Sink or Source ? Animals eat fruit as the primary source of natural sweetness…. . If an animal is looking for an alternative source of sugar where would they look?
Honey Almost pure fructose
Sugarcane
Polynesia
Columbus, 1500 s
At first Europeans used sugar as a medicine… But later used it as flavoring…….
Due to water pollution Europeans needed to boil the water Tea drinkers
The anti-depressant Prozac increases serotonin levels by reducing loss of it by the body Serotonin Pathway The drug "Ecstacy" stimulates serotonin producing cells, which stimulates the areas of the prefrontal cortex that give feelings of euphoria and mood enhancement.
12 million African slaves brought to the Carribean to work in sugarcane fields …. . most died within 10 years
Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France. . early 1800 s Sugar Beet …grows in temperate climates!
High Fructose Corn Syrup
40 -160 lbs of sugar per year = 50 -200 grams per day !
An Orange = 11 grams of sugar An Apple = 12 grams A Peach = 8 grams
Diet soda is no better. …. studies with teenage girls have shown that it only encourages caloric intake….
Sugar consumption often goes hand-in-hand with consumption of fats, which makes the situation even worse
New USDA Diet Recomendations
Chapter 38 - Plant Nutrition
p. 782
Plants take up whatever mineral elements are in the soil…
Plants take up whatever mineral elements are in the soil… Some plants are “hyperaccumulators” of minerals…. Lead …pollution near highways Cadmium …pollution near factories Strontium …. . can be radioactive (Chernobyl) Selenium …. Locoweed Gold …. . used to locate gold deposits 100 x soil concentrations…
Plants take up whatever mineral elements are in the soil… Some plants are “hyperaccumulators” of minerals…. These plants can be useful in “phytoremediation”