ANTI-SODA

[Bean_wannabe]

To derail slightly, this advert reminds me of these:

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/arch ... 11118a.jpg

http://www.news-medical.net/images/hotdogs.jpg

http://www.slashfood.com/images/2005/11/bhfnuggets.jpg

http://www.slashfood.com/images/2005/11/bhfburger.jpg

[Wil]

And cane sugar is bad for you too. It's just the fact that HFCS has a stigma.

No, it's the fact that HFCS is artificially created, that your body can't process it properly, that it is literally in everything (meaning you get MUCH more of it than you think), that it suppresses the brains ability to tell you when you're full so that you eat more, it's processed in the liver and isn't converted to glucose but instead directly to fatty tissue, etc etc.

These ad's recently from the Corn industry about how HFCS isn't actually bad for you are backed by studies FUNDED by the Corn industry.

Sugar isn't good to eat in excess, but nothing is. At least it is natural and is processed by the body correctly.

Young Val: Good job! Except, I don't see how you could miss things which made you feel terrible. Do you miss having a cold or the flu? Do you miss broken bones? Same idea, really. Why miss something that makes you feel worse when you have it?

[Graff^]

I agree totally with Wil on all points.

[Young Val]

Young Val: Good job! Except, I don't see how you could miss things which made you feel terrible. Do you miss having a cold or the flu? Do you miss broken bones? Same idea, really. Why miss something that makes you feel worse when you have it?

Thanks!

I only miss things in a nostalgic way. I'll be reminded of my childhood or something similar if I see or smell certain foods. Even if those foods don't particularly taste good to me any more (It's true. If I want something sweet, my own from scratch baked goods are WAY better than any prepackaged snack cake) they still invoke strong memories, mostly fond ones, not of the food itself but of a particular time or place.

And as for the whole sugar thing, well, yeah, eating bucket loads of sugar is bad for you. Eating anything in excess is bad for you. But I personally don't believe in cutting out carbs or fats or sugars or whatever. I just try to balance out all my meals, and eat everything in moderation. If I buy root beer made with cane sugar once every couple of months, I don't consider that a bad thing at all. I have a massive sweet tooth. I try not to over indulge it, and to feed it with sweet things that are more natural, that's all.

[starlooker]

I almost never drink pop/cokes/sodas of any kind -- maybe once or twice a month I'll have a diet coke. I have a cup of half-caf coffee in the mornings, and maybe a cup of tea at work occasionally, but that's about it.

I quit when I was 20. Before that, I was a Dr. Pepper fiend. However, I'd just moved into an apartment for my junior year of college and had spent most of my meager funds on rent/deposits. Tap water was cheaper. Then I had a Dr. Pepper a few months later while we were watching the Super Bowl. I had been looking forward to it -- thought I would be so happy to have it. It turned out it really didn't taste that good anymore. I didn't like the taste, the stickiness, the texture. After that, it wasn't hard to stay away.

I was addicted to these terribly sugary fancy espresso drinks (Caramel Mudd Macchiato's from Mountain Mudd Coffee) for a brief time in North Dakota -- withdrawal headaches and everything -- and I'm SO glad I quit those. It was kind of funny. I was running late for work one morning, and I accidentally drove past the turn-off where I usually stopped for my morning fix. I turned around, went back, and dutifully put my car in the drive through line. Got my coffee, started driving to work again -- even later than before -- and suddenly a voice in my head went, "Have you ever missed work due to drinking?" A couple of days later, I was telling this story in class and one of the girls on the Addictions Counseling track looked really concerned. That's when I started cutting back.

I think my caffeine intake these days is reasonable. The coffee smell motivates me to get out of bed, but I don't get headaches if I miss a day.

I am, however, engaged to a Coca-Cola addict. (This is actually probably the reason that I do have diet coke as often as I do.) It kind of drives me batty, when I think about it, but it's one of those things where I know I can't make him change.

[Wil]

I quit when I was 20. Before that, I was a Dr. Pepper fiend. However, I'd just moved into an apartment for my junior year of college and had spent most of my meager funds on rent/deposits. Tap water was cheaper. Then I had a Dr. Pepper a few months later while we were watching the Super Bowl. I had been looking forward to it -- thought I would be so happy to have it. It turned out it really didn't taste that good anymore. I didn't like the taste, the stickiness, the texture. After that, it wasn't hard to stay away.

Yeah. I used to LOVE Dr. Pepper also, a few years ago. After I stopped drinking them, they tasted terrible. If I do have a soda, I stick to the Lemon-Limes, the Oranges, and the Root-Beers now.

I think my caffeine intake these days is reasonable. The coffee smell motivates me to get out of bed, but I don't get headaches if I miss a day.

*thumbs up* In moderation, nothing wrong with coffee at all! I will actually use caffeine as a pick me up when I need it, and that's really what it should be used for - a quick boost of energy - but your body shouldn't be dependent on it.

[Satya]

I quit all soda, coffee, sweetened tea, and any 'juice' beverage that was less than 50% juice a few years ago. I haven't missed them.

[CezeN]

I still love and drink soda on a semi-daily basis.

...Just thought I'd share my sugerydrink testimony like everyone else.

[Sonikku13]

Now where can I buy some high-fructose corn syrup?

[Graff^]

In one of those nasty cans of soda.

[Sonikku13]

Thats not what I meant. I meant high-fructose corn syrup as a stand-alone thing.

You can get pure sugar Dr. Pepper at the Dublin, Texas bottling plant.

[Wil]

Just thought I'd throw this Slashdot story out there that's from about a month ago.

Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

[Syphon the Sun]

You do realize that the study cited has been objected to by all sorts of academics, right? From pretty much the moment it was published. The methodology was f*cked, the results are inconsistent within the study, etc.

It's pretty hard to say that your study effectively concludes that HFCS leads to weight gain moreso than sucrose when the rats who were fed the HFCS/chow combo for 24 hours a day weighed less than the rats fed sucrose/chow combo 12 hours a day and just chow the other 12 hours.

[Wil]

Shhhhh, be quiet. It's not my fault the idiots who did the study were psychologists and managed to screw up the test. >.>

[Eaquae Legit]

I enjoy sweetened drinks. I do not like the non-taste of water. And by natural inclination, I don't drink very much of anything throughout the day. So I find when I cut myself off to just water I get dehydrated and that can lead to migraines.

I enjoy pop, but I'm not addicted. I am happy to have juice most of the time, or iced tea. The advantage with pop for me is its quickness. You reach in the fridge and it's there.

But really what I prefer are those crystal lite type drinks, diluted. While I really need something to flavour my water, I don't like things overly strong. My family think its weird when I water down my juice, but I just like it that way.

What I really should try is making a pitcher of orange slices in water. The one time I had that, it was plenty sweet and flavourful enough for me. In fact, having thought of it just now, I'm going to do that today!

[Syphon the Sun]

It's also not your fault that nobody has been able to find any significant short-term difference in satiety/blood chemistry between HFCS and sugar in humans.

Further reading if you're interested (I have all of the following articles in pdf format, so if you can't get ahold of them and you want them, just shoot me a PM):

Kimber L. Stanhope, et al., Twenty-Four-Hour Endocrine and Metabolic Profiles Following Consumption of High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Sucrose, Fructose, and Glucose-Sweetened Beverages with Meals, 87 Am. J. Clinical Nutrition 1194 (2008).

Stijn Soenen & Margriet S. Westerterp-Plantenga, No Differences in Satiety or Energy Intake After High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Sucrose, or Milk Preloads, 86 Am. J. Clinical Nutrition 1586 (2007).

Pablo Monsivais, et al., Sugars and Satiety: Does the Type of Sweetener Make a Difference?, 86 Am. J. Clinical Nutrition 116 (2007).

Kathleen J. Melanson, et al., Effects of High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Sucrose Consumption on Circulating Glucose, Insulin, Leptin, and Ghrelin and on Appetite in Normal-Weight Women, 23 Nutrition 103 (2007).

[Sonikku13]

The American Medical Association says it is unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload ... ummary.pdf

And my argument with sucrose intolerance still hasn't been refuted. People who are deficient in sucrase can not properly digest sucrose, causing excess gas production and diarrhea. What does this mean? For those people with sucrase deficiency, HFCS is better than sucrose.

[Wil]

I can think of several other natural sugar substitutes that I would rather ingest before I trust some lab-created, genetically modified oddity that is lobbied for by the corn industry who get government subsidies to grow corn.

Really, why risk your health with something that has so many questions raised against it?

[Graff^]

Who's side would you take if the item in question was say......cocaine? Would you take the side of the junkie or the totally drug free person?

[zeroguy]

Reading the first post of this thread... I was happy that it wasn't a soda v pop/coke/other-wrong-answers thread.

Upon reading (much of) the rest of the thread, my opinion has magically reversed.

[jotabe]

I can think of several other natural sugar substitutes that I would rather ingest before I trust some lab-created, genetically modified oddity.

Hummmm... something produced by chance and by a process of natural selection in which human necessities were never a factor VS something created and designed by humans for humans...

tough choice!


I really don't want to enter in the sugar conflict, as i really have no information on the topic, nor the wish to research it (seems to be quite pointless), but i abhorr the fake polemic of "natural" vs "artificial". I'd feel a lot safer if i knew every chemical i eat has been designed for human consumption, and not a product of trial and error along millions of years, that happens not to kill us when we eat it.

[Satya]

You're not as smart as you think you are sometimes, Jota. Usually you are, but in this case - no. You prefer manmade, "designed by and for?" You do realize that man's ability to do this is itself part of that "trial and error" process of "natural selection?" Fermentation and the idea of alcohol is "manmade", do you prefer it to, say, marijuana, evolved through nature's "trial and error?" But it does seem to me that this random "chance and a process of natural selection in which human necessities were never a factor" has been doing pretty f****** well for itself, eh? Consciousness/self-awareness, total domination of planet-of-origin, control over the very atomic structure of existence, knowledge of manipulating said planet to better suit the organism in question. All this rot about "designed by human for humans" seems a bit disingenuous considering that A) all humans 'design' is based on what we already see in nature and uses what we find therein and B) human understanding of said design is limited in scope with minimal understanding of the long-term effects of the products of those designs with, at best, a few decades of 'trial-and-error.' Nature's been testing it's products for what, according to evolutionists? Over a billion years on this planet? And of course, she's not concerned with things that bias and skew such trials - things like profit margin, advertising and market-share.

[Wil]

Humans design things for humans all the time that turn out weren't so good for us simply because they didn't understand the complexities of biological life and how fragile it really is. Of course, we design things which are good for us too! It's just, from time to time, we mess up. There are a lot of questions concerning HFCS, and it is quite literally in everything we eat, so we get a lot more if it than we realize. Best to just avoid it as much as you can if you value your health, methinks.

[Satya]

Don't you just love the smell of Asbestos in the morning?

[jotabe]

Meh I wasn't even trying to be smart. Why are you guys trying to dissect rationally an emotional rant?

In any case, i'll take the bait and not back off lol.
First, alcohol is not manmade, the fermentation of sugary juices probably happened spontaneously when humans were storing them. An accident, an as it is most likely, the result was harmful. And cannabis is another accident: you know that the cannabinoids didn't have any particular reason to fit in our neurotransmitters (or however they work), it just happened to fit, by chance.
And we haven't been so good for nature. I am usually an ecologic optimist, but for the purpouse of this discussion, it would seem that nature found the perfect method (ourselves) to do itself in.

Also, not every design made by humans is a copy of nature. We don't have to go too far into our technology to find examples of original design by humans: the wheel (no, the people who invented the wheel didn't have the means to know about the workings of cillia and flagela... which are not exactly the same thing either).
And our understanding of the consequences of design are a bit better than nature's, because we are conscious and have intelligence, which nature hasn't. We plan ahead, to minimize failures, where nature's experiments produce 99% of failures and 1% success. What happens to nature's failures? They die, of course. We cannot afford that.

Btw, asbestos is great for what it was designed. It's basically a fault of our own bodies that it makes us die. Meh, faulty bodies that can't resist a thing...

[Satya]

LOL the wheel. Yeah, cause things rolling just doesn't occur in visible nature.

Even if our understanding of the consequences is more in depth, do we actually follow that understanding to a logical action? As evidenced by people pounding cases of soda a day, obviously not.

[jotabe]

Well, rolling happens in nature, at human scale, but as accidents mostly, accidents which the process of trial and error couldn't find a way to take advantage of (otherwise you'd see wheeled animals everywhere*). Not to serve any motion or give any advantage: their round shape stems from a spherical or rotational symmetry in their development, like apples, and not to ease movement.
And there is a huge conceptual step between seeing something roll, and realizing that it facilitates movement. The point of the wheel is that enables you to remove the need of applying a force upwards to move something, you only need a horizontal force (car), or a downwards force (pulley).

People who doesn't follow logical actions find themselves, in most cases... well, dead.

*Now, it would be awesome to find wheeled animals, but i think that such a drastic change in the design couldn't happen in vertebrates. Some larvae and myriapods, though, have a wave-like behaviour in their legs that might produce wheels, actually very much like what we call, precisely, caterpillar tracks.

[Satya]

Jota, seeing a rock roll down a hill doesn't indicate ease of movement?

[Sonikku13]

For every 100 grams of sucrose, you basically have 50 grams of fructose when the sucrose molecule is broken down. For every 100 grams of HFCS 55, you have 55 grams of fructose. Doesn't seem like much of a difference.

[Satya]

Over the course of how long, though.

[jotabe]

Jota, seeing a rock roll down a hill doesn't indicate ease of movement?

Well, if you have to carry heavy sacks of grain down a hill, sliding is way easier. "Downhill, every saint helps", as we say over here. Ease of movement downhill isn't all the cracked up it's to be.
And the leap from seeing something rolling to actually imagine how it can be used for movement is highly non-trivial. It's trivial only in our modern minds, where the usage of wheels is so common.

[Rei]

I have very little interest in being anti-pop.

What I do have interest in is being pro-tea.

I'm pretty okay with anyone who tells me that tea is better for me than water!

[jotabe]

tea is better for me than water!

QFT!

I actually discovered tea very recently, when i reached the understanding that a litre of (diet) coke every day couldn't be too good, but my utter dislike for coffee made the traditional choice for caffeine intake unavailable for me. I very much enjoy several kinds of tea

[Rei]

What kinds have you been trying?

[jotabe]

green teas: blackcurrant, lemon and cherry are my favourite flavours
black teas: peach and caramel with vanilla are quite good