Study: Coca-Cola Shaped China's Efforts to Fight Obesity
npr.org
npr.org
Hasn't Coca-Cola been extremely pro-active recently in tackling obesity since it became clear that sweet drinks were a major problem?
They've almost completely replaced their flagship brand and formula with the zero sugar variant. They're not even promoting it as an alternative any more - the 'Zero' on the cans has been getting smaller and smaller and the black branding has been shrinking as well, and they seem to be getting retailers to suggest it as the default as well.
I guess they think they're able to grow their market by being healthier and helping their customers to be healthier.
You're misquoting me - I said 'healthier'.
For people who are basically addicted to sweet soft drinks, I think Zero is a healthier alternative and I think it's great that Coca-Cola developed it and is rebranding to it. I think it'll help a lot of people.
The question is how much healthier it is and how less healthy it is compared to not drinking soda.
They biggest determining factor in obesity isn't what food are available to the person, it's what foods the person chooses to eat.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2923074 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1946186
If Coca-Cola tomorrow said ("our bad, we're sorry"), switched to a low/zero calorie sweetener blend (Stevia, Erythritol, Monk Fruit maybe a little aspartame) with approximate flavor and completely dropped sugar / HFCS then I'd believe they give a crap about tackling obesity.
As it stands, refined sugars are the single biggest problem with metabolic syndrome. Fructose is only metabolized by the liver into fats/triglycerides which are linked to damaging insulin receptors and elevating insulin resistance leading to higher insulin levels suppressing other hormones and leading to weight gain, followed by full on diabetes and related metabolic problems.
That doesn't mean you can't have some fruit in your diet... juice should never be more than half a cup a day (which was the old recommendation). And high-sugar tree fruits should be minimized in favor of berries. "Fruits and Vegetables" was grouped because a lot of what people consider veggies are botanically fruit. The sweet fruits should be kept to 2 servings a day tops.
Refined sugar shouldn't be consumed more than once every few weeks. It's horrible. All the negative effects on the body of alcohol without the negative reinforcement of a bad headache.
If you want to reduce ongoing costs, could piece together a feeder system for a larger co2 tank, or a refill tank with kits to refill their bottles or adapt other bottles for the soda stream.
slices of ginger
apple cider vinegar
cucumber slices
Does anyone really 'dislike' water? It doesn't taste of anything.
Also: Water isn't just water, there's quite some difference in taste depending on the water source. To this day there's certain "brands" I like drinking and others that I'm having a hard time drinking because I don't like the taste.
Other options are iced tea with no sweetener. You can get different types of ice teas as well to slightly change the flavors up.
If you don't like hot beverages, make it iced. If you don't want to make some all the time, use a bigger kettle.
It is well established in mainstream nutrition the health effects of high calorie diets. It is also well established that refined sugar is not magically so much worse than any other way to eat a high calorie diet. Obviously, no one thinks drinking soda(or eating pizza etc) all day is good for you. And drinking soda is well agreed to be an easy way to significantly increase to caloric intake. The difference we tend to be able to measure is based upon behavioral nutrition. Not the actual direct consumption.
Seriously, I'm not sure why you, and others, feel compelled to yell to the hills about the secret poisons of sugar. I realize that it is difficult to see who is on the other side of these forums and it is possible that you may have a diagnosed mental health issue that causes you to obsess over something like this. If so I apologize. But if not, please think about why you are so adamant and upset about something like refined sugar.
Is anyone aware of any studies out there about people who obsess about nutrition information? Is it possible that people that get so wrapped up in this are suffering from similar issues in the brain that cause eating disorders?
I always find if fascinating that diet and nutrition discussions on HN seem to be a topic that brings out many very impassioned comments like the one I'm replying to. What is it about diet and nutrition specifically that causes it to inspire such extreme views and excitement?
To cite one example why people are passionate about the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Association
> The difference we tend to be able to measure is based upon behavioral nutrition. Not the actual direct consumption.
Can you provide a source?
What we also know, is that consuming refined sugar as opposed to any other source of calories is not very different outside of lack of nutrition etc. This is long established fact in both human and animal studies for many decades. Which means if there is a difference, it is likely not very pronounced.
To willfully ignore hard scientific fact to a point where a person needs to adamantly declare that sugar is akin to alcohol in the damage it does to the body, is a sign of something out of the norm in a person.
The second half of my comment was to see if there were studies about people who have this behavior as I find it interesting. This is one of the topics on HN which seem to get comments with extreme views and I was simply asking if people had research on this type of obsession.
What is it specifically about diet and nutrition that causes such a visceral, irrational, reaction out of a small subset of people? I am genuinely curious.
https://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/diabetes
Note: refined sugars are about half fructose. The liver is the only organ that can metabolize it... With refined sugars your getting a significant multiplier of what you would in nature. This turns into triglycerides which is heavily correlated to insulin resistance and diabetes.
Health effects.. like heart disease, obesity, and diabetes?
I'm a dark chocolate guy - anything less than 70% isn't "chocolate". So I'm wondering if there's a market for Coke Bitter, now with 15% less sugar than regular Coke.
Where can I learn more about `refined sugar` causing
> All the negative effects on the body of alcohol
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-rea...
They've already tried that with "Coca-Cola Life" [0] but people also need to buy this stuff for it to stick and many people are fickle about their "coke taste".
Case in point: I could never stand the taste of the "light" and "zero" variants, and because I don't drink this stuff to hydrate, but for the taste, I will always go for the version that tastes best to me because it's not something I drink that regularly.
Also, they'd need to push the brand over. They didn't replace a product.
Homemade ginger paste + sparkling water + honey + turmeric (optional) + lemon + a little bit of salt
Your taste buds will get a kick in the same way as any other soft drink. And of course it is healthy!
Can you say that? I mean, yeah, it's healthier than refined sugar, but you're still drinking carbonated sugar water, regardless if it's a better sugar.
Fun thing they don't mention about Cola beverages - they can lead to chronic kidney disease, even the sugar free kind.
Soda will also give you a 200+ blood glucose spike within minutes, which isn't really possible with other types of foods. That means it's only a matter of time until you get insulin resistance and then diabetes.
Soda is much more harmful than just some extra calories. There's a reason half of America is pre-diabetic or diabetic and it's not because people don't go to the gym enough or don't work in agriculture anymore.
Over consumption of food is unhealthy.
https://medium.com/@InfinoMe/diabetes-time-to-resort-to-plas...
Also, this analysis seems to indicate there's no link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4058392/
Most of us academics are in quite agreement over it's harm, and with the new genetic data it's even more convincing.
Could you provide context for your academic credentials? And as I pointed out before, what damage are we talking about when compared to the literal can of sugar water the BPA riddled can is holding?
Also, do we not see these same results in the different consumption methods? Ie, cans vs bottles vs glass bottles vs tap?