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Margot Sanger-Katz reports in the NYT that soda consumption is experiencing a serious and sustained decline as sales of full-calorie soda in the United States have plummeted by more than 25 percent over the past twenty years. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are actively trying to avoid the drinks that have been a mainstay of American culture and bottled water is now on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category in two years. The changing patterns of soda drinking appear to come thanks, in part, to a loud campaign to eradicate sodas. School cafeterias and vending machines no longer contain regular sodas. Many workplaces and government offices have similarly prohibited their sale.
For many public health advocates, soda has become the new tobacco — a toxic product to be banned, taxed and stigmatized. "There will always be soda, but I think the era of it being acceptable for kids to drink soda all day long is passing, slowly," says Marion Nestle. "In some socioeconomic groups, it's over." Soda represents nearly 25% of the U.S. beverage market and its massive scale have guaranteed profit margins for decades. Historically, beverage preferences are set in adolescence, the first time that most people begin choosing and buying a favorite brand. But the declines in soda drinking appear to be sharpest among young Americans. "Kids these days are growing up with all of these other options, and there are some parents who say, 'I really want my kids to drink juice or a bottled water,' " says Gary A. Hemphill. "If kids grow up without carbonated soft drinks, the likelihood that they are going to grow up and, when they are 35, start drinking is very low."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:47PM
If you get down to the nitty gritty, all foods are equal. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, right? So, if I get a lump of charcoal and some water for your dinner, you're all set?
Sugar cane isn't all that unhealthy. Give it to a kid, and he's got to work at munching up the sugar, and at the same time, he's getting a tiny bit of nutritional value from it. All in all, he can't consume an awful lot of energy in a day's time, even if he's got a truckload of the stuff. Processed granulated sugar, on the other hand, permits the kid to consume ten times the energy he needs all day long, in a single sitting.
Corn syrup? That's a relatively healthy starch that is effectively predigested, leaving behind chains of sugars. Like the granulated sugar, all the extra nutrition has been stripped away, leaving only calories. Corn syrup is composed of several sugars, actually, but even the longest chains are broken down pretty quickly in the digestive system. Lots of energy, no nutrition, same as granulated sugar.
Fruit juices have both short and long chain sugar, but they have a lot of nutrition in them as well.
Artificial sweeteners? I've never found one that is fit to eat. A lot of people, including my wife, have tried to sneak it into my diet. I have always detected them. They taste like - what else? Chemicals. Even as a little kid, my mother couldnt' sneak sacharine into my food. People have to be trained to like it. Kinda like alcohol - kids don't like their first taste of alcohol, they train themselves to like the stuff.
While the sweetener might be "zero calorie", the rest of the ingredients aren't necessarily zero calorie. Let's return to corn syrup, as an example. Corn syrup has 53 grams of carbohydrates, but only 29 grams of sugar. Why the discrepancy? Well - "sugar" refers to short chain sugars. But corn syrup contains long chain sugars as well. Thanks to a play on semantics, corn syrup manufacturers get to claim that they only have 29 grams of sugar - but in fact, you're consuming 53 grams of sugar with each serving.
Knowing that, I look at those "zero calorie" drinks, and wonder, "Just how many calories ARE THERE?" as well as "What is the cost of "low calorie?"
http://foodbabe.com/2013/01/25/coca-colas-low-calorie-beverages-will-kill-you-before-they-solve-obesity/ [foodbabe.com]
"That’s right – consuming artificial sweeteners actually increases your appetite."
"You’ll find crystalline fructose in Vitamin Water Zero, which is made from (genetically modified) corn starch which is 20% sweeter than sugar. Fructose is processed by the body differently than other sugars – and is linked to fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, coronary arterial disease and obesity."
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Justin Case on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:05PM
They taste like - what else? Chemicals.
Protip: water is a chemical.
You're starting to sound like a health-food-as-a-religion missionary rather than someone with factual knowledge.
I look at those "zero calorie" drinks, and wonder, "Just how many calories ARE THERE?"
Hmmm, that's a toughie. Let's see if we can work it out.
(0 + 0) * 0 + (0 * 0) - 0 - (0 * 0)
Starting to look like it might be zero.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:49PM
Some experimenters reported that fructose added to various beverages at various temperatures was 77% to 136% sweeter than sucrose.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2758952 [nih.gov]
When soda makers disclose the energy content of their drinks, they can write a smaller number for the calories, without reducing the sweetness, if they use fructose rather than sucrose.
In the US, corn production is heavily subsidized. I speculate that it may have to do with fact that the Iowa primaries are held early, in election years.
Sucrose, on the other hand, is subject to regulations that tend to increase its price to about twice that on the world market:
http://www.atr.org/sugar-policy-sweet-economy-a7127 [atr.org]
Ton for ton, fructose is about twice as sweet and (in the US) costs about half as much, so it yields around four times as much bang for the buck.