Make you Fink on Friday

I read an interesting article on The Guardian the other day. Besides being propaganda for Michelle Obama, it told of an experiment with pandas.

Pandas, apparently, like sweet stuff, although sweet is not in their diet; they prefer the more mundane bamboo.

They tested Pepsi against Pepsi Max.

Guess what?

The Pandas didn’t like the Pepsi Max.

Pandas don’t like aspartame, the sweetener in Pepsi Max.

Doesn’t that tell you something?

It sure rings alarm bells for me.

If pandas don’t like the taste of aspartame, incidentally neither do I, then there must be something in it that tells them it’s not good for them.

From a personal level, ALL artificial sweeteners set my teeth on edge so I stay away from them.

Similarly, now that most soft drinks (sodas) contain HFCS instead of sugar, I stay away from them all.

So should you!

Monday Moaning

Whatever form

Soda – Soft Drinks, depends whether you are American or British, but that is immaterial, the question is what are they doing to our kids?

We have long known that soft drinks/soda are contributing to the current epidemic of obesity.

With ‘light‘ or ‘diet‘ drinks being the worst offenders; which just begs the question, why do so many people drink this shit?

There is new evidence coming to light. Evidence that soda/soft drinks are more evil, much more evil than imagined.

We have become preoccupied with conditions like ADHD (which I have just read is a hoax condition – for another time) and things like inattention at school, juvenile violence levels manifesting at kindergarten level, and worsening in the teens.

But there are definite suspicions as a result of an inconclusive survey by Columbia University epidemiologist Shakira Suglia and her colleagues that the culprit may well be our beloved sodas and soft drinks.

Read this article: Soft drinks’ side effects on Stuff.co.nz

And tell me, that we should be banning these products outright from our children’s diets. In fact governments should be banning these drinks from the young, just like they ban smoking.

Soda was once a luxury, you had a can maybe once a week, I was allowed one 7oz bottle of Coca-Cola on Saturdays; if I had behaved myself during the week.

But today, it is part of our kids food chain, a daily routine, sometimes more, a lot more than one can/bottle a day.

Our kids are overdosing on soda, it’s become a drug, its addictive. A recent case in NZ where a woman died drinking (to excess) Coca-Cola. That’s not a fantasy, it was a decision of the coroner’s court.

As a parent I want you to think about it, seriously. Is your child’s behaviour aggressive, or in any way manifesting some form of antisocial behaviour? Is he/she possibly a bully? Does he/she get irritable? Do they show an attention deficit?  Have there been complaints from school about his/her general behaviour?

Okay… now measure that against their intake of soda – BE HONEST!

Do you see a relationship?

There is a solution! BAN SODA AND SOFT DRINKS.

I have. I have returned to water.

 

Make you Fink on Friday

I used to buy fruit juice, I used to drink Coca Cola and other softdrinks and soda, I used to make cordial…

But then I discovered some facts about the ingredients used in all these drinks, ugly facts.

They have shit in them like aspartame, sucralose and high fructose corn syrup instead of suger. All of the above are pure poison!

So I switched to water, good old tap water. For a fizzy beverage sparkling mineral water became my drink.

But water can be boring…

So, spice it up a little.

fruit infused water

Image: Flux and Flow

Some interesting recipes to spice up your water. Homemade is better than commercial poison. Use your fruit and vege, scrapes can be used too. For example, when I have pineapple, the skin goes to make pineapple water.

Check out Flux and Flow for more ideas.

Update

Parents are warned to steer clear of sugar-filled ‘healthy’ drinks

Parents’ efforts on healthy eating ‘undermined’ by marketing campaigns and lack of government interest

Many ‘healthy’ drinks for children contain nearly as much sugar as Coca-Cola. Photograph: Melissa Lomax Speelman/Getty Images/Flickr RF

Nutritionists and health campaigners are calling on parents to avoid supposedly “healthy” fruit drinks during the hot summer – asking them to give thirsty children plain water or milk instead.

The calls come as new health research puts sugary drinks, and particularly the fructose in them, at the heart of the “diabesity” epidemic affecting young people in Britain. Some 67 health charities, medical royal colleges and public health bodies are asking the government to consider a health tax on sugary drinks, along the lines of those already successfully introduced in France and four other European countries.

Read more

Opinion…

And the governments are just not interested; too much money to lose in corporate donations.