Healthy or not?

jessienmiller

I used to drink atleast 2 diet pepsi's a day and then i got hooked on Gold peaks diet tea. I love it ,theres 0 calories and it is made up of water but is it good for me?

Sidesteal

It depends on how you define health and it depends on what the beverage gives you and it depends on whether or not you need what it gives you, and this is dependent on the remainder of your diet.


An orange will benefit someone who has a vitamin C deficiency much more than it will benefit someone who is already getting all the vitamins that an orange provides, through other food items.

Lastly, it will not harm your weight loss efforts as it has zero calories.

crimsoncat

I've heard it said before that diet sodas and teas can often make you crave sugar. So, obviously, if you're having problems with snacking on sweets I'd say no.

According to Dr. Oz, they're not so great: "The average American consumes 53 gallons of soda (and 49 pounds of sugar) per year. It's making the nation sick and fat. Both regular AND diet soda lead to weight gain. Start by swapping out just one can of soda for water each day to help you lose 10 pounds."

http://members.doctoroz.com/challenge/the-just-10-challenge

His website has some good advice on portion control and eating veggies, but he is a tv Doc so I take a lot of it with a spoonful of salt.

Edit: Here's some more info:

"Drinking a reasonable amount of diet soda a day, such as a can or two, isn't likely to hurt you. The artificial sweeteners and other chemicals currently used in diet soda are safe for most people, and there's no credible evidence that these ingredients cause cancer. Some types of diet soda are even fortified with vitamins and minerals. But diet soda isn't a health drink or a silver bullet for weight loss. Although switching from regular soda to diet soda may save you calories, some studies suggest that drinking more than one soda a day — regular or diet — increases your risk of obesity and related health problems such as type 2 diabetes."

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/diet-soda/AN01732

And according to my dentist: "Diet soda still is acid and will still eat away at your enamel. Not to mention the dark ones stains like coffee and dark wine. If you don't mind, I'd just skip on it and drink more water."


To be more helpful here, I had to kick soda because of a heart condition which banned caffeine. I was able to kick most soda (exception for 1-3 holidays per year + my birthday) from my diet by doing the following:

-Tazo "Passion Tea" - Brew it for a long time and it tastes very citrus-y and doesn't need sugar. (Negligible cal, 0% caff)
-Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea (look for the tiger on the box, it is not a Chai tea)- the cinnamon in this tea makes it taste sweet by itself. (0 cal, 0% caff)
-Flavored sparkling water- Giant Eagle's (NOT Frutation) has some good stuff for 89 cents a bottle. You want 0 cal, no sugar, no sweeteners, just flavored. If you can taste aspartame throw it out and get a different brand.

LorinaLynn

If you're someone who doesn't have any adverse reactions to whatever zero-calorie sweetener in it, drink away.

If you get headaches or cravings from it, don't drink it.

Bentley2718

I used to drink atleast 2 diet pepsi's a day and then i got hooked on Gold peaks diet tea. I love it ,theres 0 calories and it is made up of water but is it good for me?

Diet soda typically has 0 calories, and the first ingredient is also water. The only difference really is carbonation.

There is some association between diet beverages and weight gain (although not as much as between sugared beverages and weight gain), and there are various theories about why, but no one is really sure.

You will get a lot of arguments about why diet drinks are bad for you, but many of them lack empirical support, some are really arguments against sugared drinks that people incorrectly generalize to diet drinks, others are just plain wrong (e.g. coke is *not* more acidic than your stomach), and still others are silly (yes, coke will dissolve anything you leave in it long enough, but so will plain water). In the end, they might not be good for you, and you'd probably be better off drinking water, but there is relatively limited research evidence against diet drinks.

If you'd like to move away from them, you might try lightly flavored water, such as water with a squeeze of lemon or frozen berries in it. You might also try unsweetened soda water.

_VoV

I think this sounds like a good intermediate step in the right direction. Based upon what I have read, colas can interfere with calcium absorption: http://www.ajcn.org/content/84/4/936.full

I truly think plain water or herbal teas are your best bests. Lately, I make iced hibiscus tea (Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger) and sweeten it with stevia. Hibiscus tea is a powerhouse of antioxidants, which exceeds that in red wine, green tea and other widely regarded healthy drinks. Plus it tastes great!

I definitely recommend it.

LittleTurnip

I know there are different views on this, but I personally wouldn't touch artificial sweeteners with a 10ft pole. There are too many studies showing links to cancer for me to want to risk it.
Then again I am a person who rarely enjoys drinking something sweet.

Drink your tea if you are happy to consume sweeteners, but don't convince yourself it's as good as water.

jessienmiller

No no im not saying it is as good as water ,i drink 6- 10 galsses of water a day depending on the day , but then i drink my tea in replace of pop because it is 0 cal and has very little sodium and no carbonation but is mostly water i was just wondering that since tea is so good for people is Gold peak way off the beating path?

iwantahealthierme13

Most tea has 0 calories. You don't have to drink diet tea.

kjwillie

Watch out for the amount of aspertame, sucralose and other fake additives used for sugar. You know, could just make your own iced tea at home by boiling water and steeping about three tea bags, pouring it in a pitcher and setting it in the refrigerator over night. If you want to make it sweeter, just add a couple teaspoons of honey. And if you're on the go, just grab a travel mug.

durhamity

To be more helpful here, I had to kick soda because of a heart condition which banned caffeine. I was able to kick most soda (exception for 1-3 holidays per year + my birthday) from my diet by doing the following:

-Tazo "Passion Tea" - Brew it for a long time and it tastes very citrus-y and doesn't need sugar. (Negligible cal, 0% caff)
-Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea (look for the tiger on the box, it is not a Chai tea)- the cinnamon in this tea makes it taste sweet by itself. (0 cal, 0% caff)
-Flavored sparkling water- Giant Eagle's (NOT Frutation) has some good stuff for 89 cents a bottle. You want 0 cal, no sugar, no sweeteners, just flavored. If you can taste aspartame throw it out and get a different brand.

As a hopeless diet "coke addict" and having tried kicking the habbit several times, this seems to be something that I can try. Thanks for sharing!

megsmom2

Unsure about the healthy or not debate, but the Gold Peak tea is really good!