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> (i) The food or beverage contains 10 percent or greater of total energy from saturated fat. Interestingly, dairy products like butter are explicitly allowed,

> (i) The food or beverage contains 10 percent or greater of total energy from saturated fat. Interestingly, dairy products like butter are explicitly allowed, despite the fact that 50%+ of its fats are saturated > I'm not a nutritionist, but there are some basics that are braindead simple that don't involve banning Sucralose. I'm in favor of banning artificial sweeteners. Just look at why they are used in animal farming to see why it is a bad idea to randomly add them to human food.

KempyKolibri 1y ago
As I wrote elsewhere: If someone is habitually consuming sugar sweetened beverages, replacing those with ASBs will, the evidence strongly suggests, reduce your risk of obesity and various chronic diseases. We can say "just don't consume either" but we have decades of attempting such policies that shows people don't work that way. Someone who wants to drink a can of coke will drink a can of coke, why would we ban the healthier option?
- chithanh 1y ago
  The evidence actually suggests that soft drink consumption is equally associated with higher all-cause mortality and artificially sweetened is every bit as bad as sugar sweetened. Even when controlling for smoking status, BMI, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478 https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478 It was suggested elsewhere that the primary mechanism for soft drink associated mortality is acidic fluids causing tooth decay, which in turn causes cardiovascular disease. (Bacteria entering the bloodstream through inflamed oral mucosa, and forming plaques along arterial walls.) And the evidence for artificial sweetener benefits on population level is practically non-existent. In fact animal farming points to a detrimental effect.
  - KempyKolibri 1y ago
    You have to be very specific in the intervention you’re either looking at in an RCT or modelling in a prospective cohort study. We wouldn’t expect adding NNSs to a diet to improve much (perhaps some benefit from carbonated ones on body mass). We need to investigate/model replacement of SSBs with NNSs. When we do that we pretty consistently see benefits. Good overview as a response to the WHO position paper here that goes over that evidence base: https://mailchi.mp/b30c80ddf8ba/who-as https://mailchi.mp/b30c80ddf8ba/who-as
    - chithanh 1y ago
      Yes, replacement can work to adjust weight trends in a controlled setting. But all empirical observations so far show that artificial sweeteners in people's diets do not have the desired effect when people's food and beverage intake is uncontrolled. In fact results from animal studies are that you can even substitute part of the feed with just the artificial sweetener to achieve the same body mass gain. And this is known since 1960s with Cyclamate and rats: https://doi.org/10.1038/221091b0 https://doi.org/10.1038/221091b0 More studies in the meantime varied a bit on the size of the effect, and some were inconclusive, but generally the results held up. So no, artificial sweeteners do not help to manage weight. What the studies actually show is that controlling people's intake does.
      - KempyKolibri 1y ago
        Let me get this straight: your epistemic framework is such that when presented with RCTs in humans showing positive effects, observational studies in humans showing null findings (likely because of poor adjustment models) and negative associations in rats, we should conclude “artificially sweetened is every bit as bad as sugar sweetened”?
        chithanh 1y ago
        No. What I say is if we introduce a public health policy, then we need to take human behavior and adherence rates into account. Example: Abstinence is 100% effective against STDs and teenage pregnancy in any controlled setting. That does not make it a good public health policy to tell teenagers to abstain from having sex. In fact despite condoms having lower efficacy than abstinence, teaching people the proper use of condoms is overall more effective. If we want to solve obesity then randomly adding/substituting artificial sweeteners to human food will not work. Instead we need to reduce access to hyperpalatable foods, which can be done through economic means (e.g. taxes).
        KempyKolibri 1y ago
        Ok, so if I understand correctly, your argument is: in order for you to support a public health intervention we need to see evidence that such an intervention results in positive outcomes in a free living population with ad libitum consumption, regardless of the evidence in controlled settings. So what’s the evidence that banning artificial sweeteners leads to positive outcomes in a free living population, considering you said: “I'm in favor of banning artificial sweeteners”?
contrarian1234 1y ago
The fact that you want to ban everything under the umbrella term of "artificial sweeteners" is why I think you have a fundamentally unscientific approach. Your other responses seem to suggest you just have something against sweet things (even when you seem to acknowledge there are other factors at play like acidity and tooth decay) I'm saying this as someone who rarely consumes these things.. > Just look at why they are used in animal farming I don't know anything about the science behind that - so I'm not in a position to judge. Did they try every possible "artificial sweeteners"? How about if there is another one discovered next year? Is it going to be pre-banned even if it doesn't have these drawbacks? These aren't like the same substance tweaked a bit where you're in a endless ratrace with the chemists.
- chithanh 1y ago
  > Your other responses seem to suggest you just have something against sweet things (even when you seem to acknowledge there are other factors at play like acidity and tooth decay) We are talking about school lunches here. Sweet meals are bad (whether sugar or artificially sweetened) as it trains children's palate and shapes lifelong preference for sweet food. Hence I support banning artificial sweeteners as California plans to do. When it comes to sweetened drinks, switching from sugary to artificially sweetened is not empirically shown as beneficial. This is the hurdle that proponents of public health interventions to replace sugar with aritificial sweeteners need to overcome. > Did they try every possible "artificial sweeteners"? The study which I linked in another reply looked at various commercially available artificial sweeteners and some combinations. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14203032 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14203032 This is necessary because not every species' taste receptors respond to every type of sweetener, e.g. rats do not respond to NHDC. > These aren't like the same substance tweaked a bit where you're in a endless ratrace with the chemists. Well it depends on who has the burden of proof that a certain food additive is safe and does not cause undesired long term effects, especially in children.

KempyKolibri 1y ago

As I wrote elsewhere: If someone is habitually consuming sugar sweetened beverages, replacing those with ASBs will, the evidence strongly suggests, reduce your risk of obesity and various chronic diseases. We can say "just don't consume either" but we have decades of attempting such policies that shows people don't work that way. Someone who wants to drink a can of coke will drink a can of coke, why would we ban the healthier option?

chithanh 1y ago
The evidence actually suggests that soft drink consumption is equally associated with higher all-cause mortality and artificially sweetened is every bit as bad as sugar sweetened. Even when controlling for smoking status, BMI, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478 https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478 It was suggested elsewhere that the primary mechanism for soft drink associated mortality is acidic fluids causing tooth decay, which in turn causes cardiovascular disease. (Bacteria entering the bloodstream through inflamed oral mucosa, and forming plaques along arterial walls.) And the evidence for artificial sweetener benefits on population level is practically non-existent. In fact animal farming points to a detrimental effect.
- KempyKolibri 1y ago
  You have to be very specific in the intervention you’re either looking at in an RCT or modelling in a prospective cohort study. We wouldn’t expect adding NNSs to a diet to improve much (perhaps some benefit from carbonated ones on body mass). We need to investigate/model replacement of SSBs with NNSs. When we do that we pretty consistently see benefits. Good overview as a response to the WHO position paper here that goes over that evidence base: https://mailchi.mp/b30c80ddf8ba/who-as https://mailchi.mp/b30c80ddf8ba/who-as
  - chithanh 1y ago
    Yes, replacement can work to adjust weight trends in a controlled setting. But all empirical observations so far show that artificial sweeteners in people's diets do not have the desired effect when people's food and beverage intake is uncontrolled. In fact results from animal studies are that you can even substitute part of the feed with just the artificial sweetener to achieve the same body mass gain. And this is known since 1960s with Cyclamate and rats: https://doi.org/10.1038/221091b0 https://doi.org/10.1038/221091b0 More studies in the meantime varied a bit on the size of the effect, and some were inconclusive, but generally the results held up. So no, artificial sweeteners do not help to manage weight. What the studies actually show is that controlling people's intake does.
    - KempyKolibri 1y ago
      Let me get this straight: your epistemic framework is such that when presented with RCTs in humans showing positive effects, observational studies in humans showing null findings (likely because of poor adjustment models) and negative associations in rats, we should conclude “artificially sweetened is every bit as bad as sugar sweetened”?
      - chithanh 1y ago
        No. What I say is if we introduce a public health policy, then we need to take human behavior and adherence rates into account. Example: Abstinence is 100% effective against STDs and teenage pregnancy in any controlled setting. That does not make it a good public health policy to tell teenagers to abstain from having sex. In fact despite condoms having lower efficacy than abstinence, teaching people the proper use of condoms is overall more effective. If we want to solve obesity then randomly adding/substituting artificial sweeteners to human food will not work. Instead we need to reduce access to hyperpalatable foods, which can be done through economic means (e.g. taxes).
        KempyKolibri 1y ago
        Ok, so if I understand correctly, your argument is: in order for you to support a public health intervention we need to see evidence that such an intervention results in positive outcomes in a free living population with ad libitum consumption, regardless of the evidence in controlled settings. So what’s the evidence that banning artificial sweeteners leads to positive outcomes in a free living population, considering you said: “I'm in favor of banning artificial sweeteners”?

contrarian1234 1y ago

The fact that you want to ban everything under the umbrella term of "artificial sweeteners" is why I think you have a fundamentally unscientific approach. Your other responses seem to suggest you just have something against sweet things (even when you seem to acknowledge there are other factors at play like acidity and tooth decay) I'm saying this as someone who rarely consumes these things.. > Just look at why they are used in animal farming I don't know anything about the science behind that - so I'm not in a position to judge. Did they try every possible "artificial sweeteners"? How about if there is another one discovered next year? Is it going to be pre-banned even if it doesn't have these drawbacks? These aren't like the same substance tweaked a bit where you're in a endless ratrace with the chemists.

chithanh 1y ago
> Your other responses seem to suggest you just have something against sweet things (even when you seem to acknowledge there are other factors at play like acidity and tooth decay) We are talking about school lunches here. Sweet meals are bad (whether sugar or artificially sweetened) as it trains children's palate and shapes lifelong preference for sweet food. Hence I support banning artificial sweeteners as California plans to do. When it comes to sweetened drinks, switching from sugary to artificially sweetened is not empirically shown as beneficial. This is the hurdle that proponents of public health interventions to replace sugar with aritificial sweeteners need to overcome. > Did they try every possible "artificial sweeteners"? The study which I linked in another reply looked at various commercially available artificial sweeteners and some combinations. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14203032 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14203032 This is necessary because not every species' taste receptors respond to every type of sweetener, e.g. rats do not respond to NHDC. > These aren't like the same substance tweaked a bit where you're in a endless ratrace with the chemists. Well it depends on who has the burden of proof that a certain food additive is safe and does not cause undesired long term effects, especially in children.