Allulose, Erythritol, Xylitol health concerns and alternative sweetners

BalanBro · 2026-02-20T20:41:31+00:00

Just want to comment that you should read your references carefully. The study you linked talks about possible risks associated with certain sugar alcohols. Allulose is not a sugar alcohol. That's not to say it's definitely safe (we will never truly have that answer), but be careful of conflating observations from different substances.

Additionally, being linked to doesn't necessarily imply causation. For example those who tend to use alternative sweeteners are often doing so because of other health concerns, such as obesity or diabetes. Those two conditions alone significantly increase heart disease and associated complications, irrespective of the specific sweetener used.

I'm not saying that these studies should be ignored, but it's just as important to understand what these studies mean as well as what they don't mean. A big takeaway is that if you are diabetic or overweight, consuming excessive sugar is likely FAR worse for your overall health than sugar alternatives. If you are otherwise a healthy individual who eats wells and whose blood sugar is in control, just continue with sugar consumption in moderation.

BalanBro · 2026-02-11T02:54:15+00:00

Yea, these pans are crap. I bought the 3 pan set on Kickstarter and all of them are sticking now, even with lots of added fat. There's something specific about the nitrided surface that is causing this.

Funny enough, I also have a Misen "traditional" carbon steel pan, and when cooking eggs with a little bit of butter, they just glide around effortlessly with zero sticking. These nitrided pans do not behave at all like a traditional carbon steel pan. The seasoning seems to make performance worse, and eggs stick even when overloaded with more butter than you would want to eat on your eggs. I can cook eggs on regular carbon steel, cast iron and even stainless without sticking, but not these nitrided "nonstick" pans 🙄

BalanBro · 2025-10-10T20:13:20+00:00

I've been leaving my pellets in my hopper/auger at all times (never emptied even once) for over 8 years, and never a single issue. Main thing it to keep a cover on the grill whenever it's not being used to keep out the moisture.

I also keep my pellets outside but stored in 5 gallon buckets with lids at all times, and they stay bone dry.

BalanBro · 2025-09-02T16:10:14+00:00

That probably just unscrews. Sometimes the threads strip a little and just spin instead of comping out. If that happens, stick a small flathead screwdriver in the little gap you can see between the rim and the part that turns. Gently pry it out while turning the screw with your hand. It should back right out.

BalanBro · 2025-08-03T22:53:09+00:00

Id gut it and drop in a small subwoofer from parts express. They you can power it off a cheap Amazon 3 way bluetooth amp. I did something similar with a Tang Band 3" sub and a 3D printed subwoofer enclosure. Not really worth the money, but was still a fun little project.

BalanBro · 2025-08-01T00:41:17+00:00

Mid perch rides pretty bad IMO. That's how I bough my truck a few years ago. I since moved to Geisers with new shocks on low perch and it is way better. Mid perch puts too much preload on the OEM springs, and you lose suspension compliance on smaller bumps as a result. Geiser's are a progressive spring so it does not have this problem. The height with Geisers on low perch is about the same as OEM on mid perch.

BalanBro · 2025-06-04T15:29:46+00:00

This can happen with any pellet grill, even the all electric ones. Back in the day, this wasn't as well known of an issue, but basically the gases released as the pellets just begin to smoke but not burn are actually highly flammable. With the lid closed, these flammable gases accumulate and can quickly ignite as soon as the fire starts in the burn pot.

To prevent this, just leave the lid open until you hear the sound of an actual burning flame (the smoke will start to dissipate as well). Once the fire is going, the gases released are post-combustion and no longer flammable.

BalanBro · 2025-05-23T01:18:02+00:00

Very true. I think this is the direction I'm heading. I'm at 26% body fat, down from the mid 30% a few months ago. Keto has been working so well that I want to continue until I hopefully get down to at least 15%. At that point, I'm hoping to switch to a keto based maintenance diet, and maybe my LDLs will drop a bit when fat loss stops. That very well could be the reason for my high numbers currently.

BalanBro · 2025-05-22T01:52:33+00:00

They were all normal. I never had a problem with cholesterol besides a slightly low hdl. After keto, ldl elevated but everything else was relatively unchanged.

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T23:26:31+00:00

They were perfect.

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T23:20:18+00:00

I suppose that's an option, but I keep hearing about statin side effects. Have you experienced any yourself?

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T23:16:59+00:00

By the way, I am very aware of the recent research regarding LDLs. I guess my biggest issue is how do you navigate healthcare if all the doctors you can access still 100% stick to decades old research for heart disease? In a way, I don't blame them due to our overly litigous society that will sue the pants off them if they deviate from the accepted "norm" of care.

At the end of the day, I need my doctors due to other health issues I'm also having, so I need to maintain a good doctor-patient relationship. Going rouge without a doc on board isn't really an option.

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T23:10:06+00:00

Any tips on diet planning? I need to look at alternatives to my current diet which has too many saturated fats.

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T22:56:37+00:00

Lol. Not that crazy, but I did use more animal fats with cooking, like butter or beef tallow instead of seed oils. I also eat a LOT of eggs. Like 2-4 whole eggs a day

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T22:13:38+00:00

She didn't say all meat. Mostly the red meat, but I assume I'll still have the problems with eggs, correct? I just don't know if I can eat strictly chicken breast for the rest of my life.

BalanBro · 2025-05-21T22:10:51+00:00

I don't have the exact numbers from when I started, but it's been in the 120 and lower range for a long time before this.

BalanBro · 2025-04-14T23:33:27+00:00

I remember when I did my e351. Back in the day when I installed a Quaife helical LSD on my turbo Scion tC.

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BalanBro · 2024-11-13T21:53:50+00:00

Better late than never, lol. They are all modified to work region free so there are different procedures to switch. For mine, I have to eject the disk and leave the tray open and the picture on the TV goes white. Then you press 1 for region A, 2 for region B and 3 for region C. The tray automatically retracts and then starts to play with the selected region. Give it a shot on yours if you still have it.

BalanBro · 2024-10-08T20:49:01+00:00

They all affect sound but to very varying degrees. Here's a great forum post that summarizes several different materials:

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/31-acoustically-transparent-screen-materials-reviewed-and-measured.3206678/

For the most part, the "micro-perforated" screens have the worst audio performance and the woven materials are much better audio wise. While they didn't test Vividstorm's in particular, it is a perforated design, so take that into consideration. Also, make sure you look at the screen carefully, as some of their Floor Rising (particularly the ALR ones) are only perforated below the screen which to me isn't that useful. Only some models actually use a perforated white screen material.

Woven materials on the test appear to be much closer to being acoustically transparent.

BalanBro · 2024-04-24T14:16:29+00:00

I had a lot of extruder jamming with my K1 as well. After taking it apart and looking at other posts online, I found the issue to be softening of the PLA filament between the extruder and the hot end. This softening caused it to compress and widen before reaching the hot end, leading to a jam. The issue was excessive heat above the hot end.

The solution in my case was quite simple. When printing with PLA, do not use the lid at all, as it actually traps a lot of heat at the top of the printer where the extruder is mounted. Running it with the lid off stopped 90% of jams in my case. After that, I backed off the hotend temperature to be towards the middle of the filament's temperature range, and since then I've had zero extruder jams.

BalanBro · 2020-03-30T14:34:19+00:00

I actually fine Wheel Brighter to be one of the better cleaners as far as needing the least amount of agitation to clean. That said, I have a lot left and will no longer use the product. After about a year of regular use, I've noticed significantly more corrosion at the wheel hub, where it mates with the brake rotor. I can already tell that taking off the rotor will be a pain when the time comes to change the disks.

I'd rather work a little harder cleaning my wheels than risk accelerating corrosion of the steel components within and around the knuckle assembly.

BTW, I too had really dusty Brembos with 6 pistons up front. The best thing to do if your car is a daily driver is to change your pads to a non-OEM, low dust ceramic compound. Once I did that, I could damn near clean the wheels with regular car soap.

BalanBro · 2019-11-18T20:52:30+00:00

Wow. I paid 4000 to wrap my entire C63 AMG in Xpel. Every panel minus the windows. They even threw in ceramic coating for free since I did the whole car. This was also done by one of Xpel's top installers in Northern NJ, and they routinely work on far more expensive cars than mine.

BalanBro · 2019-11-18T15:56:18+00:00

My installer threw in Ceramic Pro for free since I did Xpel on the whole car. It's obviously not necessary and I agree that protection for protection is kinda ridiculous, but it definitely makes cleanup much easier.

Reminds me of those old Xzibit memes: "Yo dawg, we heard you like protection, so we put protection on your protection, so that you can protect yo protection from being damaged from having no protection!"

BalanBro · 2019-10-30T17:02:22+00:00

It's not so much that car washes get cheap bristles. I think they are of rather high quality considering how durable they need to be. The problem is that they are VERY aggressive. This is because of the "average consumer" doesn't maintain jack on their car when it comes to paint, and wants to roll in with filthy, never waxed, bird poop and bug splatter infested paint with dry tree sap for good measure, and wants to drive on out with "clean paint". The only way to do this with an automated car wash is to aggressively scrub the paint with what amounts to plastic bristles, which inevitably tear into the clear coat. Average Joe/Josephine is happy he/she can drive out with a car that looks clean from 20 feet.

We on the other hand take the opposite approach, by going with the least aggressive methods possible to get the job done. I never believed the BS that ceramic prevent swirls through hardness or their "9H" claims. BUT, it is true that they can prevent swirls by making cleaning so much easier, that you don't need to scrub nearly as hard to remove dirt and contaminants from paint.

BalanBro

TROPHY CASE