Diet Cokes ?

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Replies

  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    gwenster89 wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    So in other words, none of those studies prove what they were purported to prove. As usual.

    Okay, I can admit defeat. I assumed the relationship was causative, not correlative, from rumblings on the street, not studies I had sat down and read. Baseline, I don't think we should be eating and drinking stuff with a million ingredients that's artificially created in a lab. I'm a farmer and I'll totally admit my bias that I believe in the power of whole foods and want everyone, especially my sisters around the world, to jump on the bandwagon. And I'm not anti soda or diet soda! Just anti evil corporations like Coca Cola and PepsiCo. Didn't mean to insult anyone, just jumped the gun, and I apologize.

    No worries. Live and learn. :)
  • ronjsteele1
    ronjsteele1 Posts: 1,064 Member
    For some people it does cause cravings, for other it doesn't. You just have to go by how diet soda effects you personally.

    I'm one of those people that is/was greatly affected by artificial sweeteners. It did affect my cravings, I did gain a tremendous amount of weight drinking them (b/c it affects cravings which affected my appetite). And to top it off, the AS gave me a severe case of pancreatitis while pregnant (not a good thing!). Needless to say, I abruptly stopped my 6-8 can a day diet coke habit 15+ years ago and can't touch artificial sweeteners (they still affect me). That said, I still like a fizzy drink once in awhile so I drink Blue Sky Root Beer sweetened with stevia. Neither stevia nor xylitol seem to affect me. But I don't drink it often. Maybe one a week. I'm a water girl mostly. Because of my experience (and plenty of reading), I am firmly in the corner of the stuff is crap and no one should touch it. But like Christine said, not everyone is affected the way I was.

    After such experiences I understand why you are in the camp of YOU shouldnt drink it ( although you could of experimented with drinking less than 8 cans a day - you know, context, dosage) but I dont understand why you are in the camp of " no-one should touch it" - given, as you said yourself, it doesnt affect everyone the way it affected you.

    That is like someone saying I have an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts so I am in the camp of they are bad for ME - nobody would dispute that.

    But most people dont go on to say therefore nobody should touch them.

    Oh, no kidding. The issue was, I literally craved Diet Coke so I drank it like water. Any sort of diet soda would satisfy the need but I preferred Diet Coke. That's where I do think that aspartame does have addictive possibilities because there's nothing else in it that would indicate that kind of pull.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    gwenster89 wrote: »
    i'm sure tons of people have been able to lose weight and keep drinking diet soda but it's soooooo bad for youuuuuuu. the chemicals in it seriously mess with your head and there have been a ton of studies to prove this. like, not just one fringe study with iffy results, but truly countless studies.

    i used to be a hopeless diet coke addict and then i finally switched to seltzer. i realized that when i craved diet coke, the fizziness of seltzer totally did the trick. there are also tons of diet sodas that are sweetened with natural zero-calorie sweeteners like stevia instead of aspartame. or you can drink kombucha! it does have sugar but it's processed by yeast and bacteria so it doesn't cause the same insulin spike.

    "Truly countless" = zero, right?
  • futuresize8
    futuresize8 Posts: 476 Member
    Diet sodas tend to be calorie free or very reduced, so technically, they shouldn't harm your efforts.

    However, I don't drink them because I consider them to be "processed food," which I try to avoid, and because for me, diet soda is a "gateway drug." I associate it with salty/crunchy/spicy and my willpower seems to diminish when I have it. If I drink it, it's once in a great while.

    Cheers!
    p.s. I guess I am a hypocrite, though, because Vodka is processed and I have no issues enjoying that! HA!!
  • futuresize8
    futuresize8 Posts: 476 Member
    Oh...but I DO wonder this - was it Pepsi that recently removed aspartame from their diet sodas? If it's not bad for you, why remove it?
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    Diet sodas tend to be calorie free or very reduced, so technically, they shouldn't harm your efforts.

    However, I don't drink them because I consider them to be "processed food," which I try to avoid, and because for me, diet soda is a "gateway drug." I associate it with salty/crunchy/spicy and my willpower seems to diminish when I have it. If I drink it, it's once in a great while.

    Cheers!
    p.s. I guess I am a hypocrite, though, because Vodka is processed and I have no issues enjoying that! HA!!

    Gateway drug?
  • daj150
    daj150 Posts: 815 Member
    Oh...but I DO wonder this - was it Pepsi that recently removed aspartame from their diet sodas? If it's not bad for you, why remove it?

    Because they can sell more to the consumers who do believe it's bad despite the science?

    ^^^ This mostly. Too much bad press on any sweetener has historically caused companies to switch. And to sell more, if they time it right with media coverage, releasing with a sweetener that has positive press means massive increase in sales. It's all about marketing. And from a marketing standpoint, it's brilliant. From a moral standpoint, I hate it.

    In regards to OP, I drink diet soda to help stave off hunger and kill cravings. I am a big fan of Pepsi Max. My issue over the last 6+ months though is that I am so tired that I have been drinking more soda than I ever have. And as we know, too much of almost anything is never good. Slowly trying to kick my cravings for soda now with Coke Zero, since it doesn't have that extra sweetness of Max.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    Diet sodas tend to be calorie free or very reduced, so technically, they shouldn't harm your efforts.

    However, I don't drink them because I consider them to be "processed food," which I try to avoid, and because for me, diet soda is a "gateway drug." I associate it with salty/crunchy/spicy and my willpower seems to diminish when I have it. If I drink it, it's once in a great while.

    Cheers!
    p.s. I guess I am a hypocrite, though, because Vodka is processed and I have no issues enjoying that! HA!!

    Gateway drug?

    Presumably used non seriously, or else salty/crunchy/spicy are being compared to the hard drugs.

    Personally I quite like many processed foods, like greek yogurt and smoked salmon and frozen strawberries. Therefore, that coffee (my favorite non water beverage) is processed (which of course it is) has never seemed to me a reason to avoid it, but people all have their own things.

    That one food is associated with another and so may be a trigger is a habit/behavioral thing that I can see people having (not unlike many people get tempted to smoke when drinking, unrelated to the fact that those are drugs, or may want to snack when watching a favorite TV show, as perhaps a better reference).
  • rioguy
    rioguy Posts: 4 Member
    Do you or someone you know have a young baby....Would you give them DIET COKE??.... WHY NOT?!
    Do you see animals in nature drinking Diet Coke?..... WHY NOT?!
    If you have a dog and/or cat, would you give them Diet Coke?.... WHY NOT?!

    These are "chemical" ingredients of Diet Coke:
    Carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate (to protect taste), natural flavors, citric acid, caffeine.

    Aspartame:
    What appears to happen is that when a person eats something artificially sweetened, your body knows the difference. It knows there are no calories to deal with, so leptin is not released to trigger satiety.
    And when leptin is not released, ghrelin continues to be released, causing us to eat more.
    This leads to weight gain instead of loss.

    Caramel Color:
    Caramel coloring uses a combination of sulfites and ammonium.
    This concentrated dark brown mixture of chemicals does not occur in nature.

    Phosphoric Acid:
    Phosphoric acid in its pure form is a colorless, odorless crystal extracted from rocks with sulfuric acid or by burning off elemental phosphorus and adding water to the byproduct.
    It’s a corrosive acid and can form toxic fumes when it comes into contact with alcohols, ketones and other organic compounds.
    It’s used in fertilizers, livestock feed, soaps, polishes, dyes, polishing metals and in many other nonfood products.
    It’s added to soft drinks to provide a sharper, tangy taste and to help slow the growth of molds and bacteria in sugary formulas.

    Potassium Benzoate:
    Potassium benzoate is a chemical preservative that is commonly added to some foods and drinks, but most notably soft drinks.
    It is an effective preservative because it blocks the growth of some bacteria, yeast and mold.

    Caffeine:
    Linked to many side affects such as Insomnia, Nervousness, Restlessness, Irritability, Stomach upsets, Fast heartbeat, Muscle tremors.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    <sigh>

    I wouldn't give a baby or a puppy or a kitten vodka, either. Not sure what your point is.

    I've given a dog some white wine before. Very little and even the dog thought it was crap wine.
    But some animals do like fermented fruit. Bears are funny drunk (on video, not in real life).

    And one time I left half a cup of coffee within reach of my dog. I swear there were footprints on the ceiling after that. She was friggen hyper. Never did that again.

    Or was this guy serious????

  • amandapleighse92
    amandapleighse92 Posts: 47 Member
    that silly little saying has been around since high school. I never said it held any factual value, and it's been taken very literally. It's a SILLY little saying girls use. You know like the Kate Moss quote. I never intended it to be take so literally. I thought this was a common saying people were familiar with.