[HN Gopher] Diet soda may prompt food cravings, especially in wo...
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Diet soda may prompt food cravings, especially in women and people
with obesity
Author : therockspush
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-10-07 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| entropicgravity wrote:
| Alternatively Beck's 0% is 60 cal, almost no sugar and is a
| decent facsimile for beer. Win win.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I really wish more 0% beer was available in the US, and at
| reasonable prices. I've been buying Athletic Brewing stuff
| lately and it's good, but at $11-$12 for a six-pack it's priced
| the same as mid-tier microbrews.
|
| I can buy good local micros for a few dollars less, so the NA
| pricing feels a bit wasteful. But I haven't been drinking
| alcohol lately, so... this is my choice if I want something
| beer-y tasting.
| rory wrote:
| Luckily enough, I think we're near the beginning of a wave of
| alcohol-free beer coming to market in the US. Sam Adams "Just
| the Haze" and Brooklyn "Special Effects IPA" both came out in
| the past year and are pretty solid.
| monkellipse wrote:
| I don't doubt that diet soda is terrible for you. I would however
| like to point out that the particular study cited had 74
| participants. This seems a bit low but to me, though I realize it
| may not be the only study showing some similar effects. I'd love
| to see a larger study.
| hncurious wrote:
| I had to go completely cold turkey for months before I was able
| to break away from diet soda.
|
| My #1 tip: Do not have it in the house. If it's there, your body
| will find its way to it and will perpetuate the habit, the
| addiction, the cravings.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is good advice for anything you crave, be it soda, food,
| you name it. The hardest part about losing weight for me is
| when my wife continues to buy junk food for herself or the
| kids.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Have you tried lifting weights? Maintaining muscle takes a
| lot of calories. If you eat too much, just turn it into
| muscle and there won't be any left over for your body to
| store fat.
| Ronson wrote:
| Not so much the food, but I am heavily addicted to Coke Zero. I
| tried on Monday to quit it after a 2 week focus to prepare and I
| failed within 2 hours. I have previously quit nicotine for
| example so it's blown my mind why I can't handle stopping this
| simple drink.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Try drinking tea, caffeinated or decaffeinated. I'm not sure
| why, but brewing tea has helped me stave off many such
| addictions.
| tdeck wrote:
| Do other drinks / sources of caffeine work to replace it? I
| know it takes a couple of weeks to get over caffeine
| withdrawal, during which you may feel really tired or get
| headaches.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Is it Coke Zero specifically, how do you react towards other
| diet sodas?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The black label Coke Zero uses aspartame instead of
| saccharine, is strongly carbonated, and has a noticeable
| caffeine bite. Sorta similar to Barq's root beer, which is
| less flavorful than A&W and other competitors but has
| caffeine and was marketed with "Barq's has bite."
|
| The newer version tastes a lot more like regular coke, but to
| get that flavor, it seems that it is meant to be poured over
| ice.
| hateful wrote:
| Are you getting caffeine from other sources?
| winternett wrote:
| Seems like an addiction you have through mental/memory
| association or routine that has been created over time for you.
| If "Diet Coke" is still bearable for you, or even if not, try
| switching to that to disconnect the addiction within your
| brain, then perhaps it may be easier to quit. I am not a
| psychiatrist though, just a suggestion.
| asdff wrote:
| How did you fail within two hours? Was there still some in your
| home or did you unconsciously walk to the store and purchase
| more? Getting it out of your house is key. It's important to
| raise the friction to act on the vice as much as possible or
| else you will engage in it without thinking.
|
| If its caffeine you are physically addicted to, I will say the
| withdrawal is probably just as bad as a nicotine withdrawal.
| Nicotine withdrawal seemed to hit much faster (for me it was
| within 15 minutes of my last hit of nicotine vs coffee I just
| needed it bad in the mornings), but other than that the effects
| of withdrawal felt the same to me between the two stimulants.
| In both cases, if you are able to deal with a terrible migraine
| headache and feeling underslept and sick and nauseous for the
| two weeks it takes to get through these symptoms (in my
| experience at least), you will have successfully quit. I have
| cut back my coffee to maybe 3-5 cups a week (after a long
| initial detox) and I haven't used or craved nicotine in years.
| major505 wrote:
| Moral of story: drink beer. Or water. Water works too.
| shmde wrote:
| I am ignorant in this topic, but why do americans seem to drink
| soda( pop as they call in cinema) excessively ? I live in India
| and flavoured soda is considered luxury item here. We just drink
| water with everything, unless its a festive occasion or with
| alcohol. What makes soda so attractive that US customers consumes
| it so heavily. The only points I can think of is the cheap price
| and concentrated sugar which is found to be addictive.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Tasty. Fizzy. Caffeine. Cheap. Tons of flavor options.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Washes away the fat and caffeine helps with the digestion of
| heavy meals. Same reason Italians drink wine and coffee and/or
| smoke cigarettes. Making super heavy meals part of your _daily_
| routine is hard without supplements.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| Excessive soda consumption? That's me! But I drink the sugar
| free versions.
|
| I guess because it is cheap (~$1 for 2 litres), sweet, and
| fizzy.
| Spivak wrote:
| Honestly yeah, I just prefer all my drinks fizzy. But
| carbonated water has something off about it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The ph sits in a different place. Try adding a dash of
| lemon or lime juice.
| zeku wrote:
| It's normal to give to children due to marketing and it has not
| 1 but 2 addictive ingredients. Sugar && Caffeine. I was
| addicted to soda as a teen and it was very difficult to quit I
| had huge cravings.
| dxscorp wrote:
| American who's kicked a soda addiction -- it's super cheap,
| tasty, has some caffeine, and it's everywhere (gas station,
| convenience store, supermarket, advertisements), not to mention
| you have to walk by a soda fridge near the checkout lines of
| most retail stores. I only drank diet soda but you become so
| desensitized to it that water is 'boring' in comparison you
| don't reach for it as easily
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Advertisement. Coca Cola spends billions every year in
| advertising. Nobody would drink this otherwise.
|
| What I don't get is how they can get away with it. I mean
| people are getting crazy over companies like Facebook but junk
| food companies get a free pass for some reason. Most Americans
| are even unable to see the link with obesity rates.
| perl4ever wrote:
| It used to be a cliche that American tourists were the only
| ones who would order water at cafes or restaurants in certain
| countries.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Well that's a chicken/egg problem right? Coke and Pepsi
| wouldn't have so much to spend on advertising if they weren't
| already very popular.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I don't like the blandness of water, if you want a first-person
| perspective. I consume a _lot_ of diet soda, probably 8-10 cans
| a day. I 'm always drinking something; if it's not soda, it's
| green tea, or gatorade, or coffee. I always need to be drinking
| something and diet soda is... well, something.
|
| It's not much of a decision point, I don't really think about
| it in terms of expected value or return on my choice, diet soda
| is simply the answer to the question of, "What are you
| drinking?"
|
| And despite articles like the submission, there's no real
| observed downside to this choice (I'm not obese, and have never
| been obese, so this article doesn't really apply to me), other
| than potentially what the carbonation could be doing to my
| teeth, and as long as my dentist doesn't seem to have any
| concerns (she doesn't), I persist.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| No judgment is meant here - I am always so curious about
| people who think water is bland. When I'm thirsty, cold ice
| water is the best tasting thing on the planet to me.
|
| I enjoy the taste of diet pop, but I also find myself
| reaching for it sometimes out of sheer boredom rather than
| thirst. If I drink some water and I find it bland, to me
| that's a sign I wasn't actually thirsty.
|
| I don't think there's anything unusual about reaching for a
| soda as a treat for its taste. But in terms of pure thirst-
| quenching - damn does water hit the spot.
| MentallyRetired wrote:
| I'm addicted to the carbonation and bite of the citric
| acid, personally. Though, I did recently switch to Zevia
| and now limit my intake.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Why would you want to limit yourself to drinking only when
| you're thirsty?
|
| Short of overhydration, there are no downsides to pretty
| much constantly consuming non-caloric liquids.
| nkssy wrote:
| Drinking water excessively is often an indicator of
| illness eg diabetes. Other reasons exist. The "its a hot
| day" reason is better than most but cold non-sugar drinks
| are usually more refreshing.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Given your list of beverages, it sounds to me you might
| be subconsciously self-medicating with caffeine :).
| Myself, I'm constantly drinking either black tea or diet
| coke, all day long. I only drink water as last resort.
| I've been like that since childhood. It only recently
| occurred to me that I'm always settling on drinking
| choices that supply me with stimulants, indicating a
| potential deficiency problem.
| theduder99 wrote:
| I agree with you. My dad only drinks coke and says water is
| bland/bitter. There is definitely a connection between the
| two.
| lexapro wrote:
| I don't think these people drink soda because they're
| thirsty. They drink it because they enjoy the taste and
| it's something to do, it's almost a small form of
| entertainment. As a result they're never really thirsty in
| the first place.
|
| It's also what you're used to. There was a time when I
| would drink a lot of soda, but then I made an effort to
| switch to just water (and coffee). I almost never crave
| soda now.
| svachalek wrote:
| Mostly it's acclimatization, I think. If you have sweet
| stuff all the time, it doesn't taste all that sweet
| anymore, and everything else seems bland.
|
| But there's also genetics. Some people spit out stuff like
| "omg, that's too sweet! yuck!" I eat a pretty spare diet
| these days and try to eliminate sugars and other additives,
| and still, sweet is good. I cannot put together this
| concept, "too" sweet. My sister doesn't like the taste of
| red meat, never has. People are just different!
| mpfundstein wrote:
| tip: take carbonated water and put some lemons in it. removes
| the blandness
| LouisSayers wrote:
| If you do this all the time you may have issues with your
| teeth.
|
| Acid + teeth is not a good mix.
| dymk wrote:
| Soda (even diet soda) is incredibly acidic - lemon water
| is better than nothing
| dawnerd wrote:
| Also soda is just _easy_.
|
| Dressing up water with lemons or whatever takes time.
| Grabbing a soda from the fridge is dang near effortless.
|
| Plus caffeine.
| websap wrote:
| A soda stream might change your life. It's an amazing device
| to have. Hope you drink enough water to keep yourself healthy
| and your skin looking fresh.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| It's just culture. Some cultures eat a lot of rice, some drink
| a lot of vodka, some eat a lot of fish. Probably a mix of
| marketing and cultural taste like most things.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Soda is highly subsidized in the US, it is a consequence of US
| gov subsidizing corn syrup, so on a ratio of wages to prize
| sodas are very, very, very cheap, and in a country with few
| public bathrooms or public fountains, the easiest way to have a
| drink while on the go used to be sodas
|
| These days it is more common to ask for water, but even then,
| that will be bottled water and the prices can be similar to
| soda
| vinay427 wrote:
| Are we talking about the same US? I don't live there anymore,
| but I'm always surprised by the high number of indoor
| fountains in publicly-accessible buildings (as well as many
| parks and outdoor locations) there. For instance, every
| library, shopping mall, or larger store seems to have one
| near the bathrooms.
|
| Meanwhile, in some European countries, for instance, outdoor
| fountains can be more plentiful which is fantastic in its own
| way, and indoor options are much less common. In others,
| neither outdoor nor indoor options exist so one is forced to
| find a public bathroom to use the faucet.
|
| In some other countries, both public bathrooms and water
| fountains can be very rare, which unfortunately leaves no
| viable option.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You can always ask for a glass of water specifically. Any
| place with a soda fountain can give you cold, filtered tap
| water.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Exactly
|
| But that didn't use to be culturally ingrained in the US
| until just relatively recently, and since then it has been
| exported abroad
| zz865 wrote:
| Soda isn't really subsidized. Yes corn is subsidized but the
| main cost of soda is advertising, packaging and distribution,
| the flavor and syrup (or in the case the sweetener) costs
| nothing.
| onkoe wrote:
| It's pretty darn good and you can find it everywhere for quite
| cheap.
| ecshafer wrote:
| There are a few reasons. One is that soda is marketed extremely
| heavily by Coke and Pepsi as a very normal drink to have all of
| the time. The other is that is pushed in restaurants a lot as
| it has a huge profit margin, similar to alcohol but you can
| have it as a child; relatedly children get a taste for it as
| its very sweet and sets people up from child hood. Another is
| that corn syrup is heavily subsidized, and is in food
| everywhere here, and very few families have a house wife
| cooking food from scratch these days. So processed food with
| sugar additives is normal giving people these addictions and
| cravings.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Idk if "cooking from scratch" is something of privilege but
| my entire extended family and my wife's entire extended
| family all cook "from scratch" most of the time unless we're
| dining out. Anecdotal but I've known very few people/families
| who rely solely on take out/prepared meals for their
| sustenance.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| You don't need a personal chef to cook non processed food at
| home, not even a stay at home housewife of 60's. This is the
| most privileged thing I hear Americans repeating. All the raw
| ingredients are there at your supermarkets, cheap prices
| compared to your wages. I've seen it with my own eyes from
| visiting. It's just laziness and saving time, billions of
| people around the world cook at home from raw ingredients.
| They also go to work.
|
| People are lazy and prefer to replace it with netflix which I
| don't have a problem with until people lie to themselves and
| others about the reasons.
| 8note wrote:
| Americans don't know how to cook, and don't have somebody
| to teach them the basics.
|
| The bar to entry gets high when your parents can't cook
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| My mom had a job. When she came home she still cooked a
| meal for her family. With vegetables.
|
| The real truth is that a majority of Americans are now
| overweight. Unhealthy lifestyle has been normalised to a
| point when non fat kids who don't eat pizza for lunch will
| be bullied.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| 2021 high school America: https://www.google.com/search?q
| =2021+high+school+america&tbm...
|
| I see mostly healthy (80% or more) BMI kids in these
| photos.
|
| 2021 middle school America: https://www.google.com/search
| ?q=2021+middle+school+america&c...
|
| Again nearly all of them healthy BMI.
|
| Moving away from anecdotes to statistics:
| https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
|
| Not surprising 20% obesity and 80% healthy.
|
| This is a tragedy that needs to be addressed but is not
| even close to non fat kids are being abused by fat kids
| now in America.
|
| While the picture for adults is much worse, still only
| 42.4% of American adults are obese. A great tragedy that
| needs to be addressed but a "significant" majority of
| Americans are still at a healthy BMI.
| rkk3 wrote:
| Not sure what a google search for "2021 High School
| America" is supposed to prove. Its just a collection of
| photo's of beauty pagent winners and athletes...
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Then we are getting localized results differences. I
| spent a few seconds scrolling down those links and there
| are dozens of group shot photos of dozens of American
| school children. It's anecdotal evidence showing that the
| majority of American children are not obese which you can
| see in those photos with your own eyes. If you don't like
| anecdotes it's followed up with the actual population
| level statistics from an authoritative source.
| vehemenz wrote:
| "Privilege" is an interesting word. If I were Indian or
| Chinese, I would feel privileged to have been raised in one
| the world's greatest food cultures instead of eating
| spaghetti and mac 'n' cheese like an American my whole
| life.
|
| Kids don't choose what their parents feed them, and that's
| how culture is imparted to the next generation.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I had a friend from Thailand who was an au pair in a very
| wealthy American family. She was genuinely sorry for them
| because they never ate fresh food.
|
| That being said, junk food isn't the privilege of
| Americans. Even countries with a "food culture" like
| France eat a lot of junk food.
| monkeywork wrote:
| >You don't need s personal chef to cook non processed food
| at home, not even a stay at home housewife of 60's. This is
| the most privileged thing I hear Americans repeating
|
| I think you are manufacturing your own argument here - no
| one said that they had to eat at a restaurant, have a
| personal chef, or a 60s housewife to eat well?
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I think you've misread something, the parent post
| specifically mentioned personal chefs. Not trying to
| manufacture anything here and I give you the benefit of
| doubt.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Where did he "lie about the reasons?" He made a simple
| assertion of fact: Fewer people are cooking at home, and
| they're relying on processed junk.
|
| What's "privileged" about that, either?
| missedthecue wrote:
| I agree with this. A combo meal at McDonalds is $8 or $9
| per person these days, meanwhile, a (relatively) healthy
| supermarket meal easily cooked on the stovetop in the time
| it takes to wait in a drive-thru costs $1 or $2 per person.
| I don't buy into the idea that Americans eat processed
| unhealthy foods because of their personal financial
| situation.
| rosseloh wrote:
| > a (relatively) healthy supermarket meal easily cooked
| on the stovetop in the time it takes to wait in a drive-
| thru
|
| Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with your overall
| point....but what drive-thrus do you use?
|
| A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour. Prep,
| cooking, eating, cleanup. If it takes less than that,
| then it's probably a lot of pre-made/processed stuff that
| isn't particularly healthy in itself.
|
| The only way I've been able to get around it with my work
| schedule is to meal-prep on weekends. Making stuff in
| bulk helps, but it's still 3-5 hours of my precious
| weekend used up.
| the8472 wrote:
| > A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour.
|
| It's not hard to optimize for speed. White rice, beans
| and frozen veggies boil in 10-15 minutes and don't even
| require attention for the full timespan. Cleanup consists
| of putting things in the dishwasher. And I don't know why
| you would factor in eating, going to McD won't teleport
| it into your stomach. Time can be further amortized by
| making several servings, putting them in the fridge and
| warming them up in the microwave later.
|
| We're comparing to fastfood here, not a high end
| restaurant course.
| rosseloh wrote:
| Cleanup for me definitely doesn't consist only of the
| dishwasher; my knives, wok, cast iron stuff to start
| definitely don't get put in there.
|
| I have optimized what I do quite well, or at least I'm
| much faster than I used to be. But for example this last
| weekend, I made some stir fry in a large batch for this
| week's meals. By the time I left my parents' house (long
| story but I basically can't cook at the house I live in),
| I had used up three hours. That was prepping four bell
| peppers, an onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and
| chicken, cooking them, and cleaning up afterward.
|
| I'm sure I can speed my prep up even more, mostly with
| knife skills. But at this point, that's how it is.
|
| I factor in eating because I clean up after I eat. Most
| of the stuff I make is best fresh out of the frying pan
| with very minimal resting time.
|
| But anyway, I'm not here to argue. If cooking at home
| works for you in 15 minutes, fantastic! I can't do that,
| it never works that quickly. I was mostly wondering how
| the parent poster's drive-thrus were so slow that they
| could cook faster because where I live, I never spend
| more than five minutes in one.
| manmal wrote:
| Cooking time heavily depends on the dish. There are
| recipes optimized for time consumption - if time is a
| priority, you could use those. Sometimes we just put
| potatoes in the pressure cooker, peel afterwards, and
| season with some oil and spice - takes 10m max. That's
| the healthier alternative to fries from McD. A keto meal
| will take longer, but at least in my area there's no
| takeout option for keto anyway.
| phonypc wrote:
| > _there's no takeout option for keto anyway._
|
| Big Mac, no bun, extra mac sauce. /s
| Spivak wrote:
| I feel like this doesn't optimize for enjoyment. Like
| shit this is what I ate when I was a broke in college.
| Are y'all not miserable eating this? At that point in my
| life getting taken by my parents out to somewhere
| mediocre like Olive Garden was heaven.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Boiled veggies are disgustingly bland.
|
| We season and bake our veggies. It adds to cost, but
| doesn't make me want to toss my food in the trash.
| 8note wrote:
| If you don't boil them too much, they're plenty
| flavourful.
|
| It's just that it's the flavour of the vegetable, which
| isn't full of sugar, salt, or msg unlike the very
| optimized processed foods
| windowsrookie wrote:
| No we're not miserable. In fact having home cooked
| healthy meals daily makes me feel better than ever. When
| I go eat fast food now I feel noticeably worse than I
| normally do.
|
| You are what you eat. Eat garbage fast food, and you will
| feel like garbage. And your body slowly accumulates all
| that garbage.
|
| Traditional dine in restaurants are usually just as
| unhealthy as eating fast food as well.
|
| It's actually shocking to me that garbage food has been
| normalized to the point where eating healthy is "what I
| ate when I was a broke in college." and that we must be
| miserable eating healthy.
|
| Wow that's crazy.
| 8note wrote:
| I think you're conflating enjoyment with status?
|
| It's low status to eat well on home cooked foods, and
| high status to eat poorly at well advertised garbage
| restaurants
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| No, we're not miserable. That's just the media
| environment playing mind tricks on you to get you to buy
| things you don't need so you don't miss out on the
| montage of joyous people and half-naked bodies playing
| and frolicking on the sunny ocean beach with refreshing,
| ice-cold, bubbly, intensely colored sugar water.
| Spivak wrote:
| Yo that's super depressing if you're buying your time
| back just to watch TV. Do you just assume that people
| don't have friends, hobbies, side projects?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Sure, people have those. Friends to go out with to spend
| money, because that's the way to socialize. Hobbies that
| require buying more non-essential things, and places to
| keep them in. Larger apartments to accommodate
| everything. Side projects to keep you busy while the
| world goes to shit.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Get an instant pot (a relatively new "smart" pressure
| cooker). I've been introducing my in-laws to their
| instant pot and it's hard for them to comprehend how fast
| it cooks. Mashed potatoes, steel cuts oats, lentils, all
| in about 10 minutes. The pot cooks everything.
|
| My go-to lazy meal is 1 1/2 cups of rice and beans, a few
| cups of stock, a cup of salsa, extra flavoring as
| desired, whatever veggies and protein I have around, all
| thrown in the pot for 25 minutes. Then I take out the pot
| and put it in the fridge. That will last two people a few
| days. Very little prep for a massive amount of food.
|
| You can also make yogurt overnight for maybe a 75%
| savings over store-bought.
| Spivak wrote:
| This hits home for me. I really enjoy cooking but I've
| basically given up on weeknight meals that aren't either
| leftovers from when I cook for fun or something prepared.
|
| Like it is genuinely the most out of touch privileged
| statement but I have the money and am absolutely willing
| to buy the time. $30-70/wk (less the cost of groceries)
| to gain 8ish hours of leisure time and more variety than
| I would ever bother with is a no brainer experience at
| this point in my life.
| chefkoch wrote:
| I agree with this if your single, but if your a family
| every meal outside is 4 times the price and the time to
| prep the meal at home stays almost the same.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| You're doing it wrong. There's so many ways to cook a
| quick healthy cheap meal.
|
| I cook 6 chicken breasts at a time, that way I have
| chicken for today and the next 5 days. It takes less than
| 5 minutes of your time to put chicken breasts on a sheet
| pan and then step away for 20 minutes while they bake in
| the oven. Then one minute to wash the sheet pan when they
| are done. There's 6 minutes of my time for 6 days of
| chicken breasts.
|
| Then there's so many ways to use the pre-cooked chicken
| breasts. One day ill chop one up mix with mayo, and
| mustard to make chicken salad and apply to some toast. 5
| minute chicken salad sandwiches.
|
| Next day I'll chop the chicken Breast up mix with taco
| seasoning microwave for 1 minute and apply to taco shells
| with lettuce and tomato. 5 minute tacos.
|
| Next day I'll microwave a chicken breast with some mixed
| veggies. 5 minute chicken and veggies.
|
| Next day I'll microwave the chicken breast apply to some
| toast with lettuce,tomato, mayo. 5 minute chicken
| sandwich.
|
| That was just some things you can do with a chicken
| breast. There's so many meals you can prepare in less
| than 5 minutes that is healthier and cheaper than
| anything you get going out to eat.
| rosseloh wrote:
| FWIW, I don't go out to eat that often. I don't cook much
| either, except for weekend prep as mentioned. When I
| don't have something prepped, it's usually wraps with
| tortillas, baby spinach, and some sort of meat and
| cheese.
|
| (Long story but I live in a complicated environment with
| a bunch of people who never clean up after themselves, so
| the kitchen is basically unusable since I refuse to clean
| their messes.)
|
| Also, "some mixed veggies". Do you use frozen? I like
| frozen veggies, but they take a lot longer than five
| minutes to cook unless I'm just microwaving a steamer bag
| (and they never taste that good prepped that way). I much
| prefer fresh (and they're normally cheaper, monetarily,
| though obviously they take much longer to prep).
| [deleted]
| ljm wrote:
| How much time do you spend driving to the drive-through,
| queueing up at a drive-through, making your order at the
| drive-through, waiting for your order at the drive-
| through, receiving the order from the drive-through, and
| then taking the order from the drive-through home before
| you eat it?
|
| Add up that time over the course of a week and see how
| much time you waste on convenience.
|
| You can cook a lot of inexpensive and healthy food in
| less than an hour. Protein, veg, complex carbs. Get a wok
| and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in literally 5
| minutes then.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > Get a wok and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in
| literally 5 minutes then.
|
| I own a wok and stir fry is my go to meal- I can't make
| meals in 5 minutes. I take the time to cut
| vegetables/protein, then clean up afterwards. And if
| you're going from pre-cut frozen it takes more than 5
| minutes to thaw???
|
| I agree that stir fry is a fast easy meal but I really
| disagree with this exaggeration of its speed. It makes
| the argument disingenuous.
| sneak wrote:
| Cooking and cleaning up from even a simple meal takes at
| a minimum 10x the amount of time that a 3 minute drive
| through a fast food place costs.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Making simple meals takes just a few minutes.
|
| My most common lunch is a salad that takes all of 5
| minutes to chop the vegetables. My most common dinner is
| a bowl of steamed vegetables that takes seconds to throw
| in the microwave, and a baked potato that takes seconds
| to put in the toaster oven a half-hour ahead of time.
| Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast take five minutes or less
| too.
|
| Unless you really work incredible hours, like a 16 to 24
| hour medical shift or something, citing time as a reason
| not to prepare food is either looking for an excuse or
| way overshooting on the complexity needed.
| sneak wrote:
| Time is valuable whether you work 16 hour days or 2 hour
| days.
|
| Wasting it on mindless things like chopping vegetables or
| washing pots and pans is of course a choice you are free
| to make, but it is a foolish one in my view.
|
| It's usually about 2x the time to clean up after a meal
| than it is to actually prepare it, in my experience. The
| cooking is easy, but cooking makes a mess of the stove,
| of the pots and pans, of the utensils, et c.
| manmal wrote:
| I've never cleaned up longer than 5 minutes after a meal,
| and I'm cooking 1-2x a day for a family of four. Cook
| just one dish, ideally in a single pan/pot or in the
| oven. Get a pressure cooker for one-pot-dishes, ideally a
| smart one with auto-shutdown. Get machine-washable
| utensils. Get a self-cleaning stove (who cares about the
| mess anyway). Coated pans can just be rinsed with a soft
| brush and dried immediately (only smelly stuff like fish
| needs to be soaked).
| windowsrookie wrote:
| Are you kidding me? No it absolutely does not. I make
| every single one of my meals in less than 15 minutes
| including cleanup time. I have been doing this for 10+
| years.
|
| It would be at least a 15 minute round trip to the drive
| thru from my house and would cost 5x as much and be 10x
| less healthy.
| least wrote:
| It kind of comes down to wealth and the average American is
| significantly wealthier than the average Indian (or average
| a lot of countries). Wealth affords you time for things
| that you care to pursue rather than things you have to. For
| an American this translates to a lot of people not spending
| much time in the kitchen.
|
| It could perhaps be perceived as laziness when you deride
| whatever replacement someone chooses over basic chores
| they're no longer responsible for but really this is you
| conflating leisurely activities as lazy.
|
| I personally enjoy cooking but not everyone does and them
| choosing to pay to not have to do that is their choice.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Yeah that's just coping. America is fat and lazy and it
| makes us superior to those untermensch who try to feed
| their kids responsibly.
|
| You know it's okay to criticize the environment you grow
| up in right? It's how society improves.
| nkohari wrote:
| This is a very broad statement. It's likely true in some
| cases, but access to food is wildly different depending on
| where you live and how much you make.
|
| Consider these individuals (not meant as an exhaustive list
| of archetypes):
|
| 1. A high-income American who lives in a large city, owns a
| car and/or can afford grocery delivery
|
| 2. A middle-income American who lives in the suburbs and
| has access to a grocery store, but is price-sensitive when
| it comes to food
|
| 3. A low-income American without access to a car, who lives
| in a "food desert" in a large city and does most of their
| shopping at a bodega/corner market
|
| 4. An American who lives in a rural area without a grocery
| store for several miles
|
| The way these people engage with food is wildly different,
| and only those in the first group could be rationally
| considered "lazy" if they chose processed food.
|
| If your goal is simply to feed yourself and your family,
| you're likely going to optimize more for calories-per-
| dollar than you are than for freshness. When compared to
| processed food, fresh produce is actually incredibly
| expensive.
| uselesscynicism wrote:
| Gotta love the casual racism in this comment. This guy
| knows what every American's wages are and what their lives
| are like. All 350 million of us, from Alabama to
| California, this guy is the expert on their situations and
| he's got the diagnosis! It's just laziness that causes
| Americans to buy processed foods, and soda!
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Privileged, certainly. I take exception to the "laziness"
| accusation though.
|
| We all have a finite amount of time on this planet, and
| replacing menial tasks with things that are interesting or
| enriching should be considered one of the more positive
| things one can do for their own life. It's like what they
| say about being rich/wealthy. Many people (I blame media
| mostly) think about the luxury items and lifestyle that one
| can purchase, but the real win is that fact that you don't
| have to anything you don't want to do ever again. You can
| choose exactly how you are going to live your life.
|
| I don't personally believe life has a purpose or meaning,
| and I've become content to just wander the world finding
| interesting things until the end of it.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Cooking food that is good for your body is not menial -
| it's central to living. Many people these days (myself
| even relatively recently) might choose a TV dinner so
| they don't miss any of that critical episode of House
| Hunters rather than spend 20 minutes throwing together a
| stir fry from raw ingredients. It is a lazy choice.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Some meals are so easy to cook that you could actually
| watch the TV while cooking, only looking away for a few
| moments, usually while cutting ingredients. (Then there
| are other meals where such approach would most likely
| result in burning the meal.)
| manmal wrote:
| Yep. I often listen to audiobooks while cooking - ideal
| for shutting down after work.
| apocolyps6 wrote:
| All I'm seeing from your comment is insulting OP's desire
| to not spend time cooking, and shaming it as being lazy.
| You don't even bother to back up your claim that it's not
| menial. Is shame really all you have to bring to the
| conversation?
| phonypc wrote:
| By the same token, OP was being insulting to people who
| choose to cook, and shaming it as being uninteresting.
|
| I don't think it's the most charitable interpretation in
| either case.
| 8note wrote:
| Assumption: cooking isn't interesting or enriching.
|
| I think you could replace HN time with cooking, and it
| would be both more interesting and saving money
| definitely makes it more enriching
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| You should've taken exception to the opposite. Relying on
| processed junk isn't privileged; it's lazy.
| milesvp wrote:
| I can tell you that for me personally, it's a way to get a
| small bump of caffeine. I've learned to drink more tea in the
| last few years, but having strong bitter receptors make coffee
| a flat out no.
| wil421 wrote:
| A ton of fast food to fast casual places offer it with meals so
| people just drink it. I usually get unsweet tea instead (no
| it's not the tea you are thinking of). Mexico consumes the most
| Sodas and beats the US despite having a much smaller
| population.
|
| Most people I know who actually buy soda and bring it to their
| home either don't drink alcohol or coffee. Plenty of Indian's
| drink tea and there are probably street vendors who sell sugar
| cane juice or fresh squeezed fruit.
|
| Everyone has their vices. Lots of people chew Paan and betel
| leaf but you'd never hear about it in the US.
| dhosek wrote:
| In Mexico, there's also the fact that soda is often the most
| easily available source of clean water. When I was in rural
| Chiapas and Guatemala ca 1992, I think I drank very little
| that wasn't soda during that time.1
|
| 1. Because the glass bottles were fairly precious by local
| economic standards, soda would be served "to go" in a plastic
| bag with a straw and a rubber band to keep it closed.
| wil421 wrote:
| Yes I've had the bag method in Costa Rica. They wouldn't
| even let me touch the bottle.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| > I live in India and flavored soda is considered luxury item
| here.
|
| I worked for a B-School program which looked at growth
| opportunities for Cola in India.
|
| One of the challenges were lack of electricity in large parts
| of the country. Even those who had electricity did not get it
| for 24x7. Those who had it uninterrupted could not afford to
| buy a freezer. This prevented the whole appeal of cold drinks
| that are not cold. Coca Cola and Pepsi invested heavily in
| refrigeration technologies as they mass imported cheap fridges
| and offered them for free. But electricity being government
| controlled remains a luxury in India. Coca Cola and Pepsi did
| crazy things to solve this problem including creating tie ups
| with ice makers who supply ice slabs for special events to
| brine based coolers than can keep things cool for 12 hours.
|
| The results however were stunning. From 2016 to 2020, India has
| doubled the per capita consumption of cola per year to around
| 88 bottles. I think it is fair to assume that the ceiling for
| this number is around 1500 bottles per year because both USA
| and Mexico consume that much soda. Given the income difference
| between both countries I think that is an upper bound.
|
| USA has 30x of India's per capita income but only 20x more soda
| consumption. Which makes me think Indians are going to hit that
| 1500 bound much much sooner than expected.
|
| Note:
|
| Some of our research results were fascinating and
| counterintuitive.
|
| People preferred Coca Cola because it was "healthy" to a
| locally produced freshly squeezed sugarcane juice. The
| reasoning was that while the juicer center does not even have a
| food department clearance and is unsanitary, people had more
| faith in soft drink manufacturers quality control. Ice mixed
| with sugar cane juice was often transported via two wheelers,
| kept on the road and smashed into smaller pieces with a hammer.
|
| When people were convinced that the sugar cane juice was
| produced in extremely clean fashion people preferred it over
| coke and were willing to even pay more than coke.
|
| Companies like Paperboat in India have come into existence from
| these sort of insights.
| websap wrote:
| It tastes delicious and its super cheap. 36 cans at costco are
| about 10 dollars. I love having one after lunch or in the
| evenings when I'm unwinding.
|
| No calories, better than alcohol and the delight.
|
| The only thing is if I drink a lot of it in a week, I sort of
| get used to the taste.
|
| Also Coke Zero is the only one that I've found that doesn't
| have an artificial taste to it. Things like Sprite Zero have a
| very odd after taste.
|
| I'm originally from India, so I can understand your
| apprehension, but a diet soda is really cheap here.
| switchbak wrote:
| When I was a kid and I'd visit my Dad he always had 'pop'
| around, and it was just something we'd power through without
| thinking. I'm not sure if I even thought that it was bad for me
| in a concrete way. It was just super sweet and felt 'fun'.
|
| When I was 19 I worked at a tech company with unlimited pop
| available. The 15lbs of additional weight caused me to look at
| it a whole different way, and broke that habit pretty fast!
|
| Now the only time I have Coke is after a huge endurance event,
| otherwise it's just way too much.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Unrelated, but it's "pop", "soda", "soda pop", or "coke"
| (regardless of brand) depending where in the US you are. It's a
| regional dialect thing.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Does "coke" include non-cola flavoured beverages in parts of
| the US? Here in the UK we tend to call them "fizzy drinks"
| FWIW.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In the south-eastern US, it's totally normal to order an
| "orange Coke" (which Coca-Cola either does not make or does
| not call "Coke" at a minimum).
| dhosek wrote:
| I can kind of see how that came about--my kids would
| assume that any soda I drank was a diet coke and would
| refer to orange soda as orange diet coke.
| nyx wrote:
| In the American South, you're likely to hear "coke"
| regardless of whether it's actually Coke, or even cola-
| flavored. It's "pop" up north, and "soda" in the northeast
| and southwest (plus a couple of pockets near Milwaukee and
| St. Louis, which would otherwise be "pop" territory -
| fascinating stuff).
| tombert wrote:
| Whenever I would visit family in Louisiana, it was pretty
| common to go to restaurants, and even at places that
| exclusively served Pepsi products, asking "what kind of
| Coke do you want?"
| zeku wrote:
| Yep. Coke is every carbonated sugar drink. You have to get
| all the way to la croix for it to stop being a coke. South-
| Eastern USA aka "The American South"
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Here's some interesting regional US dialect maps:
|
| https://www.rd.com/list/regional-sayings-phrases-words/
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| > I am ignorant in this topic, but why do americans seem to
| drink soda( pop as they call in cinema) excessively ? I live in
| India and flavoured soda is considered luxury item here.
|
| You answered your own question - because America is wealthy and
| Soda is cheap.
|
| I'm in New Zealand and soda was definitely a luxury growing up.
| But here it cost 14.57 USD for an 18 pack, while for a 24 pack
| in the states it's 10.22 USD. So almost half the price.
| ne0flex wrote:
| There's the fact that soda is packed with sugar and people
| getting addicted to the dopamine hits. [1][2]
|
| [1]https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/addicted-to-soda
| [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6488513/
|
| In the case of diet soda, I assume that since most people
| already start drinking regular soda, there's a placebo
| effect.
| swayvil wrote:
| Marketing. Lots of marketing. Mind control is real.
|
| If they told us to cut off our nose today you'd see a lot of
| noseless Americans tomorrow.
| hansoolo wrote:
| It's such a good question! And all the answers here are "it's
| cheap" or "I'm used to it" or "I only drink the sugar free
| version"... Why is there no self reflection? Everyone's getting
| pested by theses corporations. "I don't like the bland taste of
| water." wtf is wrong with you?! Some people in the world have
| to walk miles to get water! And we could have it from the tap.
| Just drink it from the tap! Seriously, I thought people were
| smart in here, but all these answers...
| w0mbat wrote:
| It has been known for a while that people who switch from regular
| soda to diet soda (and make no other changes) do not lose weight.
| This is a crazy result given the calorie difference, so there
| must be something going on.
|
| Somehow the body is reacting badly to the dissappoinment of not
| getting all the promised calories that it tasted. Either
| triggering cravings that drive people to make up the deficit
| elsewhere or causing the digestive system to change gear in some
| way. It is now known that there are sweetness receptors in the
| gut, so this flow of what the body thinks is undigested sugar may
| make things go haywire. Anyway, it's not my field, but I find it
| interesting.
| stormbrew wrote:
| I think it's generally true that "people who do X (and make no
| other changes)" do not lose weight for all values of X except
| some very unhealthy things, and those unhealthy things are
| generally followed by rebound weight gain anyways.
|
| Almost everything to do with weight loss verges on pseudo-
| science and the field is constantly flooded with misinformation
| from people peddling something. Focusing on weight loss as a
| goal in and of itself is thus pretty much always a road to pain
| anyways.
| chithanh wrote:
| Worse, artificial sweeteners are used in animal farming to make
| animals gain more weight. This is due to a combination of
| factors, both increasing appetite as well as feed efficiency.
| manmal wrote:
| One of the reasons seems to be insulin levels:
| https://www.mentalfoodchain.com/aspartame/
| twirlock wrote:
| This is the kind of thing countless people already realize. There
| are simple reasons to suspect this happens. But hipsters will
| still say "nuh uh" because they cannot tolerate the notion of
| useful information that doesn't come from a big shiny ostensible
| authority that tells them they're sophisticated.
| iamricks wrote:
| Just want to add this here, artificial sweeteners are a blessing,
| specially for people with slower metabolisms. Food in the US is
| loaded with sugars, its nice to have a way to minimize
| consumption while satisfying cravings. You cannot argue that
| being obese is better than consuming artificial sweeteners.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy
| manmal wrote:
| Aspartame is not without issues:
| https://www.mentalfoodchain.com/aspartame/
|
| Allulose looks promising and tastes like real sugar (I've tried
| it), hope it will be used more widely.
| porb121 wrote:
| everyone points to a "hunger response" or something similar with
| non nutritive sweeteners and then these effects don't materialize
| in actual outcomes:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.13020
|
| "Grouping by nature of comparator revealed that NNS vs placebo/no
| intervention and NNS vs water produced no effect."
|
| so like, there's a food craving, and then ???? you don't gain
| weight. who cares! maybe you eat more in the next meal, and then
| it's not clear this persists into a real caloric surplus.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Adipose storage is much more sophisticated than just simple
| excess calories.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| In practice, "Do I have excess calories?" is an excellent
| approximation for "Am I gaining weight?"
| manmal wrote:
| The problem with this is that ,,excess calories" is a
| moving target. Insulin and thyroid hormone levels have a
| say in that, too.
| porb121 wrote:
| so how come nobody gets fatter drinking nns's vs placebo or
| water or no intervention
| petecooper wrote:
| I was hooked on Pepsi Max in the early 2000s. A high pressure
| tech support role at an antivirus vendor was the perfect
| environment for me to blast through a 2 litre bottle on a typical
| work day. That habit almost broke me physically, ended up binging
| and had a mini nervous breakdown within 2 years. Not recommended.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I would assume that the "high pressure tech support role" also
| had a lot to do with it
| subsubzero wrote:
| yeah, stress can do terrible things to your body, affect
| nervous system function, cognitive impairment, major stomach
| issues, affect the heart and its function, and on and on..
| layer8 wrote:
| Just n = 1 as well, but I've been drinking around 3 litres of
| diet coke per day for the past 15-20 years and haven't had any
| adverse physical effects.
| kyleee wrote:
| Jesus, any plans to donate your body to science at some point
| to study the effects of such high consumption?
| sneak wrote:
| I ingest twice that amount of sucralose every day and I'm
| fine, too.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Do you consume other caffeinated beverages like coffee or
| tea?
| layer8 wrote:
| I don't, or only very rarely. I like cold beverages, and I
| like the coke taste, to the point that I even drink
| caffeine-free coke in the evening.
| DantesKite wrote:
| The only thing that worries me about diet coke is what it may
| do to the gut microbiome and how it lowers Vitamin D levels
| in the body.
|
| Other than that, far, far better than regular coke, which
| should be banned for people under the age of 21.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's impressive. I thought I needed an intervention because
| the other day I managed to drink an entire six pack of Pepsi
| Zero Sugar in one day. Maybe I shouldn't worry so much...
| lloydgrossman wrote:
| 50/50 shot that you aren't aware of the adverse effects it is
| having.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If they aren't aware, is it even that adverse?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Many potential side-effects might be invisible until it's
| already gotten to the point of causing damage. Think lung
| cancer in smokers that don't destroy the body for
| decades[0], or the amount of people with prediabetes that
| won't know until their blood glucose level qualifies them
| for a type 2 diagnoses.
|
| 0: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/14100915
| 4007.h...
| layer8 wrote:
| Well, studies so far seem to be inconclusive overall, so
| I'm hoping for the best. :)
| wcunning wrote:
| 1.5 liters of Diet Coke a day here, plus quite a bit of
| coffee and I'm also doing ok. No real signs of moderate or
| severe dehydration either, maybe mild, but very mild if so.
| chucksta wrote:
| I'm not sure if your point is you would be dehydrated from
| the caffeine, but that not true;
| https://time.com/5192272/coffee-tea-dehydrating/
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-
| and-h...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Ah, classic
|
| https://www.theonion.com/man-who-drinks-5-diet-cokes-per-
| day...
| bradlys wrote:
| Same. I'm on caffeine free now but I haven't kicked the
| entire habit yet.
|
| That said - it's much easier to drink just water now. No
| caffeine headaches and such. Can't actually drink the
| caffeinated diet coke anymore - get sick from it. Super
| weird.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| This article is nothing new, we've known this. Body sees sweet
| thing, releases insulin in anticipation, but there's no calories
| to process. And now you've just increased your insulin
| resistance.
| comrh wrote:
| Iirc aspartame hasn't been shown to increase insulin release
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| There's also some evidence that artificial sweeteners affect
| the composition of the gut microbiome [1], which could be more
| influential (over the long term) than the taste/insulin theory.
| See also: evidence that different sweeteners have different
| impact on gut bacteria, which could make it easier to test
| which effect is more significant.
|
| [1] e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363527/
| davidcbc wrote:
| Not for aspartame, which is the primary sweetener used in
| diet sodas
|
| > So far, only saccharin and sucralose (NNSs) and stevia (NS)
| change the composition of the gut microbiota.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The results are all over the place. Some articles says
| continuous _low-dose_ aspartame has effects [1], others say
| that aspartame has other effects on quorum sensing [2]. I
| 'm not in this area so I can't judge any of this work, I
| just think it's interesting.
|
| [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jo
| urnal... [2] https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/18/9863
| perl4ever wrote:
| People talk a lot about stevia, and it's prominently
| displayed on packaging, but then when I look at the
| ingredients, the sweetener is actually mostly sugar
| alcohols.
|
| Is stevia ever used alone? If it's just a "fig leaf" so to
| speak, then perhaps the health effects of the sugar
| alcohols would be more relevant.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Yeah this is straight up just false. Insulin is not released
| based on taste, that would be very problematic. Some studies
| have found very low levels of insulin based on taste and
| feelings of eating but that's it.
| steanne wrote:
| no, it's good planning. cephalic phase insulin release.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Based upon this meta study, it seems that, while there is
| some evidence for CPIR, it doesn't do much.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/11/5/1364/5855277
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Cephalic phase insulin release has not been demonstrated
| based purely on sweet taste of liquids. Some studies show
| no effect, others find a very weak effect on the order of
| 1% of actually eating.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| another similar thing is chewing-gums. Body starts chewing,
| produce more saliva, and some enzymes, but nothing comes down
| as expected. Or reversly, when food is not chewed, the body
| misses an important step
| davidcbc wrote:
| This is a common myth, but most diet sodas use aspartame, not
| sucralose. No link between aspartame and insulin levels has
| been found.
|
| https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/artificial-sweeteners-b...
| icodestuff wrote:
| Yeah I thought we already knew this. Maybe not for sucralose
| specifically?
| hirundo wrote:
| I've done much N=1 testing of this proposition with a blood
| glucose monitor, and haven't found it to be true for me. I get
| a spike when I drink something sweet and sugary, but not when I
| drink something sweetened with sucralose, aspartame, stevia,
| etc.
| godshatter wrote:
| Same here. It also doesn't interrupt my fasting in a
| noticeable way, so I don't think the insulin delivered is
| enough to really worry about.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| The theory is that you'd see a _drop_ in blood sugar after
| drinking something with an artificial sweetener not a spike.
| hirundo wrote:
| I don't see an identifiable reaction, though perhaps some
| statistics can pull one out. The reaction from a sugary
| drink is consistent and dramatic.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I'm not entirely certain myself if artificial sweeteners
| cause insulin spikes, but it's worth pointing out the
| difference in numbers between high and low blood sugar.
| Normal blood sugar is what, 90-100 mg/dl or so, while the
| diagnostic criteria for low blood sugar starts at 70
| mg/dl. Meanwhile symptoms for high blood sugar start
| above 200 (or even sometimes 300) mg/dl. Presumably
| cravings for sugary foods kicks in well above 70mg/dl
| too.
|
| Simply put a spike in blood sugar due to a sugary food is
| much, much bigger than the drop in blood sugar sufficient
| to trigger a change in eating habits. And that's before
| we consider the impact of non-insulin hormones on our
| behavior, such as Ghrelin, which won't show up on a blood
| glucose test at all.
| Paedor wrote:
| Aren't you measuring glucose instead of insulin though? I
| might expect a spike in insulin after a spike in glucose, but
| the other way around doesn't seem as likely.
| winternett wrote:
| The key is to only drink it during a meal, and not outside of
| meals perhaps then.
|
| The amount and kinds of artificial sweeteners in each drink could
| well be reduced and varied by manufacturers, but time and time
| again they choose not to, but if you look at the alternatives of
| water every time or drinks that are also very high in sugar on
| the inverse, diet drinks are a blessing for many people.
| turtlebits wrote:
| If you want to cut sugar, but want something sweet, stay away
| from sucralose, splenda, aspartame.
|
| Some good alternatives are stevia, monkfruit, and the sugar
| alcohols (xylitol, erythritol, etc). I don't especially like the
| taste of stevia, but stevia + monkfruit blends aren't so bad.
| manmal wrote:
| Allulose tastes like real sugar. Unfortunately it's quite
| expensive and not widely studied. It's available in the US, but
| not (yet) in the EU.
| tonymet wrote:
| I'm concerned that nutrition policy has been so confusing and
| unable to produce healthful outcomes
| omega3 wrote:
| I've managed to replace my coke zero habit very quickly with
| sparkling water.
| Spivak wrote:
| My dad did the same and has been relatively happy with the
| decision.
| sabujp wrote:
| coke zero with 700 calorie per slice pizza where i end up eating
| 3-4 slices
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Man, what toppings are you having on your pizza? That's an
| impressively calorific slice.
| sabujp wrote:
| 1 costco pepperoni slice is 700 calories iirc, i can't eat 4
| costco slices, but i assume a greasy pizza hut slice from a
| large pie is close?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| A whole personal pizza comes close, but typically the
| slices are under 300 calories. I haven't had a Costco pizza
| slice in a while, but aren't they enormous?
| hinkley wrote:
| Tricking your body into thinking you ate sweet things does not
| sound like a winning strategy in the long run.
|
| I heard a speculation recently from a science vlogger, I think he
| was citing a paper, but as a side comment to the fact that humans
| have taste buds elsewhere in our bodies, that it's possible that
| when the artificial sweetener is in your intestines, your body
| makes an effort to absorb the 'sugars' that it senses, but in the
| process ends up absorbing some of the ambient sugar in your GI
| tract that otherwise would have not been captured, or used by gut
| microbes, throwing the whole balance off in the process. So in
| effect sugar free foods still have a caloric cost from a diet
| perspective.
|
| Then there's sugar alcohols, which are edible by bad gut microbes
| but not by you.
| delecti wrote:
| > Tricking your body into thinking you ate sweet things does
| not sound like a winning strategy in the long run.
|
| What are you comparing it to though? If you're deciding between
| diet soda and water, then it's hard to make a health case for
| diet soda. But if you're deciding between diet or regular soda,
| then diet soda starts to look a lot better.
| kingrazor wrote:
| I drank soda throughout my childhood and really ramped up how
| much I drank when I got into college and finally had a bit of
| disposable income. At a certain point I was easily drinking a
| gallon per day. The thing that finally got me to stop was that I
| started getting throat ulcers every time I drank it. I'd been
| getting them for years up to that point, but much more
| sporadically. Once I stopped drinking soda, no more throat
| ulcers. When I need a carbonation fix I go for seltzer water now.
| aaron695 wrote:
| An example of a anti-meme "Diet soda is good for you"
|
| If the above is true, what would be the emerging patterns in
| science, media and society?
| vortico wrote:
| This is specifically a study for sucralose (e.g. Splenda). Most
| diet drinks in the US and other countries are aspartame (e.g.
| Equal).
| goda90 wrote:
| Though the mechanisms they hypothesize about might apply to
| other artificial sweeteners.
|
| I see sucralose in a lot of processed foods, especially ones
| trying to pretend to be healthy. It's a shame that it's hard to
| find unsweetened sliced bread in some stores.
| teorema wrote:
| FWIW, sucralose has also been linked to C diff infection.
|
| It's worth maybe pointing out that this study was based on
| sucralose, just because it seems this sweetener is worth
| tracking separately in general. I don't really consume things
| with artificial sweeteners but sucralose is starting to
| become a concern of mine (eg for my daughter).
| phonypc wrote:
| You won't get the characteristic texture of sliced bread
| without sugar or some replacement. Its primary role isn't
| really sweetening.
| dhosek wrote:
| I think the sugar ingredient in bread is partly to feed the
| yeast, but if you start looking at ingredients, you'll find
| sweeteners in almost all the packaged foods, from lunch meats
| to soup.
| ectopod wrote:
| Plenty of bread is made with just flour, water, salt and
| yeast. Even the very cheapest own-brand sliced white loaf
| in my local UK supermarket has no sugar.
|
| American bread has sugar because it's cheap and Americans
| like it.
| Daegalus wrote:
| Dave's Bread brand has a few low sugar or fruit juice
| sweetened breads. much healthier than other options. I have
| also found a couple of sourdoughs with no added sugar at all.
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