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Post by filly on May 12, 2011 15:08:14 GMT -5
Ok so I put this in the nutrition section since it pertains to that! lol
My students, after reading two articles about how high fructose corn syrup DOES cause problems and another one that doesn't, have decided to do their own test. We have lots of cages and rats (I'm about to go pick up 32 medium sized rats, yeah me. lol) and the kids had to design the lab and then will be measuring their results over the last 3 weeks of school. Next year, we are hoping to hook up with a professor at our local university to do blood testing on the rats to see if they do indeed gain more weight with HFC syrup vs table sugar or honey (which is exactly the same thing as HFC, molecularly). I'll keep anyone who's interested updated and will include pics soon! :-) I know you are just dying to see pictures of tons of rats! NO I don't want your rats donated! lol these are lab rats, not wild. ;D
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Post by kelly on May 12, 2011 15:31:20 GMT -5
I'd be very interested to see the results. I found that HFCS causes me to cough. Since eliminating it completely from my diet, I've lost weight too.
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Post by niaru on May 12, 2011 16:52:49 GMT -5
Yes, I'd be interested in seeing the results! So you're basically comparing HFCS and honey?
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Post by filly on May 12, 2011 18:42:54 GMT -5
Four ;D groups: sugar, HFCS, honey, and control group. Monitor calorie intake by adding sugar to water so all equal calories for each group in the end. I just picked up the rats. All 32 of them. Dear God I forgot how much they smell! lol At least my room won't be the only one smelling this time of year!
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Post by diane on May 12, 2011 23:14:17 GMT -5
I would love to know about this too
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Post by adcooper on May 14, 2011 6:07:51 GMT -5
Great study for the kids. Do you remember particular lessons or experiences from high school that changed your thinking in important ways? I bet this might be one that has that effect on your students. (Of course, I'm assuming HFCS is horrible stuff, they will prove this for themselves, and go on to lead happy, healthy, low fat, low sugar, low salt lives! LOL!)
Also, have you read The End of Overeating, by David Kessler? He looks at the ingredients in restaurant food and sees a killer combination of salt, sugar and fat, to which we've become addicted and which is making us crave certain foods and eat them to excess. He studies the way these foods are marketed, which I suppose you can't incorporate into your experiment with the rats. Or will you put shiny labels with photographs of hip, trendy rats in bikinis on the sugar water dispenser? ;D
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Post by coyote on May 15, 2011 7:45:43 GMT -5
I think this is interesting. I wonder, though, if calorie to calorie is the only base for comparison that you should use. A lot of times, one sweetener is considered superior to another because reaching a certain level of sweetness required a smaller amount calorie-wise.
It's interesting to read that high fructose corn syrup and honey are moleculaly the same.
For me, if it isn't (the right) cane sugar, it isn't worth it anyway - so I'll just do without. I will say, though, that I have found the locally-produced light agave nector surprisingly acceptable. I couldn't convince you to add that to your study, could I? lol
It would be nice to get the low fructose corn syrup out of more packaged foods, though.
I hope the rats end up in a good place.
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Post by mom2flash on May 15, 2011 10:00:38 GMT -5
I'm interested to see your results, too!
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Post by BoyleHeightsKid on May 16, 2011 6:04:11 GMT -5
I'm also curious to see the results of this...
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Post by mom2flash on Jun 19, 2011 9:44:03 GMT -5
What were your conclusions?
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Post by alisonph on Jun 27, 2011 15:01:23 GMT -5
Cool!
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Post by filly on Jun 28, 2011 0:02:43 GMT -5
lol what a MESS that study was! lol the kids have no idea how to run a controlled study and of the 4 reports that were actually turned in, NONE of them were the same, even though they supposedly had the same data they shared?  It was a learning experience for us both. We did have a group of rats that drank the honey water like crazy! a couple of groups found the control had gained more weight with fresh water rather than any of the others??? we also had 4 read F_O_U_R rats that came impregnated so they had to account for the weight gain/loss in their errors. I think I'm going to try this study again in the fall long term ( I must be friggin MAD LOL) and this will help teach kids about controls, responsibility etc. OMG what the heck am I thinking...rat smell, friggin shavings everywhere, we had several escapee's who were caught the next morning due to lack of closed lids....someone shoot me before I do this madness again! lmao |
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Post by niaru on Jul 7, 2011 6:39:07 GMT -5
Hahaha! Too funny. Not so easy, those "controlled studies", when kids are involved, eh? Oh well. I bet the kids learned a tons anyway, and had fun, too! I know my youngest daughter would be thrilled to be doing something like that at school, rather than collect data on the weather...!!!
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It was a learning experience for us both. We did have a group of rats that drank the honey water like crazy! a couple of groups found the control had gained more weight with fresh water rather than any of the others??? we also had 4 read F_O_U_R rats that came impregnated so they had to account for the weight gain/loss in their errors. I think I'm going to try this study again in the fall long term ( I must be friggin MAD LOL) and this will help teach kids about controls, responsibility etc. OMG what the heck am I thinking...rat smell, friggin shavings everywhere, we had several escapee's who were caught the next morning due to lack of closed lids....someone shoot me before I do this madness again! lmao