I just got this as an e-mail this morning.
Friends,
I’ve just heard that companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle and others will be able to claim their products are ‘healthier’ thanks to a new EU regulation on using fructose. But consuming high levels of fructose is a leading cause of obesity around the world.
This decision was made by the EU Food Standards Agency in Parma, Italy. We need to push back on food industry lobbying by demanding the EU Food Standards Agency thinks again.
Can you sign this petition demanding the EU Food Standards Agency thinks again?
http://action.sumofus.org/a/eu-fructose/
So, now, it will be claimed that Coca-Cola is a health food. You really couldn’t make this stuff up, could you? Or if you did you would be accusing of stretching credibility far beyond breaking point.
Anyway, if you feel you can, I would hope that you can sign this petition. It takes about thirty seconds.
For those of you who sometimes feel that big business is now running the world, whilst Governments jerk up and down on their strings. ‘All citizens must now drink Coke for a healthy and fulfilling life…’
“In a way, the world−view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.” 1984
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Done 🙂
Thanks
Those bastards. Signed!
me too – I knew this would happen when it was first announced a few months ago that fructose was going to be introduced into Europe – fructose = fruit! It must be healthy DUH!!
jojo, I am from America, but I signed. We learned back in college (in the 80’s) that the term fructose was just another false label. How could they? Worst…how could we?
Duly signed. It certainly qualifies for this week’s Littlejohn award – You really couldn’t make it up, could you. No matter how hard you try. …..
Thanks
Pleased to! And have passed on.
I am so concerned about sugar and fructose, not to mention medications and the over-use of chemicals in every area of life.
I think we are being manipulated dreadfully by big business; it is as though we are living through the worst period of madness the world has endured.
Signed and shared.
This utter disregard for common sense reminded me of the movie Idiocracy (silly but not great) in which the main character (an under-achiever) is put into suspended animation and when he finally wakes, is now the smartest person alive.
Instead of water, everyone is drinking a soft-drink called Brawndo… which apparently has electrolytes…
In this scene he is advising the presidential advisers, how to solve a problem with their crops…
Coke: I dislike the sweet brown muck, and rather despise any adult who drinks it. But I’m not going to join in the absurd quasi-religion of fructose-bashing. I shall continue to enjoy my honey on toast, thank you.
“it is as though we are living through the worst period of madness the world has endured”: and yet our life spans get longer and longer. It’s a mystery.
Good for you. Fructose is not deadly, of course not, not in reasonable amounts. But the idea that coke can claim it has health benefits is so ridiculous that it must be challenged, and squashed. I would say the reason why our lifespans gets longer and longer is not a mystery in the slightest…… p.s. it has nothing to do with drinking coke. [And if we let big business feel that they can get away with stuff like this, then we are definitely doomed.]
We dont need fructose and I believe in high quantities (without the whole fruit) its a chronic poison. At least with normal table sugar we get half glucose!
Dr. Kendrick, while I know this is a little off the subject, a friend of mine sent me this link today addressing the broad scale use of statins. Australia’s Heart Association has begun to re-think the blind acceptance of statins by so many. It appears their current view that statins are not appropriate for the vast majority of those to whom they are prescribed, represents a huge change of “heart”. It is an overwhelming piece of evidence that shows how your work and that of your like minded “honest” physicians are helping laymen and physicians alike to put the pieces of this puzzle together. This is the first I have heard of a heart association in any nation admitting that statins are over prescribed. It also speaks to the theory that the studies done to prove statins are effective in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease are greatly manipulated. I am sorry it is not totally in line with our subject at hand, but many of your followers would want to see and share this most enlightening piece of video. I have bought and watched Statin Nation I and look forward to the release of Statin Nation II. I encourage all your followers to watch this most important short documentary type film. I do so hope you allow my blog to be published.
Many thanks,
Mary Adair
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3881441.htm
All things in moderation, I agree with Dr. K. Even the French love their sweets. But, French women keep their lovely figures by not over indulging. I love my sweets, too. I just don’t make a habit of scarfing up everything sweet I can get my hands on. If I buy it, I can’t help but eat it so I avoid it. But, I do enjoy it now and again, just like most. We do not have to starve ourselves of the foods we love. We just have to use some self control. I cannot imagine going through life never eating a lovely piece of Belgian chocolate, or delicious piece of cake or cookie. I just don’t make a habit of it. And therein lies the common sense part of our diets. The The one thing I will not buy again is cola’s with our without sugar. At one time, I indulged in cola’s a lot…too much. That I won’t buy again on habit. But, once in a blue moon, I still enjoy it.
In food deserts, like where I live, I can assure Dearieme that life expectancy for men is now 14 years less than the richer suburbs close by.
Some honey is better than others, and I suggest those who like it, do a bit of research into the modern methods of production….I only use minute amounts of unpasteurised honey on the comb (difficult to source these days).
Honey goes hand in hand with many modified fresh and natural foods, when compared to the same foods we ate 50 years ago. Our bodies have not yet evolved to manage these modern variations in the quantities being consumed at the present time; so..it is not only processed foods we ought to be keeping an eye on.
Big business is bamboozling us. Just look at the shopping trolleys in the supermarkets, and the state of the people pushing them….something has gone terribly wrong with our food supply. It is all well and good for those who can strictly control their intake. However, it is quite obvious to me, that such control is not as voluntary a behaviour as the sugar/fructose pushers would have us believe.
“In food deserts, like where I live”: I can’t argue with your particular claim to live in a “food desert” – after all, you may live in Newcastle for all I know – but I did read a BMJ article, perhaps a dozen years ago, that utterly demolished hysterical claims for there being food deserts in many parts of the country, by the authors just visiting those spots and noting the ample shops selling fruit and veg. I liked it: research-by-walking-around.
dearieme, I fear you have swallowed the medical industry’s BS without even thinking about it! if you’re in the UK, go to any really OLD cemetery and read the dates on the headstones! individuals are NOT living longer — it’s the AVERAGE which seems to be getting older, because the huge infant mortality of previous centuries has been reduced. those who died young in the eighteen century were babies and children, women in childbed, men due to warfare and the dangerousness of everyday professions before regards for safety measures were appreciated.
ever pay attention to how many people die these days in their forties and fifties, of cancer and obscure cardiopulmonary problems? in the last four years I’ve lost three friends in that demographic.
NO. the only huge benefit in survival has come via antibiotics — and that is endangered due to their over-use in the meat-production industry!
You are wrong. Life expectancies for people aged 65 have been increasing for decades: that’s a principal reason why final salary pension schemes are being abandoned.
Dearime, life expectancy has increased over the last few decades. However, not by as much as everyone claims. Most people seem incapable of understanding the difference between mean, and median.
It seems the majority of respondents here are anti-fructose, for very sensible reasons. There is a lone voice putting the opposite point of view. I welcome all points of view…..especially when they give me a stimulus to question my own beliefs. Funnily, I still reach the same conclusion. i.e. Modern foods are reducing life quality, even if not expectancy.
Whey aye, man. A’am gannan doon the toon to fetch a pot of guacamole, ( mushy peas to thems who divvent knaa).
Knaa what a mean, bonnie lads and lassies.?
Crazy. Coke *never enters my house, nor any of the sodas – chemicalised furctose. I like honey and eat it, but, only if bio / organic. *Never from industrialised frood mfc. This latest is sheer madness. Thank God I am old and will soon be out of this horrific mess that the world is sinking into – God help the unfortunates that come after who have to pick up the pieces – IF there are any to pick up !
Done.
My late wife of 45 years of togetherness had a penchant for soft and fruit drinks and had those been alcohol she would have been an alcoholic. She also enjoyed foods mostly made from carbohydrates. She got breast cancer and passed away five years later (more probably from the treatment). Naturally I was on the same diet minus the soft drinks.
Incidentally, read that life-expectancy dropped during the last quarter which is the first occasion since statistics have been kept that a drop has been recorded.
Signed but frankly anyone who drinks coke thinking it is healthy deserves everything they get.
“Incidentally, read that life-expectancy dropped during the last quarter which is the first occasion since statistics have been kept that a drop has been recorded.”
do you have a source? People flat out refuse to believe me when we discuss life expectancies.
Signed and shared on facebook. When are our governments going to wake up to the fact that their inaccurate advice on food and health is creating a huge financial burden for everybody. Is the aim really to get the whole population sick? Diabetes rules! They should be banning the stuff, not promoting it as a health food. What sort of scientific advisors do they employ? Presumably bad ones! Or very rich ones paid by the food industry.
Skillful lobbying! And they even managed to twist the wording in such a manner, that they can replace the whole of sucrose with fructose: “In order to bear the claim, glucose and/or sucrose should be replaced by fructose in sugar-sweetened foods or drinks so that the reduction in content of glucose and/or sucrose, in these foods or drinks, is AT LEAST 30 %.”
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:160:0004:0008:EN:PDF
Already got the petition yesterday and signed. Thanks.
Signed.
Fortunately, this may be the last battle won by food industry. The war is not over and there is a glimpse of hope, when big money talks the opposite – see the video and the PDF on this page:
https://www.credit-suisse.com/ch/en/news-and-expertise/topics/health-care.article.html/article/pwp/news-and-expertise/2013/09/en/is-sugar-turning-the-economy-sour.html
Signed and passed on.
Although we’re digressing, its worth pointing out that life expectancy is an average that has risen the last century by greater knowledge, safer child birth, hygiene, clean water, electricity, hospitals, medication (which has now gone too far)……………. Its now being suggested that our childrens generation may well be the first to actually have a lower life expectancy than their parents!?
It is far more likely, considering the dietary advice we have swallowed over the last 40 to 50 years, that it will be those of us born in the post war era, rather than our children, who will be dying earlier than our parents. Hopefully our children, if they follow a diet like that eaten by their grand parents, will not be dying as young as us.
Signed and shared. Thanks for highlighting this.
Malcolm
Art Ayers has written a serendipitous blog entry on Phytochemicals which includes the insight that
“Fructose masquerades as starch by binding to sweet sensors a hundred times more strongly than dextrins. The evolutionary advantage to using fructose to make plants sweet is that it takes much less energy and carbon, and it also poisons insects and microorganisms”
and
“At best, fruit should be converted into juice. The juice should be discarded and the pulp eaten as a source of soluble fiber, pectin, to feed gut flora”.
I imagine that you would appreciate the rest of his post.
Do fizzy drinks damage bone structure too?
Done and shared. Thankyou for the opportunity.
Petition duly signed. Brilliant quote from 1985! If you will permit a quote from the Bible here, I think this one is apt: “…the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened…” Job 3:25. And I suspect it will get worse, if this latest coco cola propaganda is anything to go by. No, you couldn’t make it up, but if it makes money, someone will do, and it looks as though whatever we fear most about the future is very likely to come upon us! As if there wasn’t enough to be wary of, we apparently have to be looking for the most ridiculous possibilities too!
PS I should have noted Art’s blogspot: CoolingInflammation.
I signed. Not sure if it’s ok (to sign an EU petition) as I am in the US, but Coke should not be allowed to do that, not there, not here.
Have signed!
Signed and passed on to friends who will probably do likewise.
I was a teenager in the 60’s but managed to never drink coke or any other fizzy drink – far too sweet even without the aspartame/fructose of today’s new, improved, recipes!
Do use local honey, maple syrup or unrefined sugar occasionally. Prefer real fruit though!
2 more signatures. I do hope all this helps. I’m afraid I’ve got to the point of despair where the powers that be are concerned, but still keep hoping something will change.
It is not just the sugar which is bad enough, but the carbonation is, at least for me, a concern as well. I do not drink anything carbonated. Are people that uninformed? My feeling is their profits are dropping and for good reason. People know the dangers the high sugar content found in all these drinks (39grams for one 10 ounce can generally) along with their addictive qualities. Furthermore, people are beginning to see that aspartame and other fake sweeteners are no better than sugar. It is good to see you Dr. Kendrick take action and get people on board. I like it! Like they say in the rural south, “you are taking that old bull by the horns!”
Thanks,
Mary
It’s not just the sugar, it’s the phosphate- want to see your calcium leach out of your bones? Drink sodas. Ah! Osteo—
Thanks Robin,
I did not know that. I read where carbonation might be one culprit for inflammation commonly seen in blood vessels. But, I guess it makes sense that so many much younger women suffer from Osteopenia and Osteoarthritis these days.
Good Point!!
I have also signed! This is an outrage!
Signed. And reposted to friends.
Done 🙂