, for whatever reason, be it meat or wheat, you are also eliminating crucial nutrients that this category contains.

My definition of vegetarian is someone who meets all of their complete nutritional needs without using animal products.

Do you know what fertility-related nutrients you're likely short on if all you've done is cut out meat? If not, read on!

2. Zap yourself with zinc!

Zinc is needed for oodles of reactions that keep your body running, from your brain to your ovaries. Are you eating whole grains? Beans? Pumpkin and sunflower seeds? Nuts? Oops…go get your shopping list, right now, and put them down!

3. Forgetting folate can be fatal

You likely know about this nutrient since there has been so much publicity about its role in pregnancy. Put spinach on your sandwich instead of lettuce…make sure your morning cereal is fortified…eat more beans and split peas…and become savvy with sunflower seeds!

4. Cultivate a copper attitude

It's not as famous as folate, but it still is important to remember. Outside of red meat, its vegan sources are rather random: molasses, green olives, cocoa, nuts, avocadoes, black pepper, sunflower seeds…hopefully at least one of these sounds tasty!

5. Try to remember tryptophan

Tryptophan is a building block for serotonin, one of the major neurotransmitters regulating the brain's hormone center. For vegetarians, there are still a lot of options even if you're not using dairy products or eating turkey. Does your pantry have…cocoa, mangoes, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, oats, dates, chickpeas, peanuts, bananas, and sunflower seeds? It needs to.

6. Allow for algae

If you're vegan, chances are you're not getting enough DHA and EPA, the omega-3 fatty acids primarily found in fish. Become friendly with an ingredient known as Life's DHA, a marine algae source of DHA (unfortunately not EPA), that is being added to vegan-friendly foods. The link I'm providing gets you to the most recent list of foods containing this ingredient that you may want to become proficient at finding.

7. Not all vegan products are created equally healthy. Be sure if you've gone vegan, that you are aware of oils that can interfere with healthy balance. These oils are all vegan, but tend to be pro-inflammatory: safflower, sunflower, soybean, corn, cottonseed, sesame. (Remember my"S and C" rule from previous posts. If you're eating absolutely no meat at all, but you're eating a salad doused with soybean oil-based dressing…that could be a problem. Become familiar with brands that are made with olive or canola oils, or learn to make vinaigrettes. (Canola is the"C" oil exception, by the way.

8. Be happy without hydrogenated.

Hydrogenated = trans fat. Enough said.

9. Forget the fructose…high fructose corn syrup, that is.

It's been connected to insulin resistance in more than one study. And despite what marketers would really like you to believe, more than one nutrition expert does not endorse its use.

10. Be pro-protein

This is the most obvious one…know your complementary proteins and be sure your diet includes them. One caveat…soy may be hard on your thyroid function and is not a good choice if you have a family history of breast cancer. Be sure you are reading labels, as soy is a filler in many, many foods.

I like to look for patterns that make nutrition recommendations easy to recommend. In this post, it didn't work out that way. A lot of these foods are random. If I'm not giving you ideas that seem easy to work into your food plan…think of consulting with one of our experts! That's what we excel at, and that's what we're waiting to help you with.

After all, you became vegan to be healthy, let's work together to do it correctly.

This has been a stellar week in the world of nutrition and food politics. Early in the week, word got out that there is a move to rename high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) (apparently because sales have hit an all-time low). If this marketing strategy works, this sweetener will appear in food labeling as"corn sugar".

American consumers responded rapidly and impressively. All over Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere, it was clear that people did not take kindly to this information. They were insulted that the industry attempting to score this change in nomenclature assumed they were so stupid. And the worst way to maintain brand loyalty is to insult the people who give you money.

It's not looking like a name switch is gonna do it for the struggling HCFS industry. People have decided to take charge of their own health.

Later in the week, a major food company that uses HCFS as its sweetener, despite having been petitioned by consumers not to, announced a partnership with a major association representing health professionals. I'm not naming or linking to either party, because that would be rewarding them for acollaboration which is dubious at best.

It seems that this food company has decided to show interest in consumer health by using some of the money they earned by selling food containing an ingredient, HFCS, that is increasingly being associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and liver problems, among others…to pay for nutrition counseling purchased by the customers who bought that food and are now in need of health advice regarding what to do about it.

HUH?!?!?!? I'm not a WTF kind of writer, but WTF?!?!?

I'm not sure what the expectation here is, for those who accept money for providing these subsidized counseling visits? Are they expected to edit their advice? Overlook the glaring reality that one thing that may need to be eliminated from the diet…is the food that paid for their time in the first place?

My advice? Skip the middle men. Either don't buy the product, and if you find you still need health advice, use the money you therefore saved, to pay for it. Or, if you must have the product, look around for a version that is HCFS free. They are there.

This will hopefully be the next marketing faux-pas on the list of historic blunders. The one that includes the American car manufacturers tried to sell cars with steering wheels on the wrong side rather than make cars that worked with their customers' traffic rules.

When you stop listening to your customers, and act as though you know better than those customers what they want and need, your customers stop patronizing you.

My post a few days ago about the effects of PCOS on the brain seems to have created some discomfort. We lost a few Facebook fans, and those who did respond, said that learning that PCOS was taking its toll on brain tissue and function was somewhat depressing to take. Theories of behavioral change state that until you know a problem exists, you will not act to change. So while the news can be uncomfortable to live with, the good news is, now you know why you need to make changes. You can't talk yourself out of those changes by convincing yourself that you're at peace with your body type, or that maybe you can live without having a baby. You're fighting for your cognitive life, and only you can make the changes that can make a difference. Here is a list of things you can do to help preserve brain and nervous system function. 1. Get sleep. You may think it's a badge of honor to cut yourself short in the sleep department. But it takes its toll. It is when you sleep, that your brain cleans out all the crud from the day before…spit shining neurons, so to speak. If you go too long without sleep, it's like you're letting rust accumulate all throughout your brain. Make it a habit to get to bed at an hour that allows you to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. 2. Reduce stress. Every little thought, behavior, chemical reaction, that gets you through a day, requires a series of neurons to coordinate that activity. Every time a neuron is asked to work, it uses glucose to do so. Every time a neuron burns a molecule of glucose, it uses oxygen to do so. More neurons = more glucose = more oxidation. Make it a priority to give up the small stuff…and if you can't completely give it up…learn how not to sweat it so much. 3. Manage mental health issues. Most mental health diagnoses affecting PCOS (anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, ADHD), involve processes that overwork the brain and nervous system. People with these disorders are fairly high energy, and that means they are using more neurons, more often, with far more intensity, than people who don't have to live with these conditions. Get counseling. If you need medication, take it. Health means MENTAL as well as PHYSICAL conditioning. Take it seriously. Do what you need to do. Slow down those neurons in any (legal) way available to you. 4. Exercise. Research is showing that regular physical activity slows down the development of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and helps to maintain brain tissue. How many times have you struggled with a problem at your desk, put it down, walked over to the post office, and had an inspiration while moving your body? Muscles and neurons are best friends. Be sure to give them plenty of play dates.

5. Eat less carbohydrate. Because your brain uses glucose, and because it's going to want more glucose when it is stressed, you're going to want to eat more carbs when under pressure. Remember what I said in number 2. The more carbs you eat, the more oxidative stress you impose on your brain. The more easily your brain rusts out and breaks down. I want you to think of this picture every time from this point forward you see a donut, order of french fries, or bottle of soda. Look less appetizing? Good. That was my point. 6. Eat antioxidants Antioxidants, those chemicals with the funny names nutrition experts love to impress people with in their blogs…hate oxidation. Eat them. Don't worry if you can pronounce their names, just know if the food in your hand (1) doesn't have an ingredient label, (2) has color, (3) and rots if left too long in your fridge, it's good for you. Put it on your plate and into your body. 7. Use fish oil. Fifteen percent of the dry weight of a healthy human brain is DHA, one of the primary omega-3's found in fish oil. It has to be fish, it can't be nuts, or flax, or greens. Eat the fish or take the capsules. I don't care if they come up a little bit. You have a choice…burps or brains. Just do it. 8. Reduce omega-6's. All those oils beginning with the letters"s" and"c"…break down brain tissue. Read labels. Get them out of your diet. Two exceptions. Organic canola is fine and coconut oil is fine, provided you're not eating it by the tablespoonful. 9. Yoga. Yoga tones the nervous system. It chills you out. It improves circulation in your spinal column. It improves your flexibility. It helps to manage mental health issues. It pretty much takes items 1 through 8 and makes them work even more effectively for you. It's worth the time. 10. Cut the high-fructose corn syrup. Recent research suggests that HFCS affects memory. Get it out of your diet!

I am an animal lover, and it turns my stomach every time I turn on the news and see an oil-coated pelican, or a rescued baby turtle, innocently affected by the BP oil spill. I have committed to never buy another BP brand as long as I live.

I am very concerned about what this spill poses personally for all of the readers of this blog. You all need omega-3 fatty acids, the kind that come from seafood, for your brain health and hormone balance. Without healthy oceans, there simply cannot be healthy humans. Menhaden, a huge source of fish oil, has been significantly affected. Its season opened just as the oil spill started. Omega Protein Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of fish oil, fishes largely out of the Gulf. They've stated that they'll simply move their boats and there isn't a short term issue, but as the problem persists…the long term impact of such a disaster begins to become more and more frightening.

I encourage all of you to take this issue personally. The obvious boycott would be BP products for your car.

There's another one, a pretty big one, directly related to each and every one of us. Cans. Aluminum cans. The kind we crack open when we Jones for a soda. The primary manufacturer of these sodas is a division of BP.

Maybe, if you haven't been able to stop drinking the sodas, even when we've blogged about the caffeine and the sugar and the high fructose corn syrup and the artificial sweeteners…you can do it if you know the company who makes the cans they come in is chipping away at the integrity of the fragile environment your hormones need to live in.

It's a smple act, but with 1 in 10 women on the planet living with PCOS, if they banded together and collectively put the cans down, imagine what message that could send.

The pelican who's watching over this post…on behalf of his endangered pals, thanks you for your consideration.

Click here for a link to a list of products and services related to BP.

Temperatures have been high already this summer. With rising mercury comes a need to stay hydrated. And it's also, when water gets boring, when you're most likely to be tempted to drink soda. We talked with Scott Lerner this morning, CEO of Solixir, a company making a unique line of beverages. It's not just his product that is interesting --Scott actually teamed up with a dietitian and an herbalist when creating Solixir.

We think you'll like his story. Not to mention his beverage! If you're intrigued after hearing his interview, you can find it nationally at Whole Foods Markets and Vitamin Shoppe outlets.

Dear blog readers,

I received a comment over the weekend, questioning my lack of enthusiasm for high fructose corn syrup that ended with,"My RD would be proud of me." It sounded like our reader was feeling a little bit caught between two different dietitians with two different ways of interpreting information. No one looking for help with their PCOS should ever feel like they need to choose between one advice giver or another. No one reading this blog has to do anything for us. We're just here to provide information in a way we hope is helpful. As long as we get blog hits, we figure that is exactly what we're doing.

I figured it was best to clarify why I do what I do and how you're best going to benefit from visits to this blog.

1. I am a pretty obsessive reader of research. When I read research, I find a lot of information that either has not been presented to women with PCOS at all, or it's not been presented in a way that benefits women with PCOS. So I compose my conclusions and post them here, in hopes of helping people who haven't had access to that viewpoint. It's my viewpoint, and my viewpoint only. It's not ever going to be anything that makes 100% of people who read this blog happy. I never set out to do that. But what I do provide, when possible, is references from peer-reviewed research that shows you where I got my facts and how I connected the dots.

2. If you've read my writing, and you've also connected dots in a different way, I respect and support that. Like I said, I'm not here to make you think like me or do like me. I'm hoping to encourage you to do your own critical thinking and come to conclusions and choices that work best for YOU. You have enough personal and corporate interests trying to make you think one way or another. I don't want to make you think anything. I want to encourage you to think independently.

3. If you're working with another dietitian, I respect that. Any time anyone has EVER come to an inCYST event who has not been working with an inCYST network member, I make it absolutely clear from the beginning that we aim to enhance the experience with the other professional. We're not out to steal clients or make anyone look bad.

4. If for some reason you've brought any of our information in to your non-inCYST dietitian and the discussion has left you feeling caught in the middle, I don't want you to feel that way. All we're doing is presenting information that we have found to be helpful. And recently, we've grown into a fundraising entity designed to invest in scientific studies that can help add credibility to the paradigm we've been developing. It's super important at inCYST that we don't grow into a place where we just spout off about ideas, but that we pursue the ones we feel are valid, on behalf of women who live a life with less quality than they deserve. Even with that commitment, we know our way of doing things is not the only way of doing things. It's just our way of doing things. We work very hard to make it credible and verifiable. If it works for you, great, please benefit. If it's not consistent with what your dietitian is telling you, my biggest hope is that you would be empowered enough to be able to take the best of both sets of advice and chart your own course. If nothing that we offer here works for you, that's ok too. There are many paths to the same destination. Your best nutrition coach is not us, or anyone else, it is YOU.

5. We can respect the differences in philosophy that exist in the world of health care, but our primary focus with inCYST is to develop the paradigm and provide information to those who DO benefit from our information. It's not to defend ourselves with those who disagree. We respect the disagreement and hope that you achieve success with the information and choices that work best for you.

6. I believe our team does excellent work, but just because someone is not in our network, it doesn't mean we think they don't as well. The purpose of having a network is so that if you come to this blog and you like what you see, we have a team of people in a variety of places that you know you can go to, who will give you the same sort of approach one-on-one as you got here. You guys waste enough money trying do that on your own, and we wanted to stop the unproductive cash flow. We are very good at what we do, but we do not intend to say that others are not. That would be untrue, not to mention completely arrogant.

Thank you for visiting the blog, and I hope that once in awhile, it does provide information and inspiration that's helped you along your PCOS path.

One of the most frequent questions women have when advised to use fish oil is whether or not they should be concerned about the mercury content. I routinely hear from clients I've worked with that they feel comfortable taking fish oil to conceive, but then once they're pregnant they become concerned about mercury and stop the supplements.

The FDA has done such a great job of warning us about the potential problems with just four kinds of fish--shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish--that Americans in general have decreased consumption of ALL fish.

With regard to fish oil supplements, the truth is, most brands of fish oil are molecularly distilled, meaning they go through a very strict purification process to remove mercury. Random tests from bottles pulled off of regular drugstore shelves have consistently shown that for the most part…fish oil supplements are safe.

Yet people continue to question the safety of fish and fish oil because they fear the mercury.

Here's an interesting twist in that logic.

Earlier this year, two studies looked at the mercury content of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a ubiquitous and controversial sweetening agent. One study discovered that nine of twenty samples of HFCS contained measurable amounts of mercury. These researchers concluded, "With respect to total mercury exposure, it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury in the diet of children and sensitive populations." I would consider women of childbearing age, including those reading this blog, to be an especially sensitive population.

A second study conducted by the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy found in foods they analyzed in the fall of 2008, nearly 1 of 3 of the 55 foods they sampled contained measurable amounts of mercury. The finding was most common in foods containing HFCS.

So if you're using mercury concerns as an excuse to avoid eating fish…and you're looking for ways to justify keeping sweet stuff in your diet…you may want to consider your perspective. It's the fish that's likely clean and the sweets that may be dirty.

Dufault R, LeBlanc B, Schnoll R, Cornett C, Schweitzer L, Wallinga D, Hightower J, Patrick L, Lukiw WJ. Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar. Environ Health. 2009 Jan 26;8:2.

http://www.iatp.org/iatp/press.cfm?refID=105025

As it gets hotter, it's tempting to drink more sweet beverages. We hope you have an opportunity to try Solixir, the functional, herb-containing beverage we profiled on our radio show last week.

Here are a few other ways to spice your water up a bit without adding unnecessary sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

1. Mix a little bit of Hint Essence Water in with regular or mineral water. Just a little changes the flavor enough to remove the monotony.

2. Throw some mint leaves and cucumber slices in your water. I've learned, the longer it sits, the better it gets!

3. Freeze fruit juice in your ice cube trays and drop in your drink.

4. Freeze whole fruit or fruit chunks and do the same thing.

5. Try Sweet Leaf flavored stevia drops. inCYST intern Sarah Jones' favorite cooler is a few drops of vanilla creme in mineral water for an instant sugar-free cream soda.

Yes, I've been a little quiet lately. I've been traveling, and also ramping up to re-launch my newsletter, After the Diet. This next issue is about food policy, which I really want to get out before the election.

Don't fret, I did my best to be nonpartisan! The goal was mainly to illustrate how the things we believe about food and the foods that show up in our food supply are related to deals cut on Capitol Hill. I do my best to stay right down the middle. My obligation is to help anyone who can benefit from my expertise, since diabetes, infertility, depression, you name it, affect Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.

It matters not to me HOW you vote, it matters THAT you vote, and that when you do, that your vote is informed.

So I researched some issues related to foods and put them together in a newsletter.

The graphic you see is a handout, included in that newsletter, that I developed on trans-fats, since they've recently been making a lot of news and I see clients misusing this information since they don't understand it.

If you're interested in any of the following:
--why wild salmon isn't really wild
--why the United States sued Mexico to import high-fructose corn syrup
--how flooding in Iowa may be raising the price of shrimp
--why catfish is not so easy to find in your grocery store
--what food-related legislation was actually co-sponsored by (!) John McCain and
John Kerry
--what FDA warning is potentially reducing the IQ of babies
--what one simple change Americans could make to collectively save $18,630,000,000
then you might be interested in subscribing to my newsletter.

I'm already working on the next edition, which will cover the following topics:

Melatonin: The Ultimate Antioxidant?

Dietary Aspects of Melatonin Balance

Sleep, Weight, Insulin Resistance, and Aging

Why Do Pilots Have Shortened Lifespans?

Is It Attention Deficit Disorder? Or Is It Sleep Deprivation?

It's a really fun publication and I'd love to have you subscribe!

I promise, once I get this issue out, there's lots and lots to blog about.

Stay tuned!