A 13 Blow by Blow
1. Last month I reported being on the gum diet, how I picked up an old habit of chewing and snapping and getting a general jaw workout whenever I felt snacking.
2. But my bubble has burst: Not only have I not lost any weight, I just remembered why I quit chewing gum in the first place. It’s called aspartame.
3. Aspartame, the low-calorie chemical used to sweeten diet sodas and gum, has been linked to brain tumors and lymphoma in rodents. The Food and Drug Administration has certified the sweetener’s safety, but reported side effects include dizziness, headaches, diarrhea, memory loss and mood changes and more.
4. Did you know that studies show that drinking diet sodas actually causes weight gain?
5. These days bad is good, hot means cool, and people spend a lot of time and expense on hairdos that look like they just woke up.
6. Why am I not surprised that aspartame was first introduced by Monsanto, the company that has been threatening our human right to grow food with their genetically modified seeds that can’t be saved and replanted. Read more about their evil plan to control the world’s food supply HERE.
7. I saw my first Indigo Bunting of the season and my dear friend Alwyn recently had a commentary published in the Roanoke Times titled Living in a World Without Songbirds: We live in a critical and defining moment in human and Earth history, but one that I believe offers us an opportunity to rethink our way of living and our relationship to nature. Simply patching up our sick economy with its focus on growth and consumerism is no solution because it ignores the fact that we cannot have prosperity on a planet whose resources are being drained by unlimited exploitation of its essential resources.
8. My 11 month old grandson is funny. He likes to try on hats and shoes and sometimes he puts hats on his feet and shoes on his head.
9. Attention seeking Grandmother gets too much botox HERE.
10. Kazoo lips aren’t the only trick I have up my sleeve or on my head for getting my grandson’s attention. Look if you dare HERE.
11. I once played the Jew’s harp (no relation to Judaism) back-up at a recording session for my friend Starroot. I think it was before CD’s.
12. Imagine making a living as a kazooist? Kazooist Barbara Stewart is a classically trained singer who has written a book on the kazoo, formed the “quartet” Kazoophony, performed at Carnegie Hall and appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
13. Soundtrack for this post is Jimi Hendrix’s Crosstown Traffic, chosen for his use of the kazoo. Listen HERE.
More playing 13 Thursday HERE.
April 30th, 2009 10:26 am
3 & 4 explain a lot…
April 30th, 2009 11:23 am
Weight gain!
Yeah, I tried to lose weight with gum, too. It does stop an upward spiral, but never starts a downward one.
April 30th, 2009 1:33 pm
Colleen, I have the DVD – “The World According to Monsanto” – if you’d like to borrow it.
April 30th, 2009 3:37 pm
Hi Rick. The DVD on Monsanto sounds like a good one to offer to the Seedheads who meet regularly in Floyd to share seeds and other growing resources. Maybe they can host a showing. You can read about their next meeting in the May Museletter, due out in a day or two.
April 30th, 2009 3:41 pm
I gave up brown diet soda, but still drink clear/light ones, aspartame & I are old friends, I guess it’s better than the stuff that was in Tab back in the day!
April 30th, 2009 4:27 pm
Love the remark in #7, and I had no idea there was such a thing as a kazooist!
April 30th, 2009 6:41 pm
I’m shocked you didn’t highlight Aspartame being originally a military project! That part always worried me…
April 30th, 2009 8:59 pm
Oh, I thought gum would work. Hmm. Happy TT anyway.
April 30th, 2009 8:59 pm
Indigo Bunting for the win!
April 30th, 2009 9:50 pm
Oooo – thanks for the great soundtrack!
May 1st, 2009 1:51 am
Water is the best diet soda ! then you are sure to loose weight !
May 1st, 2009 8:27 am
I dislike aspartame too, but it is such a small dose…remember too much of anything becomes bad…moderation is the key.
I also read that chewing gum helps with not getting dementia and I would rather chew it without sugar because of the problems of getting more cavities…..so it is a catch 22 as most things are these days.
Here is ONE article http://www.northstarnutritionals.com/article_list.php?docs_id=41 …….there are a lot more. xox
May 1st, 2009 8:29 am
Aspartame gives me bad back-of-the-head headaches. (I used to wash down my headache pill with diet Coke and then wonder why the pill didn’t work. The doctor never told me that Aspartame might be the problem. I finally figured it out myself.)
I used Splenda for awhile until my glucometer showed me that Splenda caused my blood sugar to go way up. My diet drink of choice is water.
As for gum-chewing, a recent study showed that students who chewed gum had higher test scores. However, a gum manufacturer sponsored the study.
May 1st, 2009 8:42 am
I just don’t see why they don’t use or develop some other sweetener that isn’t as harmful. Every single gum pack on the rack has aspartame in it. Why aren’t there some choices. I tried some gum sold at the health food store but it wasn’t any good, as far as texture and taste go.
May 1st, 2009 11:03 am
Love your number 5, but hate those hair “styles” (and am probably sadly showing my age)!
May 1st, 2009 11:21 am
My hair looks like that today. But I haven’t spent any time or money on it! I’ writing and planting today with no one here to impress.
May 1st, 2009 5:09 pm
As a kid I loved to chew gum–maybe I got so much enjoyment out of it because my mother hated it–now I can’t stand it, but I do try to avoid all artificial sweeteners… Tanya sent me today to say hi and to tell you that, in the spirit of kazoos, I’m not far from Kalamazoo!
May 1st, 2009 8:59 pm
That Video of you Blowing through the Big lips is one of the dearest sweetest Video’s I have ever seen! This is PURE PURE LOVE, my dear! It is Dear, Dear, DEAR!!!! I mean, it couldn’t be searer. And I cannot believe that THAT sweet little Baby Bryce, is almost a year old….!
A WONDERFUL TT As Always, my dear Colleen.
May 3rd, 2009 2:48 pm
I seem to recall reading somewhere that there’s a link between aspartame and Donald Rumsfeld. That oughta be enough to alarm anyone.
May 4th, 2009 11:18 am
…and people spend a lot of time and expense on hairdos that look like they just woke up.
I find that so witty and funny Colleen. I’ve always wanted to straighten my wavy hair but most people are doing the other way around. Haha 🙂
May 11th, 2009 9:45 pm
Ted has recently been using gum to quit smoking, and we’ve found it’s almost impossible to find ANY gum that doesn’t contain Aspartame. The only place that sells it is in the health food store. What happened to good old fashioned sugar?
May 11th, 2009 10:57 pm
That’s what I want to know. Why do they ALL use aspartame? Trident has xylitol which has a better reputation, but then they still put aspartame in it. I didn’t like the gum from the health food store. It just didn’t taste good.