After the beating I took on the Dallas-New England football game we all headed to Ball’s Hamburgers to drown our sorrows in a bun-free giant hickory burger with bacon and cheese. I noticed the above sign taped to the back of the cash register.

A year or so back I posted on the fact that Mexican Americans love the taste of Coca Cola made with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup and will pay a premium for the stuff imported from Mexico rather than the HFCS-filled US made products. Looks like word is getting around everywhere.

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A couple of days ago while on a 3-hour flight the attendant came by asking if I wanted anything to drink. I typically drink sparkling water and/or coffee on flights, but at that time something else sounded a little better. I saw a can of cranberry juice cocktail so I asked for that.

I poured some into a little plastic glass and sipped away while I was reading a medical paper. As the flight wore on I finished off the can. MD happened to pick it up and said to me: Do you have any idea how many carbs were in that can you just drank? She turned the label so I could read that had just consumed about 60 grams of sugar. I couldn’t believe it, but there is was in black and white. MD told me that all cranberry products have a ton of sugar because cranberry juice is extremely sour.

I can’t remember the brand of juice I drank. I intended to keep the can, but when I wasn’t paying attention the flight attendant came by and picked it up. Out of sight it went out of mind, and it didn’t think about it until I was long off the plane.

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MD and I stopped in a Whole Foods the other day to load up, and I came across this bottle of tea while I was looking for something cold and carb-free to drink.

The manufacturer of this product (and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember what it was, and, unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the other side) is either ignorant or thinks that its customers are ignorant. I’m sure the ‘brains’ of this outfit either read or heard that high-fructose corn syrup was a substance that is not healthful. I suppose that they came to the conclusion that it was the corn syrup that was the villain, but it’s the fructose in the corn syrup that’s the problem. The other component of corn syrup is glucose, which is much less harmful than fructose.

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This past weekend the bride was hunched over her computer for more hours than usual. The outcome was a lengthy post on the pros and cons of multiple alternative sweeteners. She spends a lot of time answering questions about the various sweeteners she uses in recipes, and so decided to do one big answer that she could refer people to.

If you’re curious about most of the sweeteners out there, click here to check it out.

An intriguing article appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showing a correlation between periodontal disease and the development of pancreatic cancer. There have been a couple of studies correlating tooth loss with pancreatic cancer, but this is the first study I’ve seen that looks at periodontal disease and cancer of the pancreas.

You don’t want to get any kind of cancer if you can help it, but you really don’t want to get cancer in your pancreas. The virulence of cancers are usually defined by their 5-year survival rates, meaning what percentage of people who are diagnosed with a particular cancer are still alive 5 years later. The lower the 5-year survival rate, the deadlier the cancer. According to the latest statistics from the American Cancer Society (ACS), breast cancer has a 5-year survival rate of 88.5 percent, which means that out of 100 patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer, 88.5 of them will still be alive 5 years later. For lung cancer, a pretty deadly cancer, the 5-year survival rate is 15 percent. The 5-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 5 percent, making it the most deadly of all the cancers listed in the ACS list. Pancreatic cancer is a good one to avoid.

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