Is Ice Cream Addictive?

Obviously! But just in case your personal research and case studies of friends and family (namely, yours truly) did not reveal enough evidence of the addictive properties of ice cream, a study performed by the Oregon Research Institute has confirmed it. Well, sort of. They confirmed the following:

• Teenagers like milkshakes.
• Study participants who ate ice cream the week before the study were less excited about eating ice cream during the study. Researchers associated this with increased cravings yet less derived pleasure associated with repeated drug use.
• The more ice cream you eat, the more ice cream you need to get an ice cream buzz.
• It is unlikely that a person would develop a "full-blown addiction" to ice cream but the addictive properties could lead to overeating and weight gain.

While it was my initial intent to poke fun at this study, I have to admit that I not only crave ice cream - I succumb to those cravings very often. Why? Because I love everything about ice cream! Who doesn't?! I've never come across someone eating ice cream who isn't happy. I don't drink or smoke, I exercise regularly, I eat more vegetables than my garden can grow, but the hard-to-put-in-writing truth is that I have been known to consider a bowl of ice cream a great way to start my day. 

However, in response to this study I have decided to give up ice cream for the remainder of the month of March in hopes to determine whether or not I am addicted. I will tweet cravings/confessions as I have them and report back on the topic come April. 

In the meantime, there will be a lot more pistachio ice cream available for students on the University or Maryland, College Park campus. 

"You'd never eat 16 packs of sugar"

Once again, the New York City Health Department does a nice job of reminding us how unhealthy certain "food like substances" are. Blehhh.

Latest HFCS... Err... "Corn Sugar"

Earlier this week, we heard from a reader in St. Thomas regarding the recent HFCS makeover aka name-change and mistakenly thought it was just another one of those cheesy commercials. It turns out this "corn sugar" re-branding effort is as big as the 1988 "canola oil is the new low eurcic acid rapeseed oil" act in advertising. ABC News just launched an eye-opening feature about renaming which even includes some thoughts from JustSaying fave: Michael Pollan. 

For a quicker read, check out Jacob Goldstein's NPR post.

(Thnx, Jonathan)

Vitamin Water is Officially Unhealthy

Last week a federal judge ruled that Glaceau Brands (aka Coca Cola) has been falsely advertising Vitaminwater as healthy. The Consumerist reports:

"...Vitaminwater will not, as its labels promise, keep you "healthy as a horse." Nor will it bring about a "healthy state of physical or mental being". Instead, Vitaminwater is really just a sugary snack food; non-carbonated fruit coke disguised as a sports drink. Because it's composed mostly of sugar and not vitamin-laden water, judge John Gleeson held that Vitaminwater's absurd marketing claims were likely to mislead consumers."

20 Worst Drinks in America

Men's Health published their annual list of beverage-like-substances that are beyond terrible for you and all I can say is: Damn. Sugary shakes are my weakness - especially as the summer heats up. The photographic depictions of the "sugar equivalent" for each are almost as upsetting as... as quite a few on this list. I'm too upset to type... Just check 'em out:

1.) Cold Stone PB&C
2.) Smoothie King Peanut Power Plus Grape
3.) McDonald's Triple Thick Chocolate Shake
4.) Cosi Double Oh! Arctic Mocha
5.) Krispy Kreme Lemon Sherbet Chiller
6.) Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Soda
7.) Traditional Red Lobster Lobsterita
8.) Dairy Queen Caramel MooLatte
9.) Starbucks White Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream (pictured left)
10.) Auntie Anne's Wild Cherry Lemonade Mixer
11.) Starbucks Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha with Whipped Cream
12.) Arizona Kiwi Strawberry
13.) Arizona Rx Energy
14.) Tropicana Fruit Fury Twister
15.) Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
16.) Sunkist
17.) Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino
18.) Rockstar Energy Drink
19.) Sobe Green Tea
20.) Snapple Agave Melon Antioxidant Water

HFCS Update

For all you folks who have been on the fence about whether to trust those cheesy ads about poor, misunderstood high fructose corn syrup or jump into the camp that questions the syrup - debate no more! A research team at Princeton University had concluded that rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar (caloric intake was the same). Here's the complex explanation from ScienceDaily:

"...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...."

...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."

Read more about the study and history of HFCS in the US here.

*Note: The (very cute) fat rat pictured did not actually partake in the Princeton study. He is an actor and you may recognize him from his work with Disney-Pixar. And just saying... there is a good chance his diet is dangerously rich in HFCS. Celebrities... sigh... so reckless.