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Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

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Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#111

Post by stonemetal »

josephpmay wrote: post #37
geoka9 wrote: post #9

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

A couple of factors that I can think of: 1) Sugar is addicting, and there is significantly more sugar in soda than other drinks [Google it] 2) Soda is very refreshing. This is important in warmer climates. If it is 98 degrees outside (37C), an orange Fanta does a much better job of making me feel better than just water 3) Soda is available everywhere and is the de-facto drink with most meals. Just like Italians drink…

So I Googled it. It seems to not be true, plenty of fruit juices beat coke for sugar content. Though it does seem to be more or less true for other non fruit juice drinks.

typical grape juice has 50% more sugar than Coca-Cola. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juice

Orange juice 170 calories from sugar vs 150 for cola (12 oz) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/how-sweet-is-it/

Googling "sugar in apple juice" turns up 170 for 12 oz as well.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#112

Post by crusso »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #80
DanBC wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong and you should declare your weird shilling for the sugar industry. http://www.child-smile.org.uk/parents-and-carers/birth-to-3-... > Small amounts of pure, unsweetened fruit juice should be diluted half and half (50% juice to 50% water), or with a greater proportion of water to juice if your child is thirsty. > Juice should be restricted to mealtimes only in a free-flow cup, not a feeding bottle.

It is for these reasons we should ban breast feeding. Human breast milk has a sugar content higher than ice cream! It is obviously unsafe for babies to be exposed to so much sugar.

Breast-fed infants don't typically have exposed teeth subject to tooth decay, do they?

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#113

Post by nerfhammer »

vinceguidry wrote: post #11
geoka9 wrote: post #9

It's hard for me to understand the whole soda phenomenon in Canada and the US. Is it as addictive as cigarettes? Does it make you crave for more? Or it simply tastes so good that you can't get enough of it? Why not eat a bunch of apples instead (if you don't care about the amount of sugar you consume)? Wouldn't they taste better?

Pretty sure it's mostly due to marketing and also vertically integrated markets. You can't get away from soft drink advertising in the US. And the stuff is literally everywhere. In many (most?) restaurants, your beverage choices comprise soda and water. I would not be surprised at all if soda alone accounted for a double-digit percentage of the obesity rate.

It's the margins. Merchants will always push you to get soft drinks because that's where they get the biggest margin.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#114

Post by DanBC »

anigbrowl wrote: post #74
DanBC wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong and you should declare your weird shilling for the sugar industry. http://www.child-smile.org.uk/parents-and-carers/birth-to-3-... > Small amounts of pure, unsweetened fruit juice should be diluted half and half (50% juice to 50% water), or with a greater proportion of water to juice if your child is thirsty. > Juice should be restricted to mealtimes only in a free-flow cup, not a feeding bottle.

Castigating someone for shilling for the sugar industry in the context of unsweetened fruit juice makes no sense. The guidelines you cite are obviously infants and toddlers. I suspect the poster above is thinking of more active older children. Accusing him/her of being a paid PR person is unjustified and unnecessary.

Do a search - the poster frequently recommends adding refined sugar to the diet; and responds to requests for cites with abuse. In this thread they've called citing your claims as "a game for retards".

The poster holds a view which is so weird it may as well be shilling. (And I say this as someone who has said that Lustig advocates go too far).

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#115

Post by tdicola »

ssmoot wrote: post #35
ep103 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its generally understood that most artificial sweeteners are seen as sugar by the body, but don't actually get turned into sugar in the bloodstream. So it makes sense that it might contribute to diabetes (your body digests it like sugar), but not aging (which is accelerated by sugar in the bloodstream). I believe the whole point of coke 0 is that it doesn't use an artificial sweetener? But don't quote me on t…

I could be wrong, but I thought Coke Zero was just the name for Diet Coke with Sucralose instead of Aspartame.

There's a version of Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda, but Coke Zero is sweetened with aspartame just like regular Diet Coke. The Splenda Diet Coke isn't bad, but it does taste a little different than normal Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Look for the Diet Coke cans with a yellow label to find the Splenda version.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#116

Post by Lockyy »

bri3d wrote: post #32
ep103 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its generally understood that most artificial sweeteners are seen as sugar by the body, but don't actually get turned into sugar in the bloodstream. So it makes sense that it might contribute to diabetes (your body digests it like sugar), but not aging (which is accelerated by sugar in the bloodstream). I believe the whole point of coke 0 is that it doesn't use an artificial sweetener? But don't quote me on t…

Coke Zero for the US market still uses aspartame, the same sweetener used in Diet Coke. Coke Zero is a more modern formulation which is supposed to taste more like "classic" Coke than Diet, which has its own distinctive "artificial" flavor which some customers have become accustomed to. It's also marketed very squarely towards young men: during the recent "Share a Coke with X" campaign, there was even a "Share a Coke…

In the UK at least we have 'Share a Coke with a Mate' which I guess is our equivalent.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#117

Post by tsotha »

hughes wrote: post #88
tjr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some people, it seems to be. I suspect part of the issue is how abundantly available it is. For example, you go to the theater, and you can either buy a single bottle of water, or a cup of soda with free refills. Many restaurants offer only local tap water as a water choice, which varies in good taste. Lots of vending machines offer only soda, no water, again leaving the water-drinkers to search for a hopefully-c…

Even at the workplace, many offices offer unlimited free soda as a perk. I almost never touch the stuff and would love to have access to healthier options. I haven't seen a single job posting featuring regularly stocked fresh fruit as an incentive.

>Even at the workplace, many offices offer unlimited free soda as a perk.

Is that still true? I know Microsoft did it in the early years, but that was a long time ago.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#118

Post by drzaiusapelord »

anigbrowl wrote: post #67
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they saw 'aging' with sugar-sweetened soda, the opposite with fruit juice, and no significant difference with diet sodas or non-carbonated sugary sodas. What compounds in soda are most likely causing this? If they're not seeing the results in fruit juice, its not sugar causing the damage.

There's more than one kind of sugar. Juices have both fructose and glucose; the former is more likely to be stored by the liver, the latter is deployed more widely around the body. Soda has much higher levels of fructose than glucose, thanks to all that high-fructose corn syrup that has become so popular with food manufacturers. There seems to be mounting evidence that high fructose intake is correlated with increase…

They claim that they don't see any effect with non-carbonated sugary drinks, so the questionable HFCS bogeyman doesn't apply.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#119

Post by xrange »

jhallenworld wrote: post #105
awakeasleep wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nutrition doesn't work like that- there are too many variables. It could be something that fruit juice has and soda doesn't, it could be a confluence of factors that require lateral thinking.

Many fruit juices have potassium, which should help with heart health by counteracting the too much sodium we eat. Not sure why it would have any effect on telomeres though.

>too much sodium we eat.

I thought sodium was coming back into style in the latest nutrition fads.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/15/183883415/eating...

https://www.google.com/search?q=low+salt+diet+bad

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#120

Post by bluecalm »

aragot wrote: post #66
stealthlogic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh, water?

Water? Like out of the toilet!? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/quotes?item=qt1722899

Seriously though, some of the descriptions of culture of drinking soda in this thread make me think of that movie. For last 15 years I had soda maybe 10 times and it was usually like few sips. I just can't phantom a world where soda is what you drink when you are a thirsty or to meals. I don't remember people I eat out with ordering soda to their meals either. It's usually water, tea, coffee, sometimes fruit juice.
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