The Daily Valet. - 3/8/23, Wednesday
✔️ A Not So Sweet Fix
Wednesday, March 8th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
Full disclosure: I wrote this newsletter while sipping a Coke Zero.
Today’s Big Story
A Not So Sweet Fix
As Artificial sweeteners Sneak into more food, they might be affecting gut and heart health
Sugar substitutes have always been questionable, right? As a long-time Diet Coke drinker, I've been accosted by strangers telling me the soft drink in my hand was going to give me cancer. (“Oh, thank you. Have a nice day as well.”) But as people continually cut back on their sugar intake for health reasons, the food industry has all sorts of ways to sweeten foods while lowering the sugar on nutritional labels.There's a wide range of no-calorie sweeteners available to us today. While there were once just aspartame and saccharin, we now have slew of sweet substitutes to choose (or not choose) from—sucralose, stevia, allulose and erythritol, just to name a few. Most are synthetic while others, like stevia and monk fruit extract, are referred to as “natural” because they're derived from plants.Erythritol—a popular ingredient used to sweeten low-cal, low-carb and “keto” products—was just linked to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and even death. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic studied over 4,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and found that those with higher blood erythritol levels were at an elevated risk of experiencing these major adverse cardiac events.And recently, the World Health Organization cautioned people to limit their intake of sugar substitutes because of their potential for “undesirable” long-term effects, including detrimental effects on gut and metabolic health. That's because while they trick the tongue, a recent rigorous study found that these sweeteners caused changes in both the function and composition of our gut microbiomes (the communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in the intestines). According to the Washington Post, those microbes in our gut play many important roles: One is that they transform the food you eat into enzymes, hormones and vitamins. And regularly consuming synthetic sugar substitutes can disrupt that process, causing your cells to stop responding and leading to chronically elevated blood sugar levels.If you're getting a little worried, this will help calm your anxiety: Many experts say we don't need to panic. Especially if we're consuming this stuff as part of an otherwise balanced diet. “There are going to be studies that show that it's good, bad or indifferent,” one doctor told the New York Times. People have been consuming artificial sweeteners for years, she added, and “it's really hard to put your finger on any specific problem.”
Speaking of Food:
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey Bars are getting the vegan treatment. They will be made with oat milk.
Can Insects Have Culture?
Puzzle-solving bumblebees show it’s possible
This is a very interesting development. Bumblebees can teach each other how to solve a puzzle, and they prefer the method their sisters teach them rather than those they learn on their own. This adds to evidence that these insects are capable of social learning, and they use it to share trends and sustain cultures over time.Culture, at its most basic, refers to socially learned behaviors that are shared among a population. Until the mid-20th century, this ability was thought to be something uniquely human. But a myriad of evidence now shows that culture exists in a wide variety of species, from bighorn sheep and vervet monkeys to meerkats and cranes.According to Scientific American, insects are known to be capable of social learning in the wild: the best-known example is the so-called waggle dance used by honeybees to communicate the location and quality of flowers. The new study builds on prior findings that bumblebees can learn complex behaviors in the lab, too, such as accessing rewards by pulling strings or rolling balls to play a sort of insect version of soccer.
Meanwhile:
Despite a cultural aversion in the United States, the accessibility to edible insects is growing for people willing to give it a try.
Notre Dame Gets a Reopening Date
After the devastating fire in April 2019, the Paris landmark is finally set to reopen in 2024
When Notre Dame in Paris caught fire and suffered enormous damage back in 2019, it was a devastating cultural event. One of the world's most famous works of medieval architecture, up in flames. But horrified onlookers around the world donated nearly $1 billion to restore the legendary cathedral. Now, nearly four years after that catastrophe, we've finally got official news on when the site will open back up to the public.Reconstruction is going fast enough to allow its reopening to visitors and faithful by December of 2024. The cathedral's iconic spire, which collapsed in the blaze, will gradually start reappearing above the monument this year in a powerful signal of its revival, the army general in charge of the colossal project, Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin, told the Associated Press.However, Notre Dame will not be finalized once it starts welcoming visitors and worshippers again. According to French culture minister Rima Abdul-Malak, renovation work will continue well into 2025. Originally, it was hoped that it might reopen fully in time for the Paris Olympics, which are set to take place in summer 2024. However, due to complications in stabilising the structure, the project appears to have taken a little longer than expected.
Dig Deeper:
The New York Times goes inside the quest by audio researchers working to bring back the cathedral's unique sonic landscape.
Sonos Embraces Spatial Audio
There's also a new Era 100 speaker, a big upgrade over the existing Sonos One
After months of leaks and some recent coordinated teases from the company itself, Sonos has officially announced the Era 300 and Era 100 speakers. Both devices went up for preorder Tuesday and they'll be available to purchase in stores beginning March 28th.According to Engadget, the Era 300 looks unlike any speaker Sonos has released before—though it still has the company's familiar clean design language. “Its somewhat unusual knocked-over hourglass shape is largely functional: it allows for the upward-facing tweeter to fire at a slight but specific angle, which the company says will deliver more room-filling reflections for spatial audio.” Apparently, the company has been working on this speaker (codenamed Optimo 2) for around three years after noticing the music industry clearly embracing the new format.And after five years, the ever-popular Sonos One is being replaced in the company's lineup with the Era 100. The main improvements here being stereo sound and a new touch control bar. CNET reports that it also offers auxiliary-in support for the first time at this level with the optional Line-In Adapter.
Reserve:
In Other News
But many were left out or declined invitations.
Have you heard about ...
Worth a Listen
A New series from the team behind ‘Serial’ podcast AIms to go beyond true crime
After nearly four decades, the coldest case in Laramie, Wyoming is now under a national microscope. The 1985 murder of Shelli Wiley—a 22-year-old University of Wyoming student who was stabbed and then dragged into her apartment, which was then set on fire—is the subject of a new podcast by Serial Productions and The New York Times.But, according to Vulture, this isn't a true-crime story. It certainly doesn't want to be. Even the show's press materials explicitly distance itself from being “a case of whodunit.” At the heart of The Coldest Case in Laramie is an interest in the unreliability of memory and the slipperiness of truth.
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