Now here’s something you wouldn’t expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself?

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

Does this mean that you’d have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named “vitaminwater,” a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?

Or does it mean that it’s okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?

In fact, the product is basically sugar-water, to which about a penny’s worth of synthetic vitamins have been added. And the amount of sugar is not trivial. A bottle of vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar, making it more akin to a soft drink than to a healthy beverage.

Is any harm being done by this marketing ploy? After all, some might say consumers are at least getting some vitamins, and there isn’t as much sugar in vitaminwater as there is in regular Coke.

True. But about 35 percent of Americans are now considered medically obese. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. Health experts tend to disagree about almost everything, but they all concur that added sugars play a key role in the obesity epidemic, a problem that now leads to more medical costs than smoking.

How many people with weight problems have consumed products like vitaminwater in the mistaken belief that the product was nutritionally positive and carried no caloric consequences? How many have thought that consuming vitaminwater was a smart choice from a weight-loss perspective? The very name “vitaminwater” suggests that the product is simply water with added nutrients, disguising the fact that it’s actually full of added sugar.

The truth is that when it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be even more important than what you eat. Americans now get nearly 25 percent of their calories from liquids. In 2009, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finding that the quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is to cut down on liquid calorie consumption. And the best way to do that is to reduce or eliminate beverages that contain added sugar.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in its vitaminwater line, paying basketball stars, including Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, to appear in ads that emphatically state that these products are a healthy way for consumers to hydrate. When Lebron James held his much ballyhooed TV special to announce his decision to join the Miami Heat, many corporations paid millions in an attempt to capitalize on the event. But it was vitaminwater that had the most prominent role throughout the show.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, alleges that vitaminwater labels and advertising are filled with “deceptive and unsubstantiated claims.” In his recent 55-page ruling, Federal Judge John Gleeson (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York), wrote, “At oral arguments, defendants (Coca-Cola) suggested that no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitamin water was a healthy beverage.” Noting that the soft drink giant wasn’t claiming the lawsuit was wrong on factual grounds, the judge wrote that, “Accordingly, I must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true.”

I still can’t get over the bizarre audacity of Coke’s legal case. Forced to defend themselves in court, they are acknowledging that vitaminwater isn’t a healthy product. But they are arguing that advertising it as such isn’t false advertising, because no could possibly believe such a ridiculous claim.

I guess that’s why they spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising the product, saying it will keep you “healthy as a horse,” and will bring about a “healthy state of physical and mental well-being.”

Why do we allow companies like Coca-Cola to tell us that drinking a bottle of sugar water with a few added water-soluble vitamins is a legitimate way to meet our nutritional needs?

Here’s what I suggest: If you’re looking for a healthy and far less expensive way to hydrate, try drinking water. If you want to flavor the water you drink, try adding the juice of a lemon and a small amount of honey or maple syrup to a quart of water. Another alternative is to mix one part lemonade or fruit juice to three or four parts water. Or drink green tea, hot or chilled, adding lemon and a small amount of sweetener if you like. If you want to jazz it up, try one-half fruit juice, one-half carbonated water.

If your tap water tastes bad or you suspect it might contain lead or other contaminants, get a water filter that fits under the sink or attaches to the tap.

And it’s probably not the best idea to rely on a soft drink company for your vitamins and other essential nutrients. A plant-strong diet with lots of vegetables and fruits will provide you with what you need far more reliably, far more consistently — and far more honestly.

Resveratrol, an ingredient in Yoli “Truth”, has been shown to possibly prevent aging and increase vitality!

We all know that obesity is one of the most alarming health issues people across the world are experiencing. Today, resveratrol supplements are used as an effective weight loss tool. As a matter of fact, it’s one amongst the leading weight loss supplements out there in the market. It works by increasing our metabolism rate. Increase in metabolism rate helps an individual to burn fat at a faster rate, thereby leading to weight loss.

Besides weight loss, aging is one of the bothersome issues that we are currently engulfed with. As such, aging is a natural process, but we hate to admit this reality of life, considering the fact that we live in an image conscious world, where everyone wants to look and feel good all the time. Coming to resveratrol, it works as an anti-aging tool as well. This is welcoming news for all those people who are spending a fortune on anti-aging products. CLICK HERE TO SEARCH FOR PUB MED RESULTS

Luckily, Yoli has placed resveratrol into it’s flag ship product “Truth”. Could the truth prevent some effects of aging? Only time will tell.

Several researches have concluded that resveratrol halts the aging process to a great degree, due to its natural health beneficial properties. While these studies were mainly concluded on animals, one can’t defy real life experiences. You will find many individuals out there singing praises about resveratrol. In fact, resveratrol was also discussed in one of the most popular television show featured by Orphan Winfrey.

Only a short time before the conception of Yoli, resveratrol was stumbled upon by scientists looking for a way to activate the anti aging gene. Surprisingly, resveratrol (up until just recently) was known to have high concentrations in red wine. However, in order to receive the benefits of resveratrol from the red wine, you would have to consume up to or around 1,000 glasses of red wine in a single day.

WHO WANTS TO DRINK 1,000 GLASSES OF WINE DAILY?

Now I don’t know about you but  thoughts like that could have when mentioned in public, have you skipping and jumping or even stumbling  your way to some AA meetings.

One of the recent studies also unveiled the fact that it can boost one’s endurance level. Boost in energy is a certain bonus, even if you are taking the supplement to reduce your body weight.

Let there be no doubt, resveratrol could be a house hold name in the near future. How would you prefer to catch this wave of opportunity? Would you want to be in the front of the wave ready to ride it as your ship comes in, or would you rather say “I saw it coming in and side stepped it”.

Don’t let this be a coulda shoulda woulda kinda moment.

READ FULL STORY HERE.

Network Marketing Online – Knowing the Mechanics

Getting started with online marketing is more of a learning process than a jump in and do it over night kinda thing. You might be experiencing some of the same problems that allot of us do in the beginning; lack of leads, lack of money, lack of marketing training and lack of duplication. Not the “L word” you want…

Fortunately, I’ve experienced most of those issus myself and have even spent thousands of hours and dollars learning what it takes to figure out all of it. What I had to do is dive deeper by educating myself and learned some of the basic principals of how marketing online actually works and it helped me fit all pieces together. Understanding the mechanics of how it all fits together is part of the “magic”. Knowing these fundamental principals when your’re starting out can help cut the confusion and move you forward to build a solid foundation in your business.

Here are five key elements to building a business online.

1) You need a customized lead capture page (goYoli). Having a customized capture page with your own video or picture along with proper text tells your prospect about you, people want to know who you are before they do business with you. This along with your sales funnel has to be in place before you can start to market and build your business because capturing your prospects information is how your going to build your business.

2) Next is knowing how to market and leverage your business online. There are a lot of effective ways to market online choose one or two methods to start and stick with them until you have mastered them. When you hop around from method to method you really never get good at any of them. Work on building your list of prospects that have gone to your capture page. Its all about building your list and your relationship with the people on it. You can start to do this by sending your prospects valuable marketing information by using the preset Warm Market Wizard already positioned in the back office for you.

3) The Funded Proposal System: Having a funded proposal system will help you pay for your monthly business expenses and help the people on your list build their business with valuable marketing resources that you offer. Over the past several weeks, we’ve discussed using our own product to continue the friends and family campaign.

4) Training Platform: Once you have people in your organization you wont have time to train everyone everything personally. Having the duplicatable training platform provided for you in the goyoli back office, you can leverage your resources and time that will take some of the work load off of you. Plus we can give our team access to some of the best training in the industry over our weekly webinars.

5) Utilize the tools provided for you.When people have come to your business funnel, introducing them to your Primary opportunity will be more natural. Most people are interested and actually ask you questions about it first. How cool is that? Make sure to use the Yoli Kiss System and pair it up with the F.O.R.M method of communication and you’re already set to win.

Learning how to grow your MLM Home Business online can feel like information overload sometimes. It takes time and persistence, knowing how to network and leverage the internet the right way you will build a strong foundation in your business.

For advanced training, make sure to make it to our team training on thursday nights.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

What Is The Difference?

As expected, Yoli corporate has given us another wonderful tool that will save us some time on the “What is the difference again?” question.

You an locate this inside of your Yoli back office and also order them from the Yolitools website.

“We are excited to share that the much anticipated Yoli Drink Comparison Chart is now available! Now you can easily communicate the huge advantages drinking Yoli has over other liquid beverages both quickly and duplicably, with your prospects and customers.

Download the chart today and start sharing it everywhere including Facebook, Twitter and your contact list. Soon, this chart will also be available at YoliTools.com in printed form in a tear-off type pad that will serve as an extremely cost effective way to share this new powerful resource offline as well!”

-Yoli Blog

Don’t forget to check out our NEW TEAM SITE.

WHEN SODA companies applaud the latest campaign to fight obesity, you know there is much more to the story.

In launching a new White House initiative against obesity called “Let’s Move,’’ First Lady Michelle Obama this week said, “Our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids don’t decide what’s served to them at school or whether there’s time for gym or recess. Our kids don’t choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions, and then to have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn.’’ Instead of taking these comments as fighting words, the obesity industry feigned being an amen choir.

PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association both applauded Obama. The Association promised more clear calorie information on bottles and cans. Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent said, “We are honored to play a role in this important action. We are going to be seen as part of the solution.’’

A key source of the obesity problem now claims to be part of the solution, in the spirit of beer companies and cigarette companies claiming marquee roles in solving underage drinking and smoking.

But the laudable intentions of one of the fittest First Families in the nation’s history are in danger of being drowned out by the laughter of trash food companies. The reason they can applaud the Obamas is because they have purchased so much silence everywhere else.

The American Beverage Association and Coke entities spent $31 million in lobbying last year, much of it to shoot down taxes on sugary beverages at federal and state levels. The association had a $2 million ad campaign against taxes, which public health experts calculate would cut consumption and contribute revenues to public health programs to repair the damage done to the nation’s health by soda.

A UCLA study last year found that 43 percent of the additional calories Americans have been consuming since the 1970s come from soda, making it the top source of added sugar in the national diet. Whereas the recommended amount of sugar per person is 5-to-9 teaspoons a day, one 20-ounce soda contains 17 teaspoons. Last fall, President Obama said soda taxes are “an idea we should be exploring. There’s no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda.’’

But the soda companies’ cash and clout ended the talk about federal taxes. The Los Angeles Times reported last week on how pressure and cash from the nation’s trash food and fast food giants and subsidiary companies have influenced Latino groups, including doctors, and African American politicians – including Representative John Lewis, who represents the Atlanta district where Coke is headquartered – to question food taxes as a burden on the poor (as if dying from diabetes and heart disease isn’t worse). Coke itself likens the taxes to a Communist control of grocery carts.

Another reason the soda companies cynically applaud Michelle Obama is because they are replacing any calorie conscious Americans with unsuspecting consumers in developing countries. Coke has a stated goal of doubling its servings to 3 billion a day by 2020. Coke’s unit case volume in the last quarter was up 29 percent in China and 20 percent in India, the latter of which is experiencing one of the biggest explosions of diabetes in the world. Pepsi claimed 32 percent beverage growth in India in 2009 and double-digit gains in snack volume in India, Pakistan, Egypt and Thailand.

This of course should not stop Michelle Obama from trying to raise some awareness about obesity and get whatever voluntary industry pledges she can to better label soda and increase school-lunch nutrition. But under current politics, those efforts pale against the profits that are turning America’s obesity crisis into a global public health disaster.

The “Let’s Move’’ campaign has the potential to become a movement, but only when the trash food and sugar sugar lobby can no longer throw its weight around Capitol Hill, applauding Michelle Obama’s efforts while weighing down our children with more pounds today and more disease tomorrow.

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

Princeton University research team, including (from left) undergraduate Elyse Powell, psychology professor Bart Hoebel, visiting research associate Nicole Avena and graduate student Miriam Bocarsly…

“has demonstrated that rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup — a sweetener found in many popular sodas — gain significantly more weight than those with access to water sweetened with table sugar, even when they consume the same number of calories.”

The work may have important implications for understanding obesity trends in the United States. (Photo: Denise Applewhite)

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true, at least under the conditions of our tests,” said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. “When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”
In results published online March 18 by the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, the researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute reported on two experiments investigating the link between the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity.

The first study showed that male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow gained much more weight than male rats that received water sweetened with table sugar, or sucrose, in conjunction with the standard diet. The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.

The second experiment — the first long-term study of the effects of high-fructose corn syrup consumption on obesity in lab animals — monitored weight gain, body fat and triglyceride levels in rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup over a period of six months. Compared to animals eating only rat chow, rats on a diet rich in high-fructose corn syrup showed characteristic signs of a dangerous condition known in humans as the metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides and augmented fat deposition, especially visceral fat around the belly. Male rats in particular ballooned in size: Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet.

“These rats aren’t just getting fat; they’re demonstrating characteristics of obesity, including substantial increases in abdominal fat and circulating triglycerides,” said Princeton graduate student Miriam Bocarsly. “In humans, these same characteristics are known risk factors for high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes.” In addition to Hoebel and Bocarsly, the research team included Princeton undergraduate Elyse Powell and visiting research associate Nicole Avena, who was affiliated with Rockefeller University during the study and is now on the faculty at the University of Florida. The Princeton researchers note that they do not know yet why high-fructose corn syrup fed to rats in their study generated more triglycerides, and more body fat that resulted in obesity.

High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both compounds that contain the simple sugars fructose and glucose, but there at least two clear differences between them. First, sucrose is composed of equal amounts of the two simple sugars — it is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose — but the typical high-fructose corn syrup used in this study features a slightly imbalanced ratio, containing 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Larger sugar molecules called higher saccharides make up the remaining 3 percent of the sweetener. Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.

This creates a fascinating puzzle. The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered, but may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles.

In the 40 years since the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup as a cost-effective sweetener in the American diet, rates of obesity in the U.S. have skyrocketed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1970, around 15 percent of the U.S. population met the definition for obesity; today, roughly one-third of the American adults are considered obese, the CDC reported. High-fructose corn syrup is found in a wide range of foods and beverages, including fruit juice, soda, cereal, bread, yogurt, ketchup and mayonnaise. On average, Americans consume 60 pounds of the sweetener per person every year.

“Our findings lend support to the theory that the excessive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup found in many beverages may be an important factor in the obesity epidemic,” Avena said.

The new research complements previous work led by Hoebel and Avena demonstrating that sucrose can be addictive, having effects on the brain similar to some drugs of abuse.

In the future, the team intends to explore how the animals respond to the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in conjunction with a high-fat diet — the equivalent of a typical fast-food meal containing a hamburger, fries and soda — and whether excessive high-fructose corn syrup consumption contributes to the diseases associated with obesity. Another step will be to study how fructose affects brain function in the control of appetite.

The research was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service. ]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/www.blastcapsdrink.com/blog/p=744 0 http://www.blastcapsdrink.com/blog/yoli-fuels-the-oc-crossfit-throwndown-in-orange-county-ca/ http://www.blastcapsdrink.com/blog/yoli-fuels-the-oc-crossfit-throwndown-in-orange-county-ca/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:02:18 +0000 Yoli Blast Caps Drink Expert http://www.blastcapsdrink.com/blog/?p=723

Yoli was a huge hit at the OC Throwdown in Orange County, CA.  This was a CrossFit competition.  Hundreds of athletes were consuming Yoli throughout the day.

Check out some of the footage from the event below…(watch closely for a couple of Yoli sightings in the the competition area.

Scotty “The Blast Cap King” Lawrence represented Yoli in the masters division at the event. He tied for 1st place in his division. I think the 4 Yoli Truths per day had something to do with his win…

Here a few photos of the many athletes and CrossFit enthusiasts that were enjoying Yoli.  They were all looking forward to getting their hands on some Yoli Fun Sports Blast Drinks…

Scott and I had a great time and I was able to meet so many wonderful people at the event.  Scott and I plan to continue to use CrossFit events to share Yoli with the masses.  They certainly love it.  It should be even more exciting once we can get our hands on Yoli Fun the new Sports Drink.

After attending this competition, I fell in love with CrossFit.  I’m going to start training this way in 2010.  Awesome fun!

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Scientists have proved for the first time that fructose, a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis.

Fructose, a sweetener usually derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems

This study takes its place in a growing lineup of scientific studies demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all it’s myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll.
And fructose in any form — including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose — is the worst of the worst!

Fructose is a major contributor to:

•    Insulin resistance and obesity
•    Elevated blood pressure
•    Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
•    Depletion of vitamins and minerals
•    Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout

A Calorie is Not a Calorie

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth–uses glucose for energy.
If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day — a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects.
It isn’t that fructose itself is bad — it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:

1.    Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.
2.    People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.
Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s also about 20 times sweeter than table sugar.

This switch drastically altered the average American diet…

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight — the low-fat diet foods — are often the ones highest in fructose.
Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.

Fructose Metabolism Basics

Without getting into the very complex biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism, it is important to understand some differences about how your body handles glucose versus fructose. I will be publishing a major article about this in the next couple of months, which will get much more into the details, but for our purpose here, I will just summarize the main points.
Dr. Robert Lustig[i] Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:
•    After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
•    Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
•    The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
•    Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
•    When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
•    The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
•    Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

If anyone tries to tell you “sugar is sugar,” they are way behind the times. As you can see, there are major differences in how your body processes each one.

The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome — not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.

Panic in the Corn Fields

As the truth comes out about HFCS, the Corn Refiners Association is scrambling to convince you that their product is equal to table sugar, that it is “natural” and safe.
Of course, many things are “natural” — cocaine is natural, but you wouldn’t want to use 142 pounds of it each year.
The food and beverage industry doesn’t want you to realize how truly pervasive HFCS is in your diet — not just from soft drinks and juices, but also in salad dressings and condiments and virtually every processed food. The introduction of HFCS into the Western diet in 1975 has been a multi-billion dollar boon for the corn industry.
The FDA classifies fructose as GRAS: Generally Regarded As Safe. Which pretty much means nothing and is based on nothing.
There is plenty of data showing that fructose is not safe — but the effects on the nation’s health have not been immediate. That is why we are just now realizing the effects of the last three decades of nutritional misinformation.
As if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with fructose that disprove its safety:
•    More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCS[ii].
•    Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.
•    Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically modified corn, which comes with its own set of risks.

The FDA isn’t going to touch sugar, so it’s up to you to be proactive about your own dietary choices.

What’s a Sugarholic to Do?

Ideally, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.
I also realize we don’t live in a perfect world, and following rigid dietary guidelines is not always practical or even possible.
If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:
1.    Use the herb stevia.
2.    Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
3.    Use organic raw honey in moderation.
4.    Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.
5.    Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave’s meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.
6.    Avoid so-called energy drinks and sports drinks because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and chemical additives. Rehydrating with pure, fresh water is a better choice. (It’s simple…drink more Yoli)

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Compared with soda, juice carries more calories and as much sugar. There’s also evidence that high consumption increases the risk of obesity, especially among kids.

By Karen Kaplan

November 8, 2009

To many people, it’s a health food. To others, it’s simply soda in disguise.

That virtuous glass of juice is feeling the squeeze as doctors, scientists and public health authorities step up their efforts to reduce the nation’s girth.

It’s an awkward issue for the schools that peddle fruit juice in their cafeterias and vending machines. It’s uncomfortable for advocates of a junk-food tax who say they can’t afford to target juice and alienate its legions of fans. It’s confusing for consumers who think they’re doing something good when they chug their morning OJ, sip 22-ounce smoothies or pack apple juice in their children’s lunches.

The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages.

With so much focus on the outsized role that sugary drinks play in the country’s collective weight gain — and the accompanying rise in conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer — it’s time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say.

“It’s pretty much the same as sugar water,” said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, “there’s no need for any juice at all.”

A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100.

And just like soft drinks, juice is rich in fructose — the simple sugar that does the most to make food sweet.

UC Davis scientist Kimber Stanhope has found that consuming high levels of fructose increases risk factors for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes because it is converted into fat by the liver more readily than glucose. Her studies suggest that it doesn’t matter whether the fructose is from soda or juice.

“Both are going to promote equal weight gain,” she said, adding that she’s perplexed by the fixation on the evils of sugar-sweetened beverages: “Why are they the only culprit?”

OJ FOR THE MASSES

Juice is a relatively recent addition to the human diet. For thousands of years, people ate fruit and drank mostly water.

But in the early 1900s, citrus growers in Florida were harvesting more oranges than they could sell. Then they had an epiphany: promote juice.

“You consume more oranges if you drink them than if you eat them whole,” said Alissa Hamilton, author of the book “Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice.”

The U.S. Army was instrumental in turning orange juice into a commercial product.

It originally served a powdered lemonade to ensure soldiers got enough vitamin C, but it tasted “like battery acid,” Hamilton said. So, during World War II, the Army commissioned scientists to invent a system for freezing OJ in a concentrated form. The patent wound up with Minute Maid, which sold cans of frozen juice concentrate in grocery stores.

In the 1950s, pasteurization technology developed by Tropicana made orange juice even more consumer-friendly because it could be sold ready to drink in cartons, like milk.

TV fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne and other health experts touted juice as a natural medicine, and decades of advertising helped secure its place at the breakfast table. Today, roughly half of all Americans consume juice regularly, according to NPD Group, a market research firm.

The Juice Products Assn. emphasizes the value of the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in juice, especially when so many Americans eat so little fresh produce.

“If someone can add a glass of fruit juice at breakfast, that’s an important addition to the diet,” said Sarah Wally, a dietitian for the trade group.

But scientists are increasingly questioning whether the benefits outweigh the sugar and calories that come with them. “The upside of juice consumption is so infinitesimal compared to the downside that we shouldn’t even be having this discussion,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco.

WEIGHT FACTOR

Researchers haven’t published head-to-head comparisons of how juice and soda contribute to weight gain, but there is evidence that high juice consumption increases the risk of becoming overweight or obese, especially among kids.

One of the earliest studies, in 1997, examined 168 preschool-age children in upstate New York. Kids who drank at least 12 ounces of juice a day were 3 1/2 times more likely than other kids to exceed the 90th percentile for body mass index, qualifying them as overweight or obese.

A 2006 study of 971 low-income youngsters found that each extra glass of juice a day caused children who were already overweight or obese to gain an extra pound each year.

The link between juice and weight gain isn’t always found, however. In a 2008 review of 21 studies, six supported the connection and 15 did not.

In fact, several researchers have linked juice to healthier diets and lower weights. A 2008 report of 3,618 children ages 2 to 11 found that kids who drank at least 6 ounces of juice a day consumed less fat and more vitamins and minerals than kids who drank no juice at all.

But many experts say the data simply reflect a correlation between juice and healthful diets, not a causal relationship.

“Kids who drink more juice are more likely to be eating breakfast, and kids who eat breakfast tend to weigh less than kids who don’t,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

There’s also concern that children who drink lots of sweet beverages such as juice will develop a lifelong preference for sweeter foods. A 2004 Dutch study found that 8- to 10-year-olds preferred sweeter drinks after consuming a sugary orangeade for eight days. They also drank more of it as they acclimated to its sweet taste.

Doctors and health officials have been persuaded to de-emphasize juice in recent years.

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ nutrition committee revised its policy in 2001 to recommend that children ages 1 to 6 drink no more than one 4- to 6-ounce serving of juice a day and older kids have no more than two.

“Because juice is viewed as nutritious, limits on consumption are not usually set by parents,” the committee wrote in “The Use and Misuse of Fruit Juice in Pediatrics.”;107/5/1210 “Like soda, it can contribute to energy imbalance,” causing the weight gain that leads to obesity.

The government’s 2005 dietary guidelines recognize that juices can be good sources of potassium, but recommend whole fruit for the majority of daily fruit servings to ensure adequate intake of fiber.

In October, the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children introduced vouchers for fresh produce and reduced the juice allowance. That’s a change Billington and his colleagues in the Minnesota Medical Assn. had been pushing for since 2006.

“Having apple juice and eating an apple are not the same,” he said.

CONCENTRATED SUGAR

Indeed, as scientists zero in on the causes of rising obesity rates, sugary drinks have emerged as a primary culprit.

Calories consumed in liquid form don’t give stomachs the same satisfied feeling as calories eaten in food. People offset an afternoon snack by eating less at dinner, but they don’t do that with beverages.

“The studies are pretty clear,” said Dr. Barbara Dennison, a research and policy director at the New York State Department of Health in Albany. “You just don’t compensate for those calories.”

Making matters worse, the human body is ill-equipped to process the sugar that is concentrated in a glass of juice.

When fructose is eaten in a piece of fruit, it enters the body slowly so the liver has time to convert it into chemical energy. But a single glass of apple juice has the fructose of six apples.

“If you overdose on fructose in a liquid, the liver gets overwhelmed,” Lustig said. As a result, he said, the fructose turns to fat. “Eating fruit is fine. Drinking juice is not.”

Still, the halo surrounding juice remains strong.

As soda is singled out for its role in the rise of obesity, juice is offered as the sensible alternative. In Los Angeles and elsewhere, it is taking the place of soft drinks in school vending machines alongside water and milk.

Brownell of Yale has waged a high-profile campaign to fight obesity with “sin” taxes on soda and other sugary drinks. It’s already an uphill battle, and he said he’s loath to provoke the tens of millions of Americans who consider their morning juice sacrosanct.

Dr. Frank Greer, who spent 10 years on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ nutrition committee, said he “can’t imagine” the group would ever downgrade juice to the status of soda.

“It’s such a normal part of the American diet,” Greer said. “A glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, my goodness!”

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

With study after study coming out and exposing the truth in the beverage industry it’s easy to see why so many Americans are looking to Yoli’s Blast Cap technology and healthy drinks as an alternative to the sugary beverages in the marketplace these days. New York City has been working hard to educate their citizens about the negative impact of sugary beverage consumption. The video below says it all…

The NYC Department of Health’s newest anti-obesity advertisement makes their last fat-in-a-cup subway ad seem mild.

As you may recall, in August the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene rolled out subway billboards that showed a soda bottle pouring globs of human fat into a drinking glass, with the intent of shocking New Yorkers into choosing low calorie beverages over soda and sweetened juices.

Now, they’ve gone one step further and put the ad in video form.

While those who saw the subway ad may have gagged at the thought of someone lifting the fat-filled glass and taking a sip, those who see the latest ad now are able to watch it happen.

The video, posted on YouTube and the Department of Health website, shows a smiling man pour a soda can full of fat into a large drinking glass and then chug down very realistic blobs of fat, which drip down his face.

The short clip appears again and again between bits of information about how many calories are in an average can of soda (300) and how many teaspoons of sugar can be found in a 20-ounce bottle of soda (16).

The grand finale gives viewers a sense of what ten pounds of fat look like, not on a human body, but on a dinner plate, in case we were wondering.

Cathy Nonas, director of the Health Department’s Physical Activity and Nutrition Program says the intent for both ads, was to do something “hard hitting.”

“We’ve been wanting to call attention to a very real problem,” she told NBCNewYork.com. “We did have a very small very graphic poster in the subways but we couldn’t afford to bring it out as much as we wanted to.”

The new YouTube ad was made possible by a small donation and is expected to make its way around the Internet for a fraction of the cost of the subway ads.

The campaign is part of a larger anti-obesity initiative that includes calorie-posting regulations, physical activity requirements at daycare centers, fruit and vegetable carts in under-served areas.

“Sugary drinks shouldn’t be a part of our everyday diets,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner. “This video is playful, but its message is serious. Sugar-sweetened beverages are fueling the obesity epidemic, and obesity is disabling millions of New Yorkers.”