Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

[Murphie]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Hey, I live in a rough neighborhood.

[Gobo]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

You can get your coke at the store... And it's cut with sugar? Damn. I need to get me a new dealer.


(Well I thought it was funny.)

As I drug chemist (o.k. intern :< ), that made me give a snort of fondness.

Also, just an FYI for the whole UV thing. There is a process in the body that requires UV to fix a certain DNA mutation (Two Ts on the same side of the strand forming H-bonds with each other rather than the As on the other strand). Just some sugar for your tea.

[Armando]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Cane Sugar is by and large a marketing thing because it is not the primary source of sugar (that would be vegetables like sugar beets for industrial uses) but looks very good to say 'we're made with real sugar'. Jones Soda in the US flaunts its use of Real Cane sugar while the Throwback products from Pepsi simply say sugar, probably sourced from much cheaper beet sugar.

Was not aware of this. Back in the day, before the US took over, Puerto Rico was pretty big on the cane sugar export, so to me cane sugar has always been synonymous with "real sugar." I'm sure those were different times though, we're talking about Spanish colonial era here.

[Icemage]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Re: Sugars

As far as I am aware, high fructose corn syrup is primarily water + glucose + fructose. All of which are naturally-occurring organic configurations.

For that matter, this whole "natural things are obviously better for you than synthetic" is a load of garbage too. Poison ivy is a natural plant, and it's obviously not much good for you. Most of the drugs that people abuse are, too, in some form.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be healthier, but a little perspective helps to filter out the New Age mumbo-jumbo and reactionary pseudo-science.


Icemage

[DakAttack]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

As I drug chemist (o.k. intern :< ), that made me give a snort of fondness.

Also, just an FYI for the whole UV thing. There is a process in the body that requires UV to fix a certain DNA mutation (Two Ts on the same side of the strand forming H-bonds with each other rather than the As on the other strand). Just some sugar for your tea.

I doubt you can fix a mutation with more mutations.

[Infinite Dreamz]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

You two realize there's a difference between being near equipment that uses electromagnetic waves for communication and devices that simply use electricity for power...right?

Yes i got it...

[Mhurron]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Was not aware of this. Back in the day, before the US took over, Puerto Rico was pretty big on the cane sugar export, so to me cane sugar has always been synonymous with "real sugar." I'm sure those were different times though, we're talking about Spanish colonial era here.

High-fructose corn syrup - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In the U.S., HFCS is among the sweeteners that have primarily replaced sucrose (table sugar) in the food industry. Factors for this include governmental production quotas of domestic sugar, subsidies of U.S. corn, and an import tariff on foreign sugar; all of which combine to raise the price of sucrose to levels above those of the rest of the world, making HFCS less costly for many sweetener applications"

As far as cane sugar being the real sugar in places like Puerto Rico, that's to be expected. Grow it and process it locally and you cut costs, beets would most likely have to be imported. Sugar cane, of course, doesn't really like the climate of the lower 48 but sugar beet does grow, so for production in the continental US you have more sugar beet that doesn't have to be imported.

[Etra]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

I doubt you can fix a mutation with more mutations.

Totally not what he said at all.

[DieselBoy09]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

I had a super long post and this thing logged me out after attempted to submit. I give up.

Let me sum up:
Synthetic vs. natural is all bs. A molecule is a molecule.
High fructose corn syrup is simply fructose, a sugar, common in fruit especially and enter glycolysis and TCA to be broken down by the body like other sugars.
Food dye is most likely not a source of problems in moderation as most scientific studies have concluded.
Artificial sweeteners can be a problem since they are not usually like sugar molecules in structure and some have been shown to cause problems in studies, but it should be noted, moderation is usually a key. If you want to be safe use Splenda which is a sugar like molecule that is not absorbed by the body and simply passes through in waste.

If you are curious about seeking knowledge, check your local college for courses such as chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and biology courses such as toxicology, microbiology, pharmacology and cell biology.

---------- Post added at 07:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:04 PM ----------

Also, its odd for an enzyme to use UV to fix T-T pairs, considering that UV can cause C-C miss pairs to become the T-T miss pair, which is often a problem seen in nonfunctional p53 genes. I'll look around to see if I could find what you're talking about, but in the mean time, I would be interested in reading what you are talking about if you happen to know the source.

---------- Post added at 07:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ----------

Photolyase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is this what you were talking about? Stating UV is what activates it is a little bit of an overstatement. It is more so energy from the upper level of the visible light spectrum, bordering the very low energy end of UV rays.

---------- Post added at 07:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 PM ----------

I doubt you can fix a mutation with more mutations.

Actually! You could. But since mutation is random, it is against the odds.

[Gobo]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Yeah that's it! I learned it from my UG microbio class, so it was likely dumbed down...a lot. I stand corrected in my statement then. That's what I get for talking out of my discipline. :p

Diesel, correct me if I am wrong, but only 2% of our DNA is our genes? The other 98ish% is just junk? So a mutation would have to happen in that 2%, be bad enough that it alters the amino acid that base(s) codes for and go undetected by the bodies natural defensive systems?


The body doesn't use Spenda because 3 of the hydroxyl groups on the sugar have been replaced with chlorides. (but there are calories in the dextrose and maltodextrin used as bulking agents. It's about 3, which in the US is legally allowed to be called 0.)

[DieselBoy09]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Yeah that's it! I learned it from my UG microbio class, so it was likely dumbed down...a lot. I stand corrected in my statement then. That's what I get for talking out of my discipline. :p

Diesel, correct me if I am wrong, but only 2% of our DNA is our genes? The other 98ish% is just junk? So a mutation would have to happen in that 2%, be bad enough that it alters the amino acid that base(s) codes for and go undetected by the bodies natural defensive systems?

Hey, none of us can quote stuff 100% accurately, at least you were in the relative ballpark. . And to be honest with you, I completely forgot about it till you were talking about correcting T-T pairs, just the UV seemed wrong to me because UV kills all organic matter. As for the junk DNA. Yeah... they consider about two percent to be exons now and the rest to be "junk" DNA or introns, at least in eukaryotes. However, I wouldn't say they're really junk. The original thought was that they were all simply spliced out and served no function, but they're starting to find evidence that they serve at least some function that we're not completely sure about. Proposed functions have including things such as stabilizing the DNA or chromosomes, allowing proper wrapping around histones, alternative splicing, etc... So in time hopefully they'll better understand their functionality if one does truly exist. As for the mutation, to be honest with you, I'm not sure. I'm sure if a mutation greatly alters the sequence of a intron, it could potentially lead to its expression, but don't quote me on that. Also, just cause a mutation alters the code, certain amino acids have similar properties, and so even if a mutation occurs, as long as it doesn't mess up the products properties, it could still render a somewhat functional product. Also, a single mutation in a single cell isn't necessarily a problem because they cell can either undergo apoptosis if it is that bad, or it dies on its own due to unfunctional proteins, or in a worst case scenario the cell can become cancerous and either be killed by the immune system or of course proliferate to become a problem. However, a single mutation is not really going to be a big problem and as you mentioned, can be rectified in a number of ways. Its only with age that mutations can really accumulate and cause serious problems... unless of course your genes were messed up from inception.

[Empedocles]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

This thread reminds me of this:

[DakAttack]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

Hey, none of us can quote stuff 100% accurately, at least you were in the relative ballpark. . And to be honest with you, I completely forgot about it till you were talking about correcting T-T pairs, just the UV seemed wrong to me because UV kills all organic matter. As for the junk DNA. Yeah... they consider about two percent to be exons now and the rest to be "junk" DNA or introns, at least in eukaryotes. However, I wouldn't say they're really junk. The original thought was that they were all simply spliced out and served no function, but they're starting to find evidence that they serve at least some function that we're not completely sure about. Proposed functions have including things such as stabilizing the DNA or chromosomes, allowing proper wrapping around histones, alternative splicing, etc... So in time hopefully they'll better understand their functionality if one does truly exist. As for the mutation, to be honest with you, I'm not sure. I'm sure if a mutation greatly alters the sequence of a intron, it could potentially lead to its expression, but don't quote me on that. Also, just cause a mutation alters the code, certain amino acids have similar properties, and so even if a mutation occurs, as long as it doesn't mess up the products properties, it could still render a somewhat functional product. Also, a single mutation in a single cell isn't necessarily a problem because they cell can either undergo apoptosis if it is that bad, or it dies on its own due to unfunctional proteins, or in a worst case scenario the cell can become cancerous and either be killed by the immune system or of course proliferate to become a problem. However, a single mutation is not really going to be a big problem and as you mentioned, can be rectified in a number of ways. Its only with age that mutations can really accumulate and cause serious problems... unless of course your genes were messed up from inception.

You sound stupid and smart at the same time.

[Takelli]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

This thread reminds me of this:

Hahahahaha.... I am saving this. Made me laugh so hard I had tears. XD

[DieselBoy09]

Re: Food dyes are bad! (Poison)

You sound stupid and smart at the same time.

Offensive and complimentary at the same time. Would you care to explain?