I’d like to hear more about this Pavlov’s dog thing Payneman was talking about? I’ve thought of this before, but it doens’t seem very likely.
Can the taste of sugar alone induce insulin secretion?
You can find a “study” that can prove almost anything will kill you by some means.
Everything in moderation.
My brother drinks a ton of diet soda and is pretty damn lean and was extremely fat a year ago. I, on the other hand, don’t like them or drink them and am able to maintain a constant decent BF% year round despite constant international travel.
I have heard that drinking diet sodas does give an insulin response but nobody has really refuted it.
I believe we are all creatures of habits and sodas are not the best of habits. The lazier we are the lazier we become. The more sweets we eat the more sweets we want. Through in the biological aspect and we make it more difficult for ourselves - not easier.
Cristal Lite can be a Godsend on a low carb diet!
There are studies linking aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to neurologic and neoplastic problems. A Medline search will turn up plenty.
Seems like the trend is that a sweetener is introduced, studies suggest that they have potential harmful effects, and then a new “safer” sweetener emerges. IMO, it’s a game the soft drink companies play. Sucralose (Splenda) is the new sweetener, and people think it’s safer. There have only been a handful of studies done to investigate its effects when compared to the older ones. Sucralose is chlorinated sucrose, and I’ve heard that the chlorine can accumulate in the tissues. I still drink it, as well as aspartame, but only in moderation. Just like the tuna thread, anything in excess will probably kill you.
I agree 100% with the person who said the soft drink industry is evil. It makes me sick that kids live off of this crap and the way they are targeted in advertising and schools. As if the sugar and caffeine wasn’t bad enough, the phosphoric acid causes calcium loss and reduced bone density. I grew up with a kid who lived off Pepsi and never drank milk - he broke a bone everytime he played a sport.
Frank:
- I have an idea. Let’s boycott Coke products. No, no, not just US --ALL of T-Mag! That’s nearly 1000 people! Assume, say, $5 a day is lining the pockets of that filthy, greedy company for each and every one. Let’s see… $5000… 365 days a year… why, that’s within spitting distance of 2 million dollars! Almost 0.04 percent of Coke’s annual revenue! We’ll cripple them for life.
This doesn’t merit further discussion.
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If Nutrasweet tasted ANYTHING like sugar, you might have a point. But it doesn’t. After years of Diet Coke, every sugary beverage I’ve tried has the unpleasant flavor of liquid candy.
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Perhaps. Perhaps not. I await your source, I couldn’t immediately find references with Google.
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Anyone who’s read FFN knows that the line between natural and artificial flavors doesn’t exist.
There may be virtue in avoiding artificial sweeteners. The occasional website cites lab tests of similar mammals that had less than stellar long-term results. Nothing concrete, however. Given enough time and the appropriate quantity, anything will give a lab rat cancer.
DI
KnightRT: point #4 is right on the money. How could I forget about Fast Food Nation, a book every T mag reader should read. The part about the way natural vs artificial flavors are labeled blew my mind. The McDonald’s strawberry milkshake flavoring is a perfect example of how people have no clue what their putting into their bodies.
I have to disagree with you about the futility of boycotting the soft drink industry. If we as a nation wised up and stopped buying things like soft drinks, french fries, and cigarettes, how can this be a bad thing? Not only would people be healthier, but it will take power out of the hands of the corporations who make products that harm us in order to make a profit. Maybe it’s because most of the patients I see in the hospital are there because of poor health habits. Last week, firefighters had to literally cut a bigger doorway out of the house of an 1100 pound man who couldn’t get out of bed because his parents supplied him with the 8 two liters of Pepsi that he drank every day.
I refuse to make idealistic and semi-self righteous comments about what ‘we as a nation’ will or will not do. Nor will I declare any product inherently evil. That Joe Random consumes Pepsi by the gallon draws my sympathy not in the slightest.
As the WSJ pointed out, every significant lawsuit against a commodity provider of this nature hinges on a lack of alternatives to the product. No beverage qualifies, and thus, such cases do not reflect poorly on the manufacturer.
DI
Look at the labels. Does it say 0 cals? No sugars? If so drink them till the cows come home if you'd like.
I would however heed to some of the advice youve received here. In light of evidence that suggests aspartame, used in many of these drinks, may adversely affect your neurological and psychological systems, it would be wise to be cautious and limit your intake of drinks which contain aspartame.
Here's a quote from one of the replies:
‘It seems that in some people, the sweet taste of the drink actually triggers a similar release of insulin as if the sweetener was sugar. This leads to hypoglycemia and cravings. It’s kind of like a Pavlov’s dog type of reaction, I think. Again this is not in all people.’
It seems? Do you have any evidence - or can you tell simply by the way a person looks or feels. See, these are matters that need to be supported by fact.
I personally disagree with the pavlov theory in this case. Its one thing to entice a dog's salivating instinct with a steak - afterall, the CAUSE of the salivating reaction is caused strictly by the anticipation of food.
You cannot compare that to an insulimic reaction. See, insulin is not released because of a food's taste; Insulin is released ONLY because there is are sugars in your blood. Your brain doesnt control insulin release through anticipation of eating a sweet food - for insulin release to occur, there must be sugars in your blood stream.
You contradicted yourself: first you say you refuse to make statements that are idealistic and semi self-righteous, then in the next breath you make the statement, “Nor will I declare any product inherently evil.” This in itself could be considered a self-righteous assertion, as you are implying that somehow it’s wrong to point out the deleterious effects a product can have on one’s health. Pepsi = garbage. If choosing not to put garbage into my body makes me self-righteous, call me Jerry Fucking Falwell for all I care.
dude, you are probably just angry cause you live in a van down by the river,
Scrub:
I assure you, there is no contradiction.
I’m thrilled you have the fortitude to avoid what you consider unhealthy, and I certainly wouldn’t force Pepsi upon you. But a crusade against soft drinks in the interest of reducing obesity is naive witch-hunting, and undesirable for the nation as the whole.
DI
Scrub:
My intention isn’t to fight with you. I just can’t stand to see anything vilified outright. It’s never black and white, and such statements tend to discard fact with the intent to prey on emotion. 60 minutes does this every week.
DI
Optimizing health? Just water? Basically it’s like this. I hate empty calories. I like taste. So diet soda/whatever-the-hell sometimes comes into play. I don’t lift for health. I want to be big and muscular and feel/look massive. “Health”, whatever that means, is something else to me. It’s more about caring about the future, and I live in the here and now. Sure I don’t wanna die tomorrow, but man, a little friggin’ diet soda will not hinder my performance in the slightest. Maybe I’m not the best person to say this, as I even drink alcohol on occasion, but I will say I am a big muscular dude who gets noticed. I am also at between 11 and 14% bodyfat… [ I say this because readings aren’t always accurate, generally speaking of course] and really, a little of this and a little of that won’t screw up any regimen. I eat clean most of the time, never eat junk food or have cheat days, and continue to grow and make gains without drugs, not that I’m against them, but I frankly never trusted the dude trying to sell them to me, as I’d prefer real not fake, and soyeah… without going completely off-topic, like, yeah… water is so friggin’great for you… but some of us like our friggin’ Diet Mt. Dew too… and some of us don’t believe the lies about ephedra… and some of us don’t wonder why we aren’t getting massive when we don’t eat enough, and it’s simple… train hard, take care of yourself and have diet soda if you want. Drives me nuts when people get all friggin’ worked up about something with no calories or nutritional content for that matter, and basically I’m the jerk cause I’m doing it too right now, so whatever… drink your water, have your five enemas a day, do whatever it is that makes you ‘healthy’… I’m just gonna be over here lifting iron and getting laid because of it… which truth be told, isthe main reason I even started ‘pumping’… iron that is… although I must say I have transcended that physical plane and becomemore of a spiritual ‘pumper’, tantric masturbation and all… diet soda… good stuff…
Though I make sure that I hydrate early in the day with lots of plain ol’ water, I tend to favor diet sodas with my meals. I love Diet Cherry 7-UP, Diet Cherry Coke, and Diet Slice.
I see nothing wrong with 2-3 cans a day as long as you also get plenty of water as well.
Yeah this is basically what I do as well. I drink water like a monster during the entire day, but during a meal I will have some diet coke… usually 1 20oz bottle is all I have per day. I have been trying to not exceed that amount. Basically I just limit my diet coke consumption to during meals to kind of enhance the enjoyability of the meal, while during normal non-eating time periods I will solely drink water (sometimes green tea).
Exactly right, poohbaya. I mean, it’s all about common sense. Get all your daily water and all the rest is just extra cheese, and not that crap cheese either, but the good stuff, for sure. I mean I had some asshat “personal trainer” at my gym tell me that Diet Soda will cancel out the effects of my Creatine. I mean, yeah soda can be a diuretic cause of caffeine, and Creatine is supposed to superhydrate muscles and therefore more water is better, but this dude had no friggin common sense, then again, neither do most personal trainers, so whatever, but point is, simply put, no fancy bs… you can pretty do anything you damn well please and be fine as long as you don’t overdo it. I’ve never sen so many retards as I do daily when it comes to nutrition. Everyone’s so puzzled. Makes no sense, they say. It’s too hard, they say. Forget what you hear,I say. Don’t believe everything you read or hear or see, I say. Take a second and learn for yourself. It ain’t so hard. And face it… diet soda is no worse than water for you. Yeah, yeah aspartame and blah-frickety-blah… oh no… a couple grams of sodium… actually make that 35mg in my Diet Mt. Dew right now… it’s all just more nonsense smeared by people with some hidden agenda they prolly don’t even realize they have. It’s like arguing with a vegetarian that eating meat is good for you, which it damn well is… they will never agree with you no matter what the facts are. Like a religious fanatic. You can’t convert them to follow the holy diet soda… better chance teaching them common sense, and chances of that are nil to none…
“Asshat”
That’s a new one to me, Brock.
But I like it a lot.
“Sucralose is chlorinated sucrose, and I’ve heard that the chlorine can accumulate in the tissues.”
Tap water from any municipal source has been chlorinated as well. If you train in a swimming pool you ingest chlorine. Somehow I don’t think that the meager amount of increased chlorine uptake due to splenda ingestion is going to be a huge impact above and beyond what is basically a background level in any modern society. I have no studies to back this assumption so I may be way off base.
Ok maybe I got a little carried away after reading FFN, but it gets me fired up that the soft drink, fast food, and tobacco industries have targeted kids through their advertising campaigns. I just think they should be off limits. I’m only 26, but 10 years ago when I was a high school freshman was the first year my school district allowed soda machines in the cafeterias. Why didn’t they have them prior to that? The soft drink industries got smart and saw the opportunity to capitalize on the desperation of financially strapped schools. What’s that? Your school levy didn’t pass and your football team needs new equipment? Here’s 20 grand as long as you let us put our vending machines in your schools. Money talks and you do what you have to, but it’s an ugly reality.
We all acknowledge the obesity problem, and I don’t think it’s idealistic to think that those numbers can go down. Half of all Americans are obese, and we’re learning bad nutritional habits at a young age. We have 200 lb 1st graders because they will eat as much junk food as their parents and school will throw at them. Why? The shit tastes good. There are laboratories in Jersey that design artificial flavors solely intended to tantalize the taste buds. The odds are stacked against you if you want to be healthy or even to have a good looking body.
Like I said before, I drink diet soda in moderation. Maybe it was wrong to declare the entire industry evil, but the fact is that they do shady things in order to make a buck. If they do good by bringing joy to the people who consume their products, hallefuckinglujah.
I was trying to get a point across: the only reason why there are fast food joints and crappy food everywhere is because we as consumers keep on buying the shit and padding the pockets of fast food execs. The more money they have, the more power they have, and the fatter we get. Obesity isn’t just a cosmetic thing, it’s a risk factor for some of our most frequently occuring diseases. That means more people in the hospital because they ate, drank, or smoked themselves there, and that drives up the cost of health care. So I guess I’m an idealist because I think there is only one way to solve this problem, and that is for people to educate themselves and their kids about better nutrition habits.
He said tantric masturbation. Nice.