The Decline of ‘Big Soda’ • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#81

Post by kw71 » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

neverartful wrote: post #53

Like many of the posters here, I realize that much of the food and drink sold is unhealthy. On the other hand, I don't think that nanny state regulations are the answer. Plenty of unhealthy things abound (when overused): chips, candy, pizza, fast food, cookies, ice cream, video games, television, etc. Maybe some of the same marketing tactics used to sell the unhealthy things can also be used to counter them with heal…

Under a socialized healthcare regime, every sick person is a problem for the whole society in that we have to pay for it. So, being careless with your health is a crime against the people. If you are in the USA, consider that you have been funding healthcare for some of the worst offenders for decades by paying taxes which fund hospitals. Now with the healthcare reforms in mind, which have itemized your contribution to social healthcare separately from your taxes, take a walk around Walmart and consider all the preventable health issues you see in the crowd. Do you really want to pay for that? I feel like you and I should have the freedom not to, and our collective freedom not to is more important than any individual's freedom to eat and drink his way to costly, lifelong illness.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#82

Post by wpietri » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

PKop wrote: post #34

kachnuv_ocasek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can buy whatever they want if they have money. And surely, they'll buy the shiny thing thing they saw on TV or the internet when they encounter it in the shop and see it's cheap.

Again, kids won't do "whatever they want" if their parents do their job and instill proper discipline, education, and consequences for behavior that they don't want. If you want the government to do your parenting for you, I don't know what to tell you. Not my idea of good parenting, and I think the results will be disappointing. We can agree to disagree on that.

> Again, kids won't do "whatever they want" if their parents do their job and instill proper discipline, education, and consequences for behavior that they don't want.

Clearly you aren't a parent, and I suspect you also have never been a child. It would be handy if what you wrote were true. But children aren't robots, and parents aren't the only people who influence them. The reason that food companies target children in their advertising is that it works to manipulate them.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#83

Post by wpietri » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

PopeOfNope wrote: post #52

andyfleming wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we really need is education. Children and adults alike should better understand nutrition and what they are putting in their bodies. It's no secret that soda and so many other drinks are packed with sugar, but no one seems to care or understand.

What we really need is fewer people speculating about what other people need. Follow in the footsteps of your forefathers[0] and mind your own damned business. [0]: http://rivergrandrapids.com/the-first-official-us-coin-said-...

You realize that the advertising industry, which clears north of $200 billion a year in the US, is entirely devoted to manipulating what other people need, right? If those people will stop trying to mind (and control) everybody else's business, there'd be a much smaller problem here.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#84

Post by smacktoward » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

codingdave wrote: post #12

lemevi wrote: post #5

Just take some time next time you're in a supermarket and walk down the cereal aisle, it's just incredible. It's all sugar and carbohydrates in colorful cartoony boxes meant to appeal to children. Just a cup of cereal has many calories and people and children eat huge bowls of this stuff. So I think an anti-cereal campaign might also help. I often wonder what would happen to national obesity rates if cereal aisles in…

If you are going there, you may as well evaluate the entire store. Most processed foods are not healthy, and most grocery stores are stocked with processed foods. It is not like the frozen dinner/pizza aisle has many good choices either. The produce sections are good, though.

The design of grocery stores has actually evolved in such a way as to make it pretty easy for you to shop healthy, though not on purpose. (At least, it did in the US, I don't know if other countries follow the same pattern.)

The standard supermarket layout consists a "perimeter" running around the sides and back of the store, with a "center store" made up of aisles in the middle. Center store is where the shelf-stable, processed and frozen foods go, while fresh/perishable foods -- produce, dairy, meats, seafood, bakery, etc. -- are placed along the perimeter. (More on this here: http://limn.it/all-lost-in-the-supermarket/)

So if you stick to shopping the perimeter and only duck into center store when you absolutely need to, it's not hard to come away with a cart that's mostly fresh foods. It's when your shopping consists mostly of running up and down the aisles of the center store that you get in trouble.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#85

Post by brandonmenc » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #65

brandonmenc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a cereal addict as a kid. Killed a couple boxes of the stuff a week. And I was super skinny, probably because we played outside to the point of exhaustion every single day.

probably due to metabolism more so than activity

What am I missing here - exercise increases metabolism, at least temporarily, does it not?

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#86

Post by bluecalm » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

frenchy wrote: post #8

lemevi wrote: post #5

Just take some time next time you're in a supermarket and walk down the cereal aisle, it's just incredible. It's all sugar and carbohydrates in colorful cartoony boxes meant to appeal to children. Just a cup of cereal has many calories and people and children eat huge bowls of this stuff. So I think an anti-cereal campaign might also help. I often wonder what would happen to national obesity rates if cereal aisles in…

There some much healthier options in there if you know where to look, but unfortunately its not easy to identify them, and even things like granola which are colloquially thought to be healthy are often jam packed with sugar.

Maybe the solution is to require sorting on the shelves by sugar content. This way not only healthier options will be easier to find but you would need to take a few additional steps to get your high sugar option.

Those additional steps to get to the end of the shelf may even turn into a walk of shame kind of thing with enough cultural pressure.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#87

Post by tdkl » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #78

tdkl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Kellogg's , they also started the whole "Breakfast is healthy and most important meal in the morning" BS. Since I've started intermittent fasting 16/8 (from 20.00 to 12.00) I've been loosing fat easily.

I'm interested in the 20h to 12noon fast. Is that literally nill by mouth for that period or do you have a drink of water or unsweetened tea when getting up? I'd go for porridge at lunch on a regime like that. A younger colleague at work referred to porridge as 'warm icecream' the other day so there is hope I think.

Here's the best writeup on the topic I've found : http://antranik.org/intermittent-fasting/

The guy also makes great videos about bodyweight training, which I also implemented beside weights.

I usually eat dinner before 20.00, but after that nothing. Water refreshes me in the morning (I stopped with coffee 2,5 years ago and am clean since), although as written in the article above coffee ain't that big deal either.

The thing is that you get used to the "empty" feeling to the point you kinda prefer it, since you're way more focused. I also stopped drinking everything else then water, because it's the only thing that actually clenches the thirst and also supresses the "hunger" feeling (I've put hunger in quotes because actual hunger is being a day or more without food, not couple hours that many modern humans think). A great after effect is also much greater sensitivity to sugar, when you occasionally drink something sweetened like a soda or juice. You won't believe how sweet the drinks are today, when you're drinking just water for a month. This is also why I believe people keep consuming sugary products and are surprised by the amount of it inside - when your taste adapts to sugar all the time, you have no idea and as a result you might even start eating more sugary things to even taste it's sweet.

An awesome benefit is also that you're way way less obsessed with food, because you don't constantly surround your thoughts about it (like for 5-6 meals per day). Just eat 2-3 meals and that's it. Sometimes I even eat at 14.00 if I'm busy or something, not really an issue. The only caveat is to not to pig out in the afternoon. Actually after a while when you're used to being empty more, you won't even want to eat large amounts of food, specially if you're drinking water through the day.

I'm not saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, so as with everything, give it a full go for a month and check the results.

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#88

Post by mrob » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #68

klenwell wrote: post #25

When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on the table in the center of his office. It was a good “conversation piece,” he said, about the surprising number of calories in a typical soda. I think this is key. Better information and transparency is having an effect. I'm glad to hear we're approaching a poin…

I never understood how soda doesn't feel like it has 17 teaspoons of sugar in it because I've made lemonade with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar and it feels just as sweet.

Was your lemonade carbonated? Carbonation can reduce perceived sweetness: http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2813%2900798...

Lower serving temperature will also reduced perceived sweetness and soda is often served with ice: http://aless.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/wordpress/web/wp-content/uplo...

(0.5M is 171g/l, approximately double what you'd find in soda)

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#89

Post by austenallred » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #57

klenwell wrote: post #25

When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on the table in the center of his office. It was a good “conversation piece,” he said, about the surprising number of calories in a typical soda. I think this is key. Better information and transparency is having an effect. I'm glad to hear we're approaching a poin…

That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. If you believe the other common stories, we're drinking the calories. I'd wager they come from the rise of coffee-based beverages - which would not be considered soda - but I don't have data to back that up.

I'd be curious to see how much of the decline of "soda" is a result of the move to "energy drinks"

Re: The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

#90

Post by r00fus » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:34 PM UTC

andhess wrote: post #67

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #4

I would like to see a decline of "Big water". It astonishes me that bottled water is consistently sold for more than sugar water and not one bottler breaks from the pack and sells it for less. That can only happen with industry wide collusion to fix prices and yet no one in the government does anything about it.

I don't really mind if "big water" is a thing, but I'd like to see better packaging for it. It's amazing how many people regularly drink bottled water instead of tap water.

We purchase from a locally purified water distributor and use large reusable containers.

Makes a big difference. When we got our plumbing replaced I might get a whole house filter as well.