The Pineneedle Collective

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Sweet as (artificial) Sugar

Today's post is a little bit unusual because it's also being assessed as a university assignment. I am currently doing this great biochemistry course which encourages you to get creative with communicating science (which you know I am all about) and for this particular assignment I chose to make a blog post! Anyway, it won't really be any different from my usual posts, but I felt sneaky writing it without letting you all know!

Dress is DIY | cape is DIY | shoes and socks are from Japan | bag from Twinkie Chan | brooch is DIY

Is diet coke bad for you? Are artificial sweeteners a magic fix to our sugar-rich diets or are they something to watch out for?

At Uni I have been studying metabolism, and something which has been of particular interest to me is artificial sweeteners - think diet coke and Sweet'n Low - and what effects they might have on weightloss and eating behaviour. So today I'm going to explain what we currently know about artificial sweeteners - are they safe and should you consume them?

"Non-nutritive" sweeteners - also known as artificial sugars, non-caloric sugar and sugar substitutes - are hundreds of times sweeter (or 13,000x sweeter in the case of neotame) than table sugar, and because of this when you use them in foods you can use a smaller amount to achieve the same level of sweetness. Because you're using a smaller amount, you add less calories to your meal. This is why diet coke and "coke zero" are virtually sugar-free.

Some sweeteners are made of things like amino acids instead of sugar (so they are slightly calorific, but still much less so than sugar), whereas others like Sucralose are modified sugars that aren't recognized as food by the body (i.e. they don't enter into glycolysis, the body's mechanism of turning sugar into something that can be used by the body for energy) so these add zero calories to a meal.

Artificial sugars are very useful for diabetics because it allows them to consume sweet things without worrying about their blood-sugar levels shooting through the roof. More recently they've also been promoted by dieticians as a way to lower calorie intake to prevent and counteract obesity.

This is because dietary guidelines have been getting stricter on the amount of sugar that you should consume, with more evidence now pointing towards sugars, not fat, as the greatest contributor to diabetes and heart disease. So if you can replace much of the sugar in your diet with a substitute, you can still enjoy all your sugary foods with no ill effects - right?

Well, one potential problem with artificial sweeteners is something called "compensatory behaviours". This means that if you choose a diet coke over a regular, sugary coke, you then might also think "well, I guess I'm allowed to eat that whole pizza now because my coke was calorie-free!" Or, it could also be the case that your body simply doesn't get enough energy from your diet coke, so you search out more sugary foods. Obviously, this would negate any weight-loss effects of the artificial sweeteners. While this effect has been studied, no one has been able to come up with concrete, conclusive evidence either supporting or dismissing this potential problem.

Another possible problem is toxicity - could artificial sweeteners actually be bad for you? There have been a number of headline-grabbing articles that would suggest they're really bad - deadly, even - but these studies have suffered from poor methodology and have often leapt to unsupported conclusions. There's a pervasive myth (and internet hoax) that an artificial sugar called aspartame causes a whole range of diseases including MS, neurological disorders and epilepsy - which has been thoroughly debunked. Hundreds of high-quality studies have been done to demonstrate the safety of aspartame, and it is approved by regulatory bodies such as the FDA (food and drug administration). However, there are also studies that suggest that high-doses of artificial sugars can cause cancer.

In rats.

Which brings me to my next point: always be very weary about news stories reporting on studies using rats and mice when they say that those findings are absolutely applicable to humans, especially in the case of cancer. Turns out that particular strains of lab rats get cancer really, really easily. The artificial sweeteners that are widely used have been so thoroughly studied that we know they're not carcinogenic - and as long as you don't go crazy and consume about 100 diet sodas per day, you're going to be fine.

So what can be concluded about artificial sweeteners? Well, as all reputable studies regarding diets and fat/sugar substitutes seem to conclude - these may help you if you have a specific requirement (such as trying to lose weight). Just don't go crazy - anything in excess is bad for you. And as always, do a decent amount of exercise and eat a balanced diet.

Here's a link to a review paper for further reading!

(And if you found that interesting, you can also read part 1 and part 2 of my introduction to biochemistry).

Monday, 19 May 2014

Oranges & Polka Dots

Crop top - DIY | pinafore - thrifted | socks - Dangerfield | shoes - Naot | brooch - DIY

I have found the ultimate pair of shoes, and I am never going to buy another pair.

Alright, so that's a little dramatic and I'm sure that I will cave eventually, but this pair of shoes is so freakin' comfortable that I never want to take them off. After giving myself tendonitis from merely walking around, I had to finally admit that I needed supportive shoes, and this ultimately led to this comfortable-shoe revelation. But it wasn't easy because most comfy shoes are, for some reason, completely hideous.

Why must it be the case that all cute shoes also happen to be horribly uncomfortable?? ;__;

There was also no way that I was going to resort to sneakers, or worse - crocs (I don't care how comfortable my dad says they are, they're not happening).
Frustrated, I tried adding padded-insoles to all my shoes, but this didn't seem to help me much on the tendonitis front, and it was getting so bad that I wasn't even able to leave the house because it was too painful to walk. So I went back to my search, and after hours of looking for "non-ugly orthopedic-style shoes" on google, I finally came across Naot. Considering that I wasn't able to leave the house because of my sore feet, I convinced myself to see the $200 that they cost as an investment in my wellbeing, and crossed my fingers that they would be as comfortable as all the reviews said they were.

And - oh my goodness. Wearing them is like walking on clouds. They're also very durable - considering I've worn them basically every single day for the last 3 months, they don't even look that worn or scuffed. And although it was difficult to find out much about the production, they appear to be made in Israel (who seem to have decent working conditions/wages etc), with raw materials from Italy - so they were probably not made in a sweatshop, which is always a bonus.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a little review on them because I struggled for so long with sore feet but didn't realise there was any kind of solution (without giving up on fashion entirely). BUT THERE IS, and it's not ugly! Woo hoo! You can find them here (or if you live in Australia, here).

I hope you're all having a beautiful day!

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

A Little Red Cape and a Tiny Cottage / Tiny Planet

Cape is thrifted | blouse, belt, purse and skirt are thrifted | Mushroom clips are c/o Ladybird Likes | Shoes are Naot

LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT THE OP SHOP ;__;

I can't believe my luck at op shops lately (although it's probably helped out by the fact that I visit one at least once a week. Shh. I don't have a problem - it's the way that I bribe myself to study really hard).

Anyway, I found this amazing cape at the op shop the other day, and I paid about $1 for it, thank you very much. I got this vintage skirt at the same time, too! And because I felt like this is the kind of outfit should have been photographed in a pretty forest full of deciduous trees and toadstools (which is pretty much unlike any landscape in Sydney, damn it), I also wore these cute toadstool pins that were sent to me as part of a collaboration by handmade jewelery-maker Ladybird Likes! I have been IN LOVE with everything Zoe makes for a long time now, so make sure that you go and check her store out, there's a lot more cute stuff where these came from!

And what adventure in a forest doesn't also include you coming across a cute rundown cottage? (In my fantasy of visiting a pretty forest, this definitely happens). So I topped this outfit off with my house purse. I really love my outfits to tell a story and I feel like this one achieved that. I also happen to look like some kind of Little Red Riding Hood-forest-nymph-hybrid, and I am okay with that.

So, space is big, we are tiny, and this is an awesome video.

The video starts out focusing on Earth (and imagine what a tiny speck of dust you are compared to all the big things on Earth), and then zooms out to compare us to the rest of the planets in our solar system. The biggest planet in our solar system is Jupiter, which is 142,980km across at its widest point. Earth is only 12,756kms in diameter.

But that is nothing once you get to our sun, which at 2,785,368km across, totally dwarfs the planets.

And then you feel really tiny when you compare our sun to the biggest known star, which is 4,595,857,200km in diameter. That's 1,650 times bigger than our own sun.

If you're starting to feel small, don't even try and contemplate all the SPACE in between those massive objects!

I hope that you're all having the most wonderful day,

Sunday, 11 May 2014

Sunset Boulevard | Print Your Own Make Up

Dress is Hell Bunny | hat is Vintage | shoes were found on the side of the road | ring is thrifted

Hey you guys! So is anyone else completely as obsessed with polka dots as I am, or is it just me? Every single time I go op-shopping, I end up with an armful of anything I've found that has polka dots on it, basically regardless of what it is. I then have to force myself to remove things like giant polka-dot pants that I'm "totally going to resize into cute shorts" (because I know that I never, ever will). It's seriously becoming a problem - yesterday I was wearing a white polka-dot bodysuit underneath a black polka-dot pinafore with polka dot socks (a stranger actually commented on my outfit and said it made them really happy, so, whatever, head-to-toe polka dots for the win!)

In case you didn't see it yesterday, I've uploaded a new youtube video! Stick around 'til the end for a blooper reel ;) I'm enjoying making videos so much lately that I keep doing it instead of my uni work, which is a little bit problematic! I'd also love to get an idea of if you guys would like to see things things like outfit/lookbook videos - let me know in the comments!

"We're going to live in a world where you can just take a picture on your friend's lipstick, and then print it out."

Image is from Tech Crunch

Fusing fashion and science, Grace Choi claims to have created the prototype for a mini-3D printer that can print makeup in whatever colour you want. With this product, called Mink, you can apparently take any image - for example, someone wearing an amazing lipstick on pinterest - select the colour from the image, and the Mink printer can 3D-print you that exact colour of lipstick (or eyeshadow, or foundation, or any type of make up you want).

Not only is this a cool application of science, it's also going to allow for a lot more make-up experimentation, regardless of whatever coloured make up products are trending. As Choi says, "The definition of beauty is something they [referring to us "young people"] should be able to control, not our corporations."

Choi estimates that a Mink printer will cost about $300 to start with - but if you're someone who buys a lot of expensive make up in multiple different shades, and you can replace this habit with something that can print you whatever colour makeup you want, it's pretty quickly going to be a money-saver.

Now before you all get too excited… I’m skeptical about the actual production of Mink and whether or not it’ll be available within a year (and for only $300!) as Choi has predicted – and it’s also quite mysterious as to what the “raw materials” themselves will be made of. But regardless as to whether Mink works out or not, I think that something like this is totally possible. I mean, we’re currently also working on the technology to print out houses, food, limbs and organs. ORGANS. How hard could makeup be compared to that?? I recently wrote a much more in-depth analysis of Mink at Birdee magazine, which you can read here.

[Thanks to Katie for the photos.]

Saturday, 10 May 2014

DIY Egg Brooch/Hair Clip

Hello! Because we are both free from uni, Katie and I have decided that every Tuesday is now going to be Craft Tuesday (we really need a better name. Any suggestions?) Anyway, we have wanted to make these clay fried eggs (I wanted a brooch, Katie wanted to make a hair clip) for a while now, so on our first ever Craft Tuesday we decided to give it a go! The original tutorial that we used is from Girl Guts, but it's always nice to see things in motion too, so we decided that we would make a short little video tutorial on what we did!

The materials that you will need are listed in the video's description. Enjoy!

Monday, 5 May 2014

Mendl's Patisserie

I needed to find some outlet for my love of the new Wes Anderson movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, and this apparently involved me dressing up like an extra from a Wes Anderson film and setting up a miniature photoshoot on top of my kitchen table.

I nicked this Mendl's box from my local cinema as we were leaving the movie (don't worry, there were about 200 of the things and they were probably just going to be thrown out at the end of the promotion), the whole time feeling an affinity with Zero Moustafa and Mr Gustave as they stole the Boy with Apple (because the stakes for my theft were definitely as high as they were in the film).

I desperately want to live in a world with the aesthetic of the Grand Budapest Hotel - really, of any Wes Anderson movie. But while seamless virtual reality is still a good few decades away, I'll have to make do with my outfit posts and photoshop to pretend that that world exists.

Sweater is vintage | top - can't remember | belt and skirt are thrifted | socks are handmade | shoes are from Naot

I think I might also have to do a Moonrise Kingdom inspired shoot now. With that pink dress. You know, for consistency, and definitely not because I want to be Suzy Bishop (I do, though the person I know who comes closest to achieving that is Polly Bland).

I hope that you're all having the sweetest day!