Polyols are sugar-free sweeteners as it is mentioned in the Sweet Chemisry article. Polyols are carbohydrates but they are not sugars. Chemically, polyols are considered polyhydric alcohols or sugar alcohols because part of their structure resembles sugar and part is similar to alcohols. However, these sugar-free sweeteners are neither sugars nor alcohols, as these words are commonly used. In these days, polyols are commonly added to foods because of their lower caloric content than sugars. Use of this syntheitc sugar is likely to increase in the future as people are so concerned about well-being in these days.
When I was reading about this artificial chemistry compound, one other thing that came up to my mind was artificial diamonds. This diamond is chemically identical to mined diamonds and has become the world's hot issue recently. Like naturally occurring diamond it is composed of a three-dimensional carbon crystal. Some people might welcome this chemsitry's new product because they can buy diamonds much cheaper and can feel like contributing to the peace. I am sure many of you watched the movie "Blood Diamond". It showed how many humans are sacrificed in the international diamond industry. However, those who are in mined diamond industry will not welcome this finding of new chemical compound (diamond industry has been multi billion industry and many people live off the diamond trading in african countries).
Now, lets think about polyols and sugars. Like controversy in the diamond industry, people who are working in the sugarcane production might not welcome this polyols. Indeed, not everyone benefit from chemistry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Your post is interesting and relates to something I commented on in my post on "Making Chemistry A Good Read." The economics of research and chemistry is very interesting because it can either motivate individuals to find healthier alternatives, as in the case of margarin, or it can cause the downfall of a clearly healthier alternative, as in your post. Thus, sugar sweeteners are healthy and allow an individual to enjoy certain foods but it seems that the rise of one industry may be the downfall of another and it is an unfortuante consequence of the natural progress of economics.
Are artificial sweetners really healthy? What about the aspartame controversy? Don't forger saccharin was pulled from the market before your lifetime.
Diamonds do not directly relate to me as much as this polyols artificial sweetners. Anything that is labeled as "artifically made" causes me to worry especially if I am ingesting it and reabsorping it into my body. I have never heard of the aspartame or saccharin controversies prior to Dr. Norton's mentioning of them. I also question the safety of artificial sweetners. Often times, a product does not truly show its adverse effects on testing trials until it is released to the general populations over a period of time. I guess we will eventually know if sweetners are really beneficial for people and a better replacement for natural sugars.
This is most definitely a topic that can be debated over for a very long time. I remember in my high school AP chemistry course my teacher told us about diamonds created in the laboratory, and he told us then that they would never make it main stream because the diamond industry would never let it happen. When you look at the economic side of the issue it seems to only make sense to restrict the synthetic production in order to keep the mines open and the communities the mine supports alive. However, many would argue from the environmental side of the issue which asks, are you going to allow strip mining to destroy all of our forests while there exists an extremely reasonable alternative? I look at it similar to oil drilling. Although oil companies like Shell may try and hide the fact that they are opposed to alternative fuels with gimmicky commercials, they really are. It was not until recently that oil companies jumped on this bandwagon of alternative fuels because it was not until recently that the research became so overwhelming to the fact that oil was running out, and these companies want to be the first to patent and market these alternative fuels so that they don't have to sell their Malibu homes. Diamonds will eventually run out because we mine them at a rate that is unsustainable just like we do with oil (By the way both products are theoretically renewable). So you have to ask yourself, do you want to destroy our forests searching for that last diamond mine, or do you want to preserve what we have left and use the synthetic alternative? For me the answer is very clear.
Post a Comment