I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

Do you prefer the Optifast to the muesli?

I thought Splenda was really good! If it gives an insulin reaction, doesn't that make it as bad as sugar? My sister swears by stevia but it's hard to get.

I tried the Optifast products for meal replacements when I'm unwell or just not able to eat a proper meal (the bars are good to carry round for when I get low sugar episodes--remember that one I had n the museum?) The vanilla drink's horrible (not bitter to me, just yuck unless I add fruit) but the coffee's rather nice, as is the coffee bar. I like the berry crunch bar too, but haven't tried chocolate in anything; it's too hard to get right.

I'm eating a modified Mediterranean diet now which I'm liking--lots of salads and lean meat hummus etc and pita bread--so I'm not having artificial sweeteners anyway, but I do have Splenda in the house in case I ever want to cook something desserty for guests. Not that I have yet. :-)

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kerravonsen

Do you prefer the Optifast to the muesli?

My specialist told me to try the different flavours of Optifast to see which ones I like; i.e. one has an Optifast meal instead of the museli every now and then.
And the answer to your question is "it depends which one". My favourite so far is the Chocolate bar; unlike the other bars, it's chewy, and kind of reminds me of Space Food Sticks, which I like.

I agree that the vanilla drink is horrible.

I thought Splenda was really good! If it gives an insulin reaction, doesn't that make it as bad as sugar?
No, because it doesn't have the calories of sugar. But one's blood-chemistry reacts to it like sugar, hence the insulin reaction. I've found that if I have a lot of Splenda then it makes me hungry, so yes, I've found the insulin reaction occurs with me.

My sister swears by stevia but it's hard to get.
I had to mail-order mine.

mistraltoes suggested Stevia to me.

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I've never heard of space food sticks, but I'll try the chocolate bars on your recommendation. What's the chocolate drink like? I like the coffee one.

What form is your stevia in? I got a little bottle of liquid from the health food shop but an not sure how to use it because it's apparently very strong.

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kerravonsen

I haven't tried the chocolate drink, and now I don't intend to, because I expect it will be as awful as the vanilla drink. However, the chocolate dessert looks promising.

What form is your stevia in? I got a little bottle of liquid from the health food shop but an not sure how to use it because it's apparently very strong.

I got liquid too. The proportion I use is 3 drops equals 1 teaspoon of sugar.

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The dessert isn't bad at all. I got it when I was off my food and gagging on the vanilla drink, and it's very nice with a spoon of unsweetened yoghurt stirred through to make it less sweet (your taste my vary). Because it's not a drink, I found it a lot more filling and satisfying, also maybe because I ate it a lot more slowly.

What are space food sticks?

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kerravonsen

Space Food Sticks are a snack; I like the chocolate flavour. Chewy but not sticky. I suspect it's an acquired taste; who knows, maybe I liked them because they were Space Food!
Yes, they were developed for the Space Program!

Apparently they were discontinued for a while, and a bunch of people formed the Space Food Sticks Preservation Society to bring them back.
But it could well be that the Space Food Sticks made by Nestle Australia, the ones I know of, weren't the same recipe as the Pilsbury ones, I don't know. Certainly the Aussie ones stuck around for longer than the US ones, since I had them when I was a kid in the 70's, and you can get them in supermarkets here relatively easily (it depends on the supermarket whether they stock them).

Anyway, the Optifast chocolate bar doesn't taste exactly like Space Food Sticks, but it reminds me of them.

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I've never seen those! I really must try the chocolate bar. You can buy them in singles here so it's easy to sample.

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thetisonline.livejournal.com

So that's why they taste so awful. I bought a packet of the chocolate, and it was so disgusting that I had to toss it out after only trying it once or twice. I was dreading the next serving (could be good, could be bad???).

I'm sensitive to insulin response too, so thanks for the table. It will be very handy.

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kerravonsen

The bars seem to be nicer than the milkshakes.

I'm sensitive to insulin response too, so thanks for the table. It will be very handy.

Yeah, the Xylitol has a plus for that, but the downside of it is that it has more calories than the other ones (about half the calories of sugar, rather than negligable calories).

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If you like coffee, the coffee drink is very nice.

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lonemagpie.livejournal.com

Aspartame is also hugely allergenic and potential carcinogen, though...

Xylitol sounds interesting, and I've never heard of Stevia

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kerravonsen

Yeah, the Wikipedia article indicated that there is "controversy" about Aspartame... but it's still being used in commercial diet drinks/food, so it's still "legally safe", so to speak.

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I haven't read the primary research, but my understanding is that the rats involved in the carcinogen study were given hugely disproportionate amounts of Aspertame. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't worry about the occasional diet soda or nutrasweet sweetened food, but in the longrun... well, honestly, I'd think the Splenda is safer based on what I know.

Which is not much. I know fly anatomy better than human anatomy don't forget ;)

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but my understanding is that the rats involved in the carcinogen study were given hugely disproportionate amounts of Aspertame.

Um, are you sure you don't mean saccharine? Because yeah, with those tests, they were dosing the rats with more saccharine than any normal person would consume in a lifetime, I think.

As I've read it put: "If you consume more than 80 twelve-ounce diet [saccharine sweetened] sodas a day, you're at an increased risk of bladder cancer--good luck!"

Of course, for people who don't like saccharine to begin with, it's a non-issue. :-)

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I thought it was aspertame people were pointing out was a possible carcinogen.

Basically, the greeks had it right: moderation in all things. :)

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kerravonsen

There have been studies on both, and disputes about how applicable the studies were. In any case, it would be wise not to consume huge amounts of either...

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There was a time when I would have given you quite an earful on the evils of aspartame. I won't do that now, as I'm sure you're doing your research. I will simply point out that aspartame in large quantities can be detrimental to one's long-term health. Where it says it breaks down when heated? It breaks down into fermaldahyde at approximataely 86 degrees F (the normal human body temp being 98.6 degrees F. Um, I don't know what that translates to in Celsius). There's a lot of information out there regarding the dangers of aspartame, but I'm sure you're doing your own research and making your own decision.

If you can find at your library a book called You On a Diet, by Drs. Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, you might look at page 98, which gives a list of suggested sugar substitutes, a brief account of their history, and the information these doctors suggest consumers know.

Another interesting bit of information from the book is why some people (such as yourself) get a bitter aftertaste from saccharine, while others (such as myself) do not.

Your insulin reaction info is very interesting, since controlling insulin reactions is, I think, the route I'm going to have to take. (Through trial and error, I'm finding that my body does weird things that it didn't used to do when I consume large quantities of sugar.)

From:

kerravonsen

I won't be able to avoid aspartame in diet food and diet drink, since it's still used in those, but I doubt that I'll be using it much for myself (that is, adding it to tea or whatever).

Another interesting bit of information from the book is why some people (such as yourself) get a bitter aftertaste from saccharine, while others (such as myself) do not.

I gather that I'm a supertaster, which means that I'm more sensitive to bitter tastes.

Through trial and error, I'm finding that my body does weird things that it didn't used to do when I consume large quantities of sugar.

Yes, indeed. It took me a while to put two and two together that when I ate boiled lollies (almost pure sucrose) I would get very hungry not that long afterwards. It seems backwards that eating would make one hungry, but because sucrose puts sugar in the bloodstream very rapidly, the body says "oh noes, too much sugar, bring out the insulin" and whap, it goes from too much sugar to not enough sugar, and then it says "oh noes, send out the hunger pangs, we need more sugar"...

If you're interested in controlling insulin reactions, see if you can find a copy of "The 5 day Miracle Diet" by Adele Puhn; the central thesis of this diet is to keep one's blood sugar level rather than going up and down. When I was on it, I felt really good, even though I didn't lose weight. The downside is, it does require discipline to stick to, and can be rather a pain, sort of like eating to a timetable.

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persephone-kore.livejournal.com

Hmm... I always thought I was more fussy than the people around me about bitter tastes, but I actually never picked up on saccharin, that I recall. (Then again, I like sufficiently sweet chocolate; maybe I'm just easily placated by sweet.) I'm hit or miss on identifying aspartame by flavor and aftertaste, which is somewhat unfortunate since it tends to make my head hurt.

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which is somewhat unfortunate since it tends to make my head hurt.

This is another common side effect of aspartame consumption. If it helps, labels that have warnings to . . . a really long word that starts something like "phenyl . . . "-something . . . warning people who are allergic, that long "phenyl" word means that there's aspartame in the product.

You might already know that, though.

There's a test you can do to yourself if you want to find out if you're a supertaster (saccharine tastes bitter) or an undertaster (saccharine doesn't taste bitter) or are "normal" (as is about 50% of the population). I'll share, if you like.

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persephone-kore.livejournal.com

*frown* Phenylalanine? People with phenylketonuria should avoid aspartame, yes, but I'd be surprised if it's the only thing that gets a warning slapped on considering how many things phenylalanine is in. I admit I haven't paid that much attention to it, as I've never had a problem with it in general.

It doesn't actually come up all that often. I'm cautious around desserts bought or baked by/for people who limit their sugar intake, and I don't buy diet soda and read the labels on sugar-free gum. And there was this chewable painkiller once, in which the aspartame did not seem to have accomplished its intended function at all; it was one of the vilest flavors I have ever encountered, whereas aspartame does taste sweet to me, if a little weird. But it's been years since I've had trouble with anything besides a mislabeled soda can/bottle or a waiter accidentally bringing me the wrong thing.

At least, unlike one friend of mine, I don't hallucinate.

So what's the test? I did the taste-test strips back in high school biology, but I think we were just seeing whether we could taste it -- I don't know how we'd have distinguished "bitter" vs. "unbearably bitter and vile" exactly. I mean, surely even if you taste it at a normal level, there's some room for difference in how much you like or dislike it?

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Yeah, that's the word, I think. And I've only seen the warning on products I suspect have aspartame. (Mind you, I've only check on things I suspect are sweetened with aspartame.) If they're labeled as sugar-free, but they don't say what they're sweetened with, I look for the phenylalanine warning and invariably, it's sweetened with aspartame in the ingredient list.

The "home" taste test in the book here says (from page 70 of You On a Diet):

If you're classified as a "supertaster," you tend not to eat fruits and vegetables because they taste very bitter . . . And if you're an "undertaster," you may be more prone to eating (and overeating) sweets because it takes more of a taste to satiate you. By the way, researchers say about 25 percent of us are supertasters, and 25 percent are undertasters, while the rest of us are regular tasters. . . .

The Saccharin Test: Mix one pack of saccharin (Sweet'N Low) into two-thirds of a cup of water; that's about the size of a tennis ball. Now taste the water. You'll probably taste a mix of both bitter and sweet, but see which taste is stronger. If sweet is dominant, then it means you're probably an undertaster, and if bitter is dominant, it means you're probably a supertaster. If it's a tie, you are like half the population, so don't sweat it. To be sure, you may have to do the test more than once to tease out the difference.

The Blue Tongue Test: Wipe a swab of blue food dye on your tongue and see the small circles of pink-colored tissue that polka-dot the newly painted blue canvas. Those are your papillae. Then put a piece of paper--with a 4-mm hole, or the size of a hole punch in a three-ring paper--over your tongue. Using a magnifying glass, count the little pink dots you see in the hole. If you have fewer than five dots, it means you're an undertastser, while more than thirty indicate you're probably a supertaster.

I've not tried either of these tests, but saccharin (unless it's too-too much in my drink) doesn't bother me.

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persephone-kore.livejournal.com

Hmm. OK, the blue-tongue one sounds fun. *g*

I think I've only had saccharin when they used to put it in Trident bubble gum (I think now they use aspartame in everything except cinnamon, and saccharin in that, wonder why?) and never noticed any bitterness. I suspect I'm a relatively normal taster and just don't like bitter. ;)

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Right now, I'm reading a book called The Insulin Resistance Diet. We've also got a book around here that covers the glycemic index diet. And I need to look into borrowing a book or two on low-GI diets in regards to PCOS. I'll see if I can track down the book you mention.

You might recall that I was having horrible complexion problems. One of the things I've discovered over the past year is that if I keep my refined sugar intake to a minimum, the breakouts are much less painful. I still get them, and they still scar (which I hope will fade with time), but they don't wake me in the middle of the night with such pain.

Plus (and I realize that this probably isn't an issue for you :-) ) losing as little as 5% of her BMI can help a woman with PCOS be more likely to conceive.

Honestly, though processed foods have made a wider variety of foods available cheaply to those who need it, I think fast food (and super-sizing) is probably the worst thing to happen to American cuisine and health, like, ever.

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*tries to imagine a life without having to read the ingredients lists of everything she buys at the grocery store*

*epic fail*

Also, keep in mind things like Mercury and Arsenic are also natural. I'm just sayin'. :) I'm curious that Splenda can set off the insulin pathway. I guess the receptors are not keyed to the reversed -OH and -H groups. (Splenda is the mirror image of sugar--same composition, different confirmation. Fools the tastebuds, confuses the digestive system. :)

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kerravonsen

No, according to Wikipedia, it isn't that the -OH and -H groups are reversed, it's that some of them are replaced with -Cl. But yes, I would figure that the receptors aren't keyed to the -Cl groups, but the digestion is confused by the -Cl groups.

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