Dear Reader,
The three big soda companies have a plan. They claim it will make drinks healthier, with fewer calories.
But it's just the opposite.
Believe it or not, it's even worse than that high fructose corn syrup they pump into us.
This chemical additive is a complete mystery to everyone...except the biotech company that makes it.
And that includes the FDA.
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The secret ingredient
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Last month at the meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, it was announced that PepsiCo, Coke and Dr. Pepper will cut the calories Americans will consume in beverages by 20 percent in the next decade.
As you can imagine there was lots of praise and applause. Bill Clinton even said "This is huge."
But how do they plan to do that?
News reports said that can sizes will get smaller and there will be a big pitch to drink bottled water instead of soda.
But unfortunately, this isn't really about drinking more water and consuming fewer calories.
It's a camouflage to slip a new additive into drinks -- one that's been given the deceptively innocent name "Sweetmyx" (it originally went by the code name "S617").
Now with a name like Sweetmyx, you might think this is just a sweetener, maybe stevia mixed in with sugar or some other sweet ingredient. But this is no sweetener you've ever tasted before.
That's because it's actually a chemical with no taste on its own, one called a sweetness enhancer. Food companies like it because it lets them use less sugar or HFCS and get the calorie counts in products down.
Sweetmyx is a patented "discovery" that sounds like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie. Its job is to trick your brain into thinking things tastes sweeter than they really are.
The company behind this additive, Senomyx, calls it a "flavor ingredient." That sounds harmless enough. But wait till you hear how they invented it.
First they cloned human taste receptors. (I don't even want to know how they did that!)
Next, they went over "millions of molecules" to find which ones could "bind" to just the right taste receptors to achieve that make-believe sweet taste. So when Sweetmyx hits your mouth, it seeks out and activates the part of the tongue that signals a sweet taste to your brain.
Talk about mind-altering drugs!
And wait until you hear this:
Because it's technically called a "food additive," the company that makes it gets to decide if it's safe all on their own. And if they don't want to tell the FDA what it is or how it works, they don't have to!
But Senomyx is so proud of its brand new additive, it broadcast the news far and wide. It even went so far as to imply the FDA had called it "safe."
Now, while the FDA might not have taken any of its precious time to find out what Sweetmyx is or whether it's safe, it also didn't waste any in issuing a denial. It sent out an official "statement" saying that not only wasn't the statement true, but this was the first the FDA had heard about it being referred to as safe -- by anyone!
So if you don't want to be part of the massive Sweetmyx experiment, you'll need to watch out. Because not only did they manage to keep WHAT it is a secret, they don't even have to tell us WHERE it is.
One thing we do know is that Pepsi drinks will likely be first -- it has a deal with Senomyx to use the mystery ingredient in its beverages. Then who knows where it might show up next?
So to stay safe, you should avoid anything that lists "artificial flavor" or "artificial sweetener" as an ingredient, since you won't find Sweetmyx listed by name. Another tipoff will be new versions of products advertised as being lower in "sugar" and calories.
And we will have to be diligent. Because for all we know this stuff could make GMOs look like the land of milk and honey.
...and another thing
If a "nonprofit" group could "own" a disease, it would probably be Susan G. Komen.
In fact, it may even have a trademark on the color pink.
Its mission, to "end breast cancer forever" is certainly something we all wish for.
But Komen's record of teaming up with companies whose products are hazardous to our health has made a lot of people see red instead of pink. Companies, for example, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dr. Pepper and Coffee-Mate.
But now, Komen has stooped to what many consider (quite literally) an ever lower new low than KFC. The group has aligned itself for the second year in a row with an oilfield service company named Baker Hughes.
And in the latest example of "pinkwashing," that company plans to cover a thousand of its giant oil drill bits with pink paint and ship them in pink-topped containers along with breast cancer information.
It's all part of a campaign called "Doing Our Bit for the Cure," which also includes a $100,000 donation to the charity from Baker Hughes.
The problem is those bits aren't designed to find oil the old-fashioned way. Instead, they'll be used for "fracking." That's short for hydraulic fracturing, a way of extracting natural gas from rock by injecting it with fluid to create fissures.
And the chemicals fracking releases are also some of the same ones the Komen web site says "may be associated with breast cancer."
One group, Breast Cancer Action, has referred to the partnership as "ludicrous." It also uses some stronger language to describe the "pink" part that I'm not going to put down here. But you get the idea.
Whether the contributions collected by the Susan G. Komen charity will actually help in finding "the cure" remains to be seen. But the best cure for breast cancer -- or any disease -- is to eliminate the things that cause it.
And it sounds like in this case, that part of the "race for the cure" has been undermined by the race for corporate contributions.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
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