Examining Natural Cereal Ingredients: Sugar-loaded

UPDATE: 27 August - 

Coming soon, the wheat revolution: Scientists DNA breakthrough paves the way for cheaper bread

By Paul Bentley

 27th August 2010

A vital crop: The breakthrough means new super strains of wheat could be created, with growers about to filter poor quality seeds

British scientists have cracked the genetic code for wheat – paving the way for a new breed of crops resistant to disease.
The experts will today share the map of the wheat genome online for free, allowing growers around the world to develop super strains of the crop.
The development could also lead to massively increased production – and in turn lower bread prices.
But last night there were fears the breakthrough could open the doors to genetically modified 'Frankenstein foods' as scientists will now be able to manipulate the wheat DNA.
The mapped genome will also allow growers to identify weaknesses, filtering out poor quality seeds.
It is hoped new breeds of crops will be producing higher wheat yields in as little as five years' time.
This could mean a significant reduction in the price of bread and greater food security in the developing world.
It is estimated that world food production will have to increase by 50 per cent over the next 40 years to feed the rising population.
Wheat yield is also of particular concern this summer because of the failure of the harvest in Russia.

Professor Neil Hall, a genome scientist at Liverpool University – one of three research centres to carry out the study – said the breakthrough would increase wheat production dramatically.
'A process that now takes five or six years will take one or two years,' he said.
'It is quite possible that in five years' time a loaf of bread will be cheaper because of this.' 
Professor Keith Edwards, from Bristol University, said the findings were highly significant.
'In a short space of time we have delivered most of the sequences necessary for plant breeders to identify genetic differences in wheat,' he said.

Cheaper: The price of bread could fall if the new wheat leads to increased production, while also improving food security in the third world

'The public release of the data will dramatically increase the efficiency of breeding new crop varieties.'
Over the past decade wheat yields have hit a plateau, failing to keep up with increased demand, largely because of constantly evolving diseases.
Professor Hall said: 'It is estimated that in Europe, productivity needs to double to keep pace with demand and to maintain stable prices.
'We need to start breeding new varieties of wheat that will be important in five or ten years' time.'
But Professor Hall warned that 'nature may not be enough' and that 'genetic modification will also be necessary to boost yields'.
The decoding of the wheat genome was completed in less than a year by the British scientists.
The research project cost £1.8million and was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
'Sequencing the human genome took 15 years . . . but with huge advances in DNA technology, the wheat genome took only a year,' Professor Hall said.

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I am not a big fan of cold cereal.  Mostly I dislike the fact that it is about pure carb, and not the slow-digesting kind.   These days you have to watch out for GMO ingredients, additives, colorings, and so many more unneeded components. Even worse has been the longtime usage in the majority of these products of HFCS and even toxic artificial sweeteners.

What is even worse is the application of the sugaring of alleged "natural" products sold in your health store or that section in your supermarket.

Here's a story that warmed my belly this morning; obviously someone else shares my concerns.

Kashi is a high end food brand, with an impressive number of cereals in its lineup. It was founded in 1984 in Southern California and acquired by Kellogg’s in 2000. The company advertises their products as “natural”, containing a blend of seven whole grains and sesame. There is a strong emphasis on high protein and fiber content.So is Kashi a good start to the day? We decided to check out an exemplar – Kashi GoLean Crunch…

Make sure you start label reading, it is a good habit to develop if you want healthy food for you, your kids, or your family.

And don't overlook the use of soy and canola! Problematic even is alleged to be "organic".

The Better Benefits of Nutrition

As the new DSM manual, used to establish insurance billing guidelines for the most part, is under development it seems likely that nutritional care for mental health and addiction disorder will most likely continue to be ignored. 

It is unfortunate that this researcher did not continue research utilizing nutritional therapy to see how improved nutrition supports mood and health.

Usually sweet cravings are indicative of deficiency in B vitamins and in many cases, protein as well.

At CHI we think it is better to treat nutritionally than rely on carcinogenic-benzene-fluoride containing antidepressants.

Sweet tooth 'hints at depression'

While most children like sweets, those with an extra-sweet tooth may be depressed or at higher risk of future alcohol problems, researchers say.
The US team report in the journal Addiction that certain children are especially drawn to very sweet tastes.
These were children who had a close relative with an alcohol problem or who themselves had symptoms of depression.
But it is unclear if the preference for the very sweet is down to genuine chemical differences or upbringing.

The researchers say sweet taste and alcohol trigger many of the same reward circuits in the brain.

“ It may be that even higher levels of sweetness are needed to make depressed children feel better ”
Lead researcher Julie Mennella

Lead author Julie Mennella said: "We know that sweet taste is rewarding to all kids and makes them feel good.
"In addition, certain groups of children may be especially attracted to the intense sweetness due to their underlying biology."
Experts say alcoholics tend to have a sweet tooth.
But the link is less clear in children. Other US researchers have shown that a preference for the sweetest drinks was found in the ones undergoing growth spurts.
In the latest study, the scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center asked 300 children aged five to 12, of whom half had a family member with alcohol dependency, to taste five sweet water drinks containing different amounts of sugar.
The children were asked to say which tasted the best and were also asked questions to check for depressive symptoms.
A quarter had symptoms that the researchers believed suggested they might be depressed.
Sweet tooth
Liking for intense sweetness was greatest in the 37 children who had both a family history of alcoholism and reported depressive symptoms.

“ The taste difference may be explained by differences like parental control over sweet consumption ”
Taste expert Professor Tim Jacob

These children preferred the drink containing the most sugar - 24% sucrose, which is equivalent to about 14 teaspoons of sugar in a cup of water and more than twice the level of sweetness in a typical cola.
This was a third more intense than the sweetness level preferred by the other children.
The researchers then decided to test whether the children's taste difference had any impact on their reaction to pain or discomfort - past studies have suggested sweets may help act as analgesics as well as mood lifters.
They found non-depressed children were able to tolerate keeping their hands in very cold water for longer if they had a sugar hit.
However, the extra sugar did nothing to the depressed children's pain threshold.
Cardiff University's Professor Tim Jacob, an expert in smell and taste, said the findings were interesting, but that it was hard to make firm conclusions or generalisations from one study alone.
He said the findings could be down to brain chemistry, but might also be explained by behaviour and upbringing.
"While it is true that sweet things activate reward circuits in the brain, the problem is that sweets and sugar are addictive, because the activation of these reward circuits causes opioid release, and with time more is needed to achieve the same effect.
"But the taste difference may be explained by differences like parental control over sweet consumption."

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8506758.stm
Published: 2010/02/10 © BBC MMX

Soft Drinks and Pancreatic Cancer

Most soda today is made with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and it seems as if this, along with the very toxic artificial sweeteners used in soda, causes many health problems often not discussed in the media.  It comes as no surprise that soda consumption can lead to this serious disease.  However, don't overlook the use of green tea and risk of pancreatic cancer.

Most HFCS is made from GMO corn and this genetic modification may also be a contributing factor.

The better news is that there are things you can do for pancreatic health, and also for pancreatic cancer naturally.

See also: www.leaflady.org/sweet_but_not_so_innocent.htm
www.leaflady.org/fructose.htm
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/dangers-of-hfcs.html

Monday Feb 8,2010 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.
People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.
Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.
"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," Pereira said in a statement.
Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.
Writing in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Pereira and colleagues said they followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years.
Over that time, 140 of the volunteers developed pancreatic cancer. Those who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 percent higher risk of being among those who got pancreatic cancer.
Pereira said he believed the findings would apply elsewhere.
"Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries," he said.
But Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University in Connecticut was cautious.
"Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not," said Mayne, who serves on the board of the journal, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for."
Other studies have linked pancreatic cancer to red meat, especially burned or charred meat.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with 230,000 cases globally. In the United States, 37,680 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in a year and 34,290 die of it.
The American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is about 5 percent.
Some researchers believe high sugar intake may fuel some forms of cancer, although the evidence has been contradictory. Tumor cells use more glucose than other cells.
One 12-ounce (355 ml) can of non-diet soda contains about 130 calories, almost all of them from sugar.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100208/hl_nm/us_cancer_pancreas_sodas/print