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When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on th

When Mr. Nutter was fighting the soda tax battle, he kept a bottle of Mountain Dew and a container with 17 teaspoons of sugar — the amount in the bottle — on the table in the center of his office. It was a good “conversation piece,” he said, about the surprising number of calories in a typical soda. I think this is key. Better information and transparency is having an effect. I'm glad to hear we're approaching a point where the RDA for sugar will be listed on products just like fat, sodium, and potassium. I expect this will have a major impact on consumer behavior and industry behavior, much like calorie listings on fast food menus. It still requires government regulations, but instead of challenging First Amendment principles, it embraces them. Most consumers aren't idiots. But they're aren't scientists or academic researchers for the most part either. Bring them relevant, accurate information and they are capable of making rational choices. This article is encouraging evidence.

caseysoftware 11y ago
That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. If you believe the other common stories, we're drinking the calories. I'd wager they come from the rise of coffee-based beverages - which would not be considered soda - but I don't have data to back that up.
- _delirium 11y ago
  For now I think Starbucks et al are benefiting from being culturally identified as more upper/middle-class. Obesity stereotypes seem to have fixated mostly on a "people of Walmart" type image of the fat, slobbish lower classes. So even though a 12-oz Starbucks caramel latte is far worse than a 12-oz Coke, it gets a pass.
  - mikenyc 11y ago
    Sugar-wise, the can of coke is about 70% worse. 12-oz caramel macchiato = 23 grams of sugar http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caramel-macchiato#size=126197&milk=63 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caramel-macchi... 12-oz can of coke = 39 grams of sugar http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/coca-cola/ http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c...
    - _delirium 11y ago
      Good point, the source of calories isn't the same mix, even though the latte has more total calories (200 calories/12oz, vs. 140). Though I was thinking of the caramel latte rather than macchiato, which is a bit closer, at 27g of sugar: http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/flavored-latte?foodZone=9999#size=177970&milk=63 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/flavored-latte.... And since it's autumn, it's now time for their signature seasonal drink, the pumpkin spice latte, 300 calories and 39g of sugar per 12oz: http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/pumpkin-spice-latte#size=183886&milk=63&whip=125 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/pumpkin-spice-.... You can bring that down to 240 calories and a mere 37g of sugar if you ask for no whipped cream.
      - rhizome 11y ago
        Even so, all of these have at least an egg's worth of protein and a little bit of fat, pushing them even higher in the nutrition department. Which is nice.
      - Malician 11y ago
        I suspect these are actually healthier because of the additional calories - which come in the form of fat and protein, dulling the impact of the sugar spike from a soda. Even if you're overweight, a latte is more nutritious and likely to make you feel full than a soda.
        _delirium 11y ago
        This suggests a strategy for improving the healthiness of soda: the government should work to make the ice-cream float come back into fashion. "Don't drink your soda plain: add a scoop for your health!"
        Malician 11y ago
        Maybe? I mean, have you ever tried to eat dinner after icecream? It's just not happening, even if it's delicious dinner. But soda, well, take a 2000 calorie meal and add soda and you have a 3000 calorie meal.
  - yareally 11y ago
    I doubt many people drink something from Starbucks with or after every meal though. Also way more expensive to do so with Starbucks. 12 pack of name brand soda where I am sells for $3.00 during a typical sale.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Tasting sugar is temperature-dependent. Generally, a given amount of sugar makes hot stuff taste sweeter than cold stuff. That's why warm soda tastes too sweet, and cold coffee tastes too bitter.
- wpietri 11y ago
  And I expect juice drinks are part of it as well. Same high levels of sugar and low levels of fiber. The calories aren't as empty, but they're still much easier to consume than whole fruit.
  - grogenaut 11y ago
    I've got a cold/sore throat and when I do I drink a bunch of OJ. I don't normally drink OJ so I get small windows into it. Every time I get it I notice less and less pulp in it. Today there were tons of "NO PULP" oj out there, even tropicana 50, which is watered and filtered oj. These things are essentially natural koolaid.
    - voltagex_ 11y ago
      It's extra work but I just eat oranges or juice them (manually, screw cleaning out a big juicer). I'll also add that if you drink juice, you can consume a lot more sugar than if you ate the fruit - eating the "whole" fruit you'll feel full quicker.
      - grogenaut 11y ago
        sure but my use case is to make my throat feel better so the fruit isn't as good.
    - takee 11y ago
      I am not sure if the consumers really like and demand no pulp OJ or if it's one of those fads that are being pushed onto the consumers by the big brands. I for one prefer high pulp OJ any day, not for the fiber, but because it makes the juice taste so much better and fruitier. Without the pulp, the juice might as well be made from artificial flavors.
    - capisce 11y ago
      I'd recommend just eating some C vitamin pills instead. At least eat oranges directly instead of drinking juice.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I'd be curious to see how much of the decline of "soda" is a result of the move to "energy drinks"
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    I was thinking about that too but since they're sugared and carbonated, I assume they're often classified as soda too? (Not 100% sure there.)
    - adventured 11y ago
      They're not necessarily sugared in the sense of a regular Coke, but I'm not sure if they differentiate for the types. Monster, which has become a rather large company, sells a lot of their zero sugar / zero calorie products. They moved to using erythritol. I drink the products and have yet to find any counter evidence erythritol isn't drastically superior to pretty much every other sweetener. It has been shown to be very safe (with studies spanning multiple decades now), very little of it is metabolized, and it doesn't cause the gastric reactions that competing products like xylitol do.
      - nnd 11y ago
        Have you done any research on the side-effects of energy drinks?
    - dghughes 11y ago
      Surprisingly they're not even food as are carbonated sugary drinks aka soda/pop the FDA considers energy drinks a supplement.
- gaius 11y ago
  Soda sales are down but obesity is still up Because it's not just about calories in but calories out too. People spending all day sitting in front of screens replacing all other forms of both work and play...
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Modern westerner lifestyle is really damaging. Since I can drive a car I don't walk anymore. My belly reminds it to me everyday.
    - TulliusCicero 11y ago
      Biking could help with this, but there's so much cultural momentum against treating bike infrastructure as a first-class citizen, or heck, even a second-class citizen like walking. And without safe bike lanes, very few people will bike. The amount of subsidies and preferential treatment we give to cars is really astounding, but at this point most people in the US can hardly think of it being any other way.
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        I tried that, and even if I was in the Netherlands I don't think it would apply. Biking has its constraints, you can't go at your own pace even in dedicated lanes, you have to be very actively focused on others, and you need secure parking lots if you plan to do something else otherwise 50% chances it will get stolen.
- redbeard0x0a 11y ago
  All the extra weight is coming from the abundance of sugars that are added to food. Especially the low-fat or fat-free foods. So we aren't just drinking the sugar, we are eating it too.
- duaneb 11y ago
  Well, some people will always want to smoke and eat poorly, and that is their choice. But cigarettes were never really insidious in the same way something like "sugar" is; I think sugar will have to be seen as a vice rather than what it is, one of the cheapest sources of calories you can get kids to eat. And that's going to have to take some deep change in the market. And sports drinks, energy drinks, and flavored waters are certainly part of it. Personally, I'm a big fan of soda stream. :)
- tomjen3 11y ago
  The calories don't have to be replaced with anything - total intake can be down even if obesity is still rising, obesity will just be rising less than it otherwise would. Also the obesity rate in children is down, which is encouraging: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0185.htm http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0185.htm
- mapt 11y ago
  A) If a beverage has a certain number of calories from sugar per volume, it doesn't really matter whether it's cola-flavored, orange-flavored, vanilla-flavored, tea-flavored, natural-flavored, artificially-flavored, carbonated, uncarbonated, caffeinated, or uncaffeinated. They're all functionally soft drinks, from a dietary perspective, but the graph that charts the decline in carbonated soda does not show the other members in this group. . B) I actually harbor a hypothesis that I have not seen explored which would explain this even if we take it on face value. Contrary to traditional sources of sugar and starch, sweet beverages cause an absorption of sugar unimpeded by the normal vagaries of digestion - there's no chewing, nothing to slow a person down, no cell walls to slowly break down in the stomach, no fiber to absorb and slowly squeeze out the calories. In the 90's, I used to drink two or three liters of birch beer for something to do while waiting for the pizza. You can keep pouring orange soda into a human body without complaint, long after they would have vomitted up a sugar-equivalent cherry pie. And often our behavior shifts to adopting soda whenever we look for a drink, as the default, several times a day. We know that blood sugar spikes cause insulin spikes, and we know that ghrelin, insulin, & related hormones act together to modulate the hunger & satiety responses. My hypothesis is that rapid sugar intake via drinks, when combined with our natural impulse to slake our thirst, acts to dysregulate our hunger and satiety responses in the longer term. Through whatever processes, it detaches hunger from ad libitum consumption levels, sufficient that an extra few hundred calories per day is the 'natural' level that affected people, on average, feel they should be eating. 100 extra calories a day over burn rate is about 10lbs/year of gained weight. . C) Obesity is a lagging indicator here. People faced with an ad libitum diet find it very, very easy to maintain their weight. There seems to be a nearly universal misconception that baseline gluttony is associated with high weight levels, but that's bullshit. A person weighing 300lbs has roughly the same neurochemical hunger/stress response as a person weighing 150lbs, when you shortchange them each by 500 calories a day relative to their metabolic burn rate: It's just that metabolic burn rate goes way up as one gains weight. Maintaining weight is the default state. The mystery is why people are on average slowly gaining weight, rather than why fat people are not losing weight.
  - atomical 11y ago
    Re: B Check out the fruitarian, 80/10/10, and plant-based diet. You probably can find the research studies behind your hypothesis covered at nutritionfacts.org.
- bsder 11y ago
  > Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. A recent study showed that people in earlier years ate the same number of calories but were still thinner. It's more complex than calories. I suspect they're going to find that nicotine (lack thereof in current society) is the culprit. That's not to say we should go back, but it's not just "calories".
  - mtgx 11y ago
    For one, it takes more time to digest calories in food, than it does to digest them from sugary water.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    The largest difference is movement. Which helps keep down obesity in many other nations: If you walk everywhere, or bike, or use transit for 90% of what you do, you will burn a lot more calories (especially grocery shopping and carrying them home via the metro). Compared to driving everywhere, sitting at work, etc...
    - sundsta 11y ago
      The study he's referencing took into account exercise as well: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871403X15001210 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871403X15...
      - kuschku 11y ago
        That study is indeed interesting. I just skimmed through it and read the abstract, definitely interesting. The question now is, what is it? Could it be that the difference in food – not just caloric value of intake – has an influence? Did people start eating more prepackaged foods? If yes, what specifically influenced it? Why did it not influence Europe nearly as much?
      - bsder 11y ago
        Thanks for hunting the link.
- adventured 11y ago
  Coffee based beverages don't explain childhood and teen obesity. Those two categories don't drink nearly as much coffee as adults. Besides that, some categories of obesity have plunged: "U.S. Childhood Obesity Rates Fall 40% in Decade" http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579405393034903418 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023048347045794053... Adult obesity rates have leveled off for the last several years. I don't believe it's a coincidence things are moving in a better direction at exactly the same time Americans started drinking less soda (such that both Coke and Pepsi have been seeing declining sales in the US market for the last few years). What Americans aren't doing less of, is consuming fewer coffee products - they're drinking vastly more than they were ten years ago. If that were fueling obesity we'd be seeing a continued increase in obesity among adults. Further, the obesity rates skyrocketed starting from the early 1980s. They trace almost perfectly inline with soda, fast food, and high fructose corn syrup. They don't follow any line with the vast array of coffee products, which only took off in the mid to late 1990s.
  - gaius 11y ago
    Coffee based beverages don't explain childhood and teen obesity. Those two categories don't drink nearly as much coffee as adults. Yes and no; if you go into Pret with a kid they will give you a free "babycino" which is some sort of caffeine-free but presumably fat- and sugar-laden hot drink. Kids are being trained early on to drink this stuff.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Are obesity rates increasing? I'd like to see your source. Same with smoking rates.
  - shrikant 11y ago
    Obesity rates for the USA: http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistic... Percentages of adults within these categories [Overweight, Obese, Extremely obese] increased gradually until the late 1970s, at which point they began to climb more quickly, leveling off somewhat around 2000. (Scroll down to the section titled "Trends in Overweight and Obesity among Adults, United States, 1962–2010")
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      So not really increasing then.
- greggman 11y ago
  I'm confused about your comment on smoking? Are you saying because of labelling people aren't smoking? I ask because for example Singapore has extremely harsh labeling and yet they've seen an increase recently. Sorry if I mis-understood your point. https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/pressRoom/Parliamentary_QA/2013/increase-in-smoking-pravalence.html https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/pressRoom/Parlia... Warning!! THESE LABELS ARE GROSS!!! https://www.google.es/search?q=singapore+cigarettes+labels&tbm=isch https://www.google.es/search?q=singapore+cigarettes+labels&t...
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    My first line is sarcasm in response to: > Most consumers aren't idiots. But they're aren't scientists or academic researchers for the most part either. Bring them relevant, accurate information and they are capable of making rational choices. In the US, cigarettes have had warning labels for almost 50 years and still ~20% of the population smokes.
    - notvladputin 11y ago
      I'm confused by your comments, and am asking for clarification of your perspective. What exactly is your point? While 20% of the population still smokes, the incidence rate has hugely decreased over time[0]. According to the CDC, in 1965, ~43% of the population smoked. In 2011, it was just under 20%, with a goal of 12% by 2020. Transparent labeling, increased regulation and awareness, plus general advances in understanding the consequences of smoking have had a massive effect on the rates of smoking. It's not perfect, but a similar reduction in obesity over the next 50 years would be an incredible accomplishment. Now if only we could tackle that burgeoning mental health problem... [0] - http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig...
  - SolarUpNote 11y ago
    I'd be amazed if warning labels had any affect at all. The real factor is the price. The last time I smoked, a pack of cigarettes cost about $2.50. Now it's over $7.
- baby 11y ago
  > That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Different reality in France
hippich 11y ago
I hope people will also lay down sugar amount of apple, bagel, etc food next to these coke/dew/etc bottles of soda drinks. =) Thing is - most of products in US has label stating clearly amount of calories and major contributors. It is SUPER easy to find approximate amount to which you need to stick. But people still over do it two/three/more times. As much as I hate it, I think only high food costs will work. Problem is - how to keep it high enough to prevent abuse, but at the same time, keep lower income people access to enough nutrients.
- adventured 11y ago
  Replace 90% of the sugar consumed in America with erythritol or similar, and ban high fructose corn syrup as unsafe for human consumption. Obesity would begin to plunge overnight. It would remove vast amounts of calories from the typical American diet.
  - HappyTypist 11y ago
    Alternatively, tax sugar and hfcs at to be 125% the price of erythritol/xylitol/etc. Will cause manufacturers to generally shift to polyols while still allowing consumers to have a choice and bringing tax revenue in the process.
- ufmace 11y ago
  Not a nutrition expert, but I'm given to understand that the form of the sugar matters as much as the amount. The sugar in an actual apple is apparently bound up in fibers or something, so basically it takes time for your body to process it and get it into the bloodstream. When you turn that apple into apple juice, even if it's entirely natural, you've freed the sugar to be absorbed by your body much faster. That speed of absorption makes the difference - your body doesn't know what to do with so much sugar at once, so it processes it into fat and other things. Let it out more slowly, and it can actually use most of it for energy.
pkaye 11y ago
I never understood how soda doesn't feel like it has 17 teaspoons of sugar in it because I've made lemonade with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar and it feels just as sweet.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  That's probably a 20 floz container, which gets you halfway or so.
- mrob 11y ago
  Was your lemonade carbonated? Carbonation can reduce perceived sweetness: http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2813%2900798-1/pdf http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2813%2900798... Lower serving temperature will also reduced perceived sweetness and soda is often served with ice: http://aless.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/wordpress/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Bartoshuk-et-al-1982-Effect-of-temperature-on-the-perceived-sweetness-of-sucrose.pdf http://aless.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/wordpress/web/wp-content/uplo... (0.5M is 171g/l, approximately double what you'd find in soda)
at-fates-hands 11y ago
The sad thing is you can do this for pretty much anything but water. 15.2 oz Minute Maid orange juice: 45g of sugar: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/subway-minute-maid-orange-juice-15-2-oz-70570144 http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/subway-minute-maid... 12 oz Welchs grape juice? 63g of sugar: http://i2.wp.com/afterthekidsleave.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/grape_juice_nutritional.jpg http://i2.wp.com/afterthekidsleave.files.wordpress.com/2014/... Something healthier like Vitamin Water - right? Vitamin Water - 8oz 13g: http://www.betteroffwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/vitamin-water-pigeons-002.jpg http://www.betteroffwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/vita... it also contains that pesky thing called "crystalline fructose" which apparently is a mild form of arsenic: http://www.fearlessfatloss.com/food/what-is-crystalline-fructose/ http://www.fearlessfatloss.com/food/what-is-crystalline-fruc... Pick anything other than water, and you're going to be consuming sugar, HFCS or some derivative of fructose which is horrible for your body. The simple solution is to drink these in moderation and balance it with lots of water.
- ddlatham 11y ago
  How about tea, coffee, wine, even sparkling or mineral (not just plain) water.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  It is not a mild form of arsenic. It is allowable for the crystalline fructose to contain 1 part per million of arsenic (by mass).
- hisham_hm 11y ago
  How about real fruit juice? Much healthier. Minute Maid is owned by Coca-Cola, anyways.
  - dalke 11y ago
    How is it "much healthier"? 8 ounces of real orange juice has 21 g of sugar and 110 calories. This is about what Minute Maid orange juice has.
agumonkey 11y ago
Also, juice are high sugar beverages too. Don't let the fruit / nature packaging fool you.

caseysoftware 11y ago

That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. If you believe the other common stories, we're drinking the calories. I'd wager they come from the rise of coffee-based beverages - which would not be considered soda - but I don't have data to back that up.

_delirium 11y ago
For now I think Starbucks et al are benefiting from being culturally identified as more upper/middle-class. Obesity stereotypes seem to have fixated mostly on a "people of Walmart" type image of the fat, slobbish lower classes. So even though a 12-oz Starbucks caramel latte is far worse than a 12-oz Coke, it gets a pass.
- mikenyc 11y ago
  Sugar-wise, the can of coke is about 70% worse. 12-oz caramel macchiato = 23 grams of sugar http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caramel-macchiato#size=126197&milk=63 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caramel-macchi... 12-oz can of coke = 39 grams of sugar http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/coca-cola/ http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c...
  - _delirium 11y ago
    Good point, the source of calories isn't the same mix, even though the latte has more total calories (200 calories/12oz, vs. 140). Though I was thinking of the caramel latte rather than macchiato, which is a bit closer, at 27g of sugar: http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/flavored-latte?foodZone=9999#size=177970&milk=63 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/flavored-latte.... And since it's autumn, it's now time for their signature seasonal drink, the pumpkin spice latte, 300 calories and 39g of sugar per 12oz: http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/pumpkin-spice-latte#size=183886&milk=63&whip=125 http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/pumpkin-spice-.... You can bring that down to 240 calories and a mere 37g of sugar if you ask for no whipped cream.
    - rhizome 11y ago
      Even so, all of these have at least an egg's worth of protein and a little bit of fat, pushing them even higher in the nutrition department. Which is nice.
    - Malician 11y ago
      I suspect these are actually healthier because of the additional calories - which come in the form of fat and protein, dulling the impact of the sugar spike from a soda. Even if you're overweight, a latte is more nutritious and likely to make you feel full than a soda.
      - _delirium 11y ago
        This suggests a strategy for improving the healthiness of soda: the government should work to make the ice-cream float come back into fashion. "Don't drink your soda plain: add a scoop for your health!"
        Malician 11y ago
        Maybe? I mean, have you ever tried to eat dinner after icecream? It's just not happening, even if it's delicious dinner. But soda, well, take a 2000 calorie meal and add soda and you have a 3000 calorie meal.
- yareally 11y ago
  I doubt many people drink something from Starbucks with or after every meal though. Also way more expensive to do so with Starbucks. 12 pack of name brand soda where I am sells for $3.00 during a typical sale.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Tasting sugar is temperature-dependent. Generally, a given amount of sugar makes hot stuff taste sweeter than cold stuff. That's why warm soda tastes too sweet, and cold coffee tastes too bitter.
wpietri 11y ago
And I expect juice drinks are part of it as well. Same high levels of sugar and low levels of fiber. The calories aren't as empty, but they're still much easier to consume than whole fruit.
- grogenaut 11y ago
  I've got a cold/sore throat and when I do I drink a bunch of OJ. I don't normally drink OJ so I get small windows into it. Every time I get it I notice less and less pulp in it. Today there were tons of "NO PULP" oj out there, even tropicana 50, which is watered and filtered oj. These things are essentially natural koolaid.
  - voltagex_ 11y ago
    It's extra work but I just eat oranges or juice them (manually, screw cleaning out a big juicer). I'll also add that if you drink juice, you can consume a lot more sugar than if you ate the fruit - eating the "whole" fruit you'll feel full quicker.
    - grogenaut 11y ago
      sure but my use case is to make my throat feel better so the fruit isn't as good.
  - takee 11y ago
    I am not sure if the consumers really like and demand no pulp OJ or if it's one of those fads that are being pushed onto the consumers by the big brands. I for one prefer high pulp OJ any day, not for the fiber, but because it makes the juice taste so much better and fruitier. Without the pulp, the juice might as well be made from artificial flavors.
  - capisce 11y ago
    I'd recommend just eating some C vitamin pills instead. At least eat oranges directly instead of drinking juice.
austenallred 11y ago
I'd be curious to see how much of the decline of "soda" is a result of the move to "energy drinks"
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  I was thinking about that too but since they're sugared and carbonated, I assume they're often classified as soda too? (Not 100% sure there.)
  - adventured 11y ago
    They're not necessarily sugared in the sense of a regular Coke, but I'm not sure if they differentiate for the types. Monster, which has become a rather large company, sells a lot of their zero sugar / zero calorie products. They moved to using erythritol. I drink the products and have yet to find any counter evidence erythritol isn't drastically superior to pretty much every other sweetener. It has been shown to be very safe (with studies spanning multiple decades now), very little of it is metabolized, and it doesn't cause the gastric reactions that competing products like xylitol do.
    - nnd 11y ago
      Have you done any research on the side-effects of energy drinks?
  - dghughes 11y ago
    Surprisingly they're not even food as are carbonated sugary drinks aka soda/pop the FDA considers energy drinks a supplement.
gaius 11y ago
Soda sales are down but obesity is still up Because it's not just about calories in but calories out too. People spending all day sitting in front of screens replacing all other forms of both work and play...
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Modern westerner lifestyle is really damaging. Since I can drive a car I don't walk anymore. My belly reminds it to me everyday.
  - TulliusCicero 11y ago
    Biking could help with this, but there's so much cultural momentum against treating bike infrastructure as a first-class citizen, or heck, even a second-class citizen like walking. And without safe bike lanes, very few people will bike. The amount of subsidies and preferential treatment we give to cars is really astounding, but at this point most people in the US can hardly think of it being any other way.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      I tried that, and even if I was in the Netherlands I don't think it would apply. Biking has its constraints, you can't go at your own pace even in dedicated lanes, you have to be very actively focused on others, and you need secure parking lots if you plan to do something else otherwise 50% chances it will get stolen.
redbeard0x0a 11y ago
All the extra weight is coming from the abundance of sugars that are added to food. Especially the low-fat or fat-free foods. So we aren't just drinking the sugar, we are eating it too.
duaneb 11y ago
Well, some people will always want to smoke and eat poorly, and that is their choice. But cigarettes were never really insidious in the same way something like "sugar" is; I think sugar will have to be seen as a vice rather than what it is, one of the cheapest sources of calories you can get kids to eat. And that's going to have to take some deep change in the market. And sports drinks, energy drinks, and flavored waters are certainly part of it. Personally, I'm a big fan of soda stream. :)
tomjen3 11y ago
The calories don't have to be replaced with anything - total intake can be down even if obesity is still rising, obesity will just be rising less than it otherwise would. Also the obesity rate in children is down, which is encouraging: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0185.htm http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0185.htm
mapt 11y ago
A) If a beverage has a certain number of calories from sugar per volume, it doesn't really matter whether it's cola-flavored, orange-flavored, vanilla-flavored, tea-flavored, natural-flavored, artificially-flavored, carbonated, uncarbonated, caffeinated, or uncaffeinated. They're all functionally soft drinks, from a dietary perspective, but the graph that charts the decline in carbonated soda does not show the other members in this group. . B) I actually harbor a hypothesis that I have not seen explored which would explain this even if we take it on face value. Contrary to traditional sources of sugar and starch, sweet beverages cause an absorption of sugar unimpeded by the normal vagaries of digestion - there's no chewing, nothing to slow a person down, no cell walls to slowly break down in the stomach, no fiber to absorb and slowly squeeze out the calories. In the 90's, I used to drink two or three liters of birch beer for something to do while waiting for the pizza. You can keep pouring orange soda into a human body without complaint, long after they would have vomitted up a sugar-equivalent cherry pie. And often our behavior shifts to adopting soda whenever we look for a drink, as the default, several times a day. We know that blood sugar spikes cause insulin spikes, and we know that ghrelin, insulin, & related hormones act together to modulate the hunger & satiety responses. My hypothesis is that rapid sugar intake via drinks, when combined with our natural impulse to slake our thirst, acts to dysregulate our hunger and satiety responses in the longer term. Through whatever processes, it detaches hunger from ad libitum consumption levels, sufficient that an extra few hundred calories per day is the 'natural' level that affected people, on average, feel they should be eating. 100 extra calories a day over burn rate is about 10lbs/year of gained weight. . C) Obesity is a lagging indicator here. People faced with an ad libitum diet find it very, very easy to maintain their weight. There seems to be a nearly universal misconception that baseline gluttony is associated with high weight levels, but that's bullshit. A person weighing 300lbs has roughly the same neurochemical hunger/stress response as a person weighing 150lbs, when you shortchange them each by 500 calories a day relative to their metabolic burn rate: It's just that metabolic burn rate goes way up as one gains weight. Maintaining weight is the default state. The mystery is why people are on average slowly gaining weight, rather than why fat people are not losing weight.
- atomical 11y ago
  Re: B Check out the fruitarian, 80/10/10, and plant-based diet. You probably can find the research studies behind your hypothesis covered at nutritionfacts.org.
bsder 11y ago
> Soda sales are down but obesity is still up, so the calories are coming from somewhere. A recent study showed that people in earlier years ate the same number of calories but were still thinner. It's more complex than calories. I suspect they're going to find that nicotine (lack thereof in current society) is the culprit. That's not to say we should go back, but it's not just "calories".
- mtgx 11y ago
  For one, it takes more time to digest calories in food, than it does to digest them from sugary water.
- kuschku 11y ago
  The largest difference is movement. Which helps keep down obesity in many other nations: If you walk everywhere, or bike, or use transit for 90% of what you do, you will burn a lot more calories (especially grocery shopping and carrying them home via the metro). Compared to driving everywhere, sitting at work, etc...
  - sundsta 11y ago
    The study he's referencing took into account exercise as well: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871403X15001210 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871403X15...
    - kuschku 11y ago
      That study is indeed interesting. I just skimmed through it and read the abstract, definitely interesting. The question now is, what is it? Could it be that the difference in food – not just caloric value of intake – has an influence? Did people start eating more prepackaged foods? If yes, what specifically influenced it? Why did it not influence Europe nearly as much?
    - bsder 11y ago
      Thanks for hunting the link.
adventured 11y ago
Coffee based beverages don't explain childhood and teen obesity. Those two categories don't drink nearly as much coffee as adults. Besides that, some categories of obesity have plunged: "U.S. Childhood Obesity Rates Fall 40% in Decade" http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579405393034903418 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023048347045794053... Adult obesity rates have leveled off for the last several years. I don't believe it's a coincidence things are moving in a better direction at exactly the same time Americans started drinking less soda (such that both Coke and Pepsi have been seeing declining sales in the US market for the last few years). What Americans aren't doing less of, is consuming fewer coffee products - they're drinking vastly more than they were ten years ago. If that were fueling obesity we'd be seeing a continued increase in obesity among adults. Further, the obesity rates skyrocketed starting from the early 1980s. They trace almost perfectly inline with soda, fast food, and high fructose corn syrup. They don't follow any line with the vast array of coffee products, which only took off in the mid to late 1990s.
- gaius 11y ago
  Coffee based beverages don't explain childhood and teen obesity. Those two categories don't drink nearly as much coffee as adults. Yes and no; if you go into Pret with a kid they will give you a free "babycino" which is some sort of caffeine-free but presumably fat- and sugar-laden hot drink. Kids are being trained early on to drink this stuff.
chris_wot 11y ago
Are obesity rates increasing? I'd like to see your source. Same with smoking rates.
- shrikant 11y ago
  Obesity rates for the USA: http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistic... Percentages of adults within these categories [Overweight, Obese, Extremely obese] increased gradually until the late 1970s, at which point they began to climb more quickly, leveling off somewhat around 2000. (Scroll down to the section titled "Trends in Overweight and Obesity among Adults, United States, 1962–2010")
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    So not really increasing then.
greggman 11y ago
I'm confused about your comment on smoking? Are you saying because of labelling people aren't smoking? I ask because for example Singapore has extremely harsh labeling and yet they've seen an increase recently. Sorry if I mis-understood your point. https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/pressRoom/Parliamentary_QA/2013/increase-in-smoking-pravalence.html https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/pressRoom/Parlia... Warning!! THESE LABELS ARE GROSS!!! https://www.google.es/search?q=singapore+cigarettes+labels&tbm=isch https://www.google.es/search?q=singapore+cigarettes+labels&t...
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  My first line is sarcasm in response to: > Most consumers aren't idiots. But they're aren't scientists or academic researchers for the most part either. Bring them relevant, accurate information and they are capable of making rational choices. In the US, cigarettes have had warning labels for almost 50 years and still ~20% of the population smokes.
  - notvladputin 11y ago
    I'm confused by your comments, and am asking for clarification of your perspective. What exactly is your point? While 20% of the population still smokes, the incidence rate has hugely decreased over time[0]. According to the CDC, in 1965, ~43% of the population smoked. In 2011, it was just under 20%, with a goal of 12% by 2020. Transparent labeling, increased regulation and awareness, plus general advances in understanding the consequences of smoking have had a massive effect on the rates of smoking. It's not perfect, but a similar reduction in obesity over the next 50 years would be an incredible accomplishment. Now if only we could tackle that burgeoning mental health problem... [0] - http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig...
- SolarUpNote 11y ago
  I'd be amazed if warning labels had any affect at all. The real factor is the price. The last time I smoked, a pack of cigarettes cost about $2.50. Now it's over $7.
baby 11y ago
> That's why we haven't had anyone start smoking in decades.. Different reality in France

hippich 11y ago

I hope people will also lay down sugar amount of apple, bagel, etc food next to these coke/dew/etc bottles of soda drinks. =) Thing is - most of products in US has label stating clearly amount of calories and major contributors. It is SUPER easy to find approximate amount to which you need to stick. But people still over do it two/three/more times. As much as I hate it, I think only high food costs will work. Problem is - how to keep it high enough to prevent abuse, but at the same time, keep lower income people access to enough nutrients.

adventured 11y ago
Replace 90% of the sugar consumed in America with erythritol or similar, and ban high fructose corn syrup as unsafe for human consumption. Obesity would begin to plunge overnight. It would remove vast amounts of calories from the typical American diet.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  Alternatively, tax sugar and hfcs at to be 125% the price of erythritol/xylitol/etc. Will cause manufacturers to generally shift to polyols while still allowing consumers to have a choice and bringing tax revenue in the process.
ufmace 11y ago
Not a nutrition expert, but I'm given to understand that the form of the sugar matters as much as the amount. The sugar in an actual apple is apparently bound up in fibers or something, so basically it takes time for your body to process it and get it into the bloodstream. When you turn that apple into apple juice, even if it's entirely natural, you've freed the sugar to be absorbed by your body much faster. That speed of absorption makes the difference - your body doesn't know what to do with so much sugar at once, so it processes it into fat and other things. Let it out more slowly, and it can actually use most of it for energy.

pkaye 11y ago

I never understood how soda doesn't feel like it has 17 teaspoons of sugar in it because I've made lemonade with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar and it feels just as sweet.

maxerickson 11y ago
That's probably a 20 floz container, which gets you halfway or so.
mrob 11y ago
Was your lemonade carbonated? Carbonation can reduce perceived sweetness: http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2813%2900798-1/pdf http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2813%2900798... Lower serving temperature will also reduced perceived sweetness and soda is often served with ice: http://aless.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/wordpress/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Bartoshuk-et-al-1982-Effect-of-temperature-on-the-perceived-sweetness-of-sucrose.pdf http://aless.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/wordpress/web/wp-content/uplo... (0.5M is 171g/l, approximately double what you'd find in soda)

at-fates-hands 11y ago

The sad thing is you can do this for pretty much anything but water. 15.2 oz Minute Maid orange juice: 45g of sugar: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/subway-minute-maid-orange-juice-15-2-oz-70570144 http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/subway-minute-maid... 12 oz Welchs grape juice? 63g of sugar: http://i2.wp.com/afterthekidsleave.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/grape_juice_nutritional.jpg http://i2.wp.com/afterthekidsleave.files.wordpress.com/2014/... Something healthier like Vitamin Water - right? Vitamin Water - 8oz 13g: http://www.betteroffwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/vitamin-water-pigeons-002.jpg http://www.betteroffwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/vita... it also contains that pesky thing called "crystalline fructose" which apparently is a mild form of arsenic: http://www.fearlessfatloss.com/food/what-is-crystalline-fructose/ http://www.fearlessfatloss.com/food/what-is-crystalline-fruc... Pick anything other than water, and you're going to be consuming sugar, HFCS or some derivative of fructose which is horrible for your body. The simple solution is to drink these in moderation and balance it with lots of water.

ddlatham 11y ago
How about tea, coffee, wine, even sparkling or mineral (not just plain) water.
maxerickson 11y ago
It is not a mild form of arsenic. It is allowable for the crystalline fructose to contain 1 part per million of arsenic (by mass).
hisham_hm 11y ago
How about real fruit juice? Much healthier. Minute Maid is owned by Coca-Cola, anyways.
- dalke 11y ago
  How is it "much healthier"? 8 ounces of real orange juice has 21 g of sugar and 110 calories. This is about what Minute Maid orange juice has.

agumonkey 11y ago

Also, juice are high sugar beverages too. Don't let the fruit / nature packaging fool you.