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Comment by Kiro | Hacker News Reader

> or "zero sugar" crap

What's wrong with it?

Because there are enough sugar replacements that will spike your insulin regardless, and that makes you stop burning fat. Try entering Ketosis and then have something containing Sorbitol & Xylitol, just 2 pieces of chewing gum messed me up for a good couple hours.

This is not to say that there aren't better sweeteners than sugar, but anything saying "less sugar" or "zero sugar" is likely just a technically correct marketing ploy.

Some sweeteners like Sorbitol or Splenda have calories. They get away with labeling in the US because as long as it has less than 5 kcal per serving they can say 0 kcal. And they can choose the serving size.

Most sweeteners are truly zero calories and don't produce an insulin spike, but there may be a problem with cravings for some people.

"Zero sugar" things always have an alternative sweetener in them. Many of these, such as aspartame, have some unfortunate side effects or have not been properly studied yet.

Natural cane sugar is fine, as long as you have it in small doses. Most sodas do not use small doses.

Soda's fine as long as you get out of the "this is an ordinary thing to drink" thought pattern into the "this is basically the same as eating a giant cupcake" one.

You wouldn't feel right having a giant cupcake every single day, right? Let alone more than one? Do you have a largish, nutrient-free dessert with every single meal ("free refills")? Wow, of course not. But once a month, or even once every couple weeks, that's still not good for you but at least you're not the gross dude eating (drinking) five desserts a day or whatever, and it's basically not gonna hurt you enough to be worth worrying about.

The "it's an exceptionally unhealthy dessert that I should absolutely feel bad about having too often" mindset is the correct one, because that's exactly what it is. People who wouldn't take a pile of ho-hos to the checkout counter (god, what will people think of me?) buy 32-64oz sodas like it's nothing because they don't make the connection that soda = very bad dessert, and feel the consequent second thoughts (and shame) over buying and consuming such a thing regularly, in large quantities.

Of course if everyone did that Coca-Cola's sales would drop to 5% or less of what they currently are. So their advertising contributes to making drinking lots of soda all the time seem normal. Combat this by imagining all the models in their ads messily smashing cupcakes into their mouths instead of drinking coke, while doing whatever they're doing.

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