5 ms·

I'm being a killjoy here, sorry: Just drink water. Much healthier. Carbonated, if you like. With some lemon or lime juice, maybe.

derefr 4y ago
Who said anything about soft drinks? They're putting artificial sweeteners in "unsweetened" sauces and condiments these days. They're getting about as hard to escape as sugar was in the "fats bad" era.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  Good point. I say, have the regular stuff (w/sugar) but just go easy with it.
  - eslaught 4y ago
    The thing that's crazy is that even the "regular" items sometimes have artificial sweeteners now. You basically cannot assume any product category, with any labeling, with not have it. You have to check the ingredient list yourself (and make sure you're familiar with all the names these things go under). At this point my main strategy is to minimize number of ingredients (e.g., two ingredient peanut butter) because otherwise it's just too easy to miss something getting slipped in there. It's insane.
    - unclebucknasty 4y ago
      >You basically cannot assume any product category Picked up a loaf of bread on sale the other day and, because it wasn't the brand I normally get, I scanned the ingredients. Surprised to find that it contained sucralose. It wasn't listed as "lite" or similar. Just "regular" bread. With sucralose.
      - pawsforthought 4y ago
        Does the place you shop not sell fresh bread? In European supermarkets that’s the norm. Anything branded (i.e. shelf stable and sold in a plastic bag) is to be treated with suspicion.
        unclebucknasty 4y ago
        Supermarkets in the U.S. will frequently have a bakery, but they tend to sell other baked goods, such as cakes, pastries, etc. Whatever bread they do sell is generally more "specialty", like baguettes or sourdough. If you're looking for "standard" loaved bread, that's generally relegated to the shelf stable type, of which there is a substantial selection. Some of the shelf stable stuff is better than others WRT ingredients, and it's possible to make relatively decent selections. The cheaper stuff tends to be more awash in garbage ingredients. OTOH, it's also not necessarily the case that the in-store bakery stuff is free of garbage ingredients, to include artificial flavors, etc.
    - bagacrap 4y ago
      I hope one of the ingredients in your pb is salt
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - silon42 4y ago
        Maybe 10:1 ratio of water:isotonic drink is an acceptable idea.
- Tao3300 4y ago
  > unsweetened Unsweetened generally still means it. The weasel words I usually see are "no added sugar". The ingredients will then list juice concentrates, stevia, or monkfruit.
- idiocratic 4y ago
  This to me seems less of a problem where I come from, Italy. It's true that most Italians indulge in sugar when drinking coffee (which it's a terrible practice, we should instead push for better specialty-grade coffee that doesn't need sugar). At the same time what Americans call "condiments" it's basically just olive oil, some salt and pepper for 95% of our dishes. A traditional mediterranean diet, made primarily of grains, legumes and vegetables with some occasional meat and fish is what me and most of my friends' families would have for dinner. Of course, there's the ice cream, the cakes, the BBQ with friends, etc. But I'm just thinking about the normal daily diet here. And the standard seems pretty healthy, with most sugars coming from seasonal fruit.
brandonmenc 4y ago
Everything in moderation. If you only drink soda, you've got problems. If you only drink water, you're not having any fun. It's OK to pick a point somewhere in the middle.
- jacob019 4y ago
  I have fun drinking coffee, tea, and alcohol. I have no desire to drink sweet liquids. But point well taken, moderation is key to a happy life.
- HellsMaddy 4y ago
  Sweetened beverages, including no calorie, fall on the extreme end of the sweetness spectrum. If you consume such sweet things even in moderation, you are recalibrating your sense of sweetness. Personally, I’ve avoided all added sugars and sweeteners for a few years now. I used to find apples bland and boring, but now they taste like indulgent candy. The same goes for pretty much all fruit. I can taste sweetness in vegetables that I used to find bitter. Lightly cooked carrots, beets, squash are all deliciously sweet treats. The bottom line is that I get a lot more enjoyment out of “healthy” foods now. When I’ve recently tried “normal” sweets like cake or soda, they taste sickeningly sweet. However, I imagine that if I drank even a no calorie sweetened drink like Coke Zero “in moderation”, my sweetness scale would recalibrate and I would start gravitating more towards sweeter things, and be less able to sense the sweetness of mildly sweet things. The same concept applies to other flavor profiles. Salty, umami, starchy, fatty. Eating processed foods even in moderation reduces your enjoyment of whole foods and consequently makes you less likely to eat them.
  - dannyw 4y ago
    How does watermelon taste for you?
  - eropple 4y ago
    This is something that a lot of people claim with a universally authoritative tone, but it's counter to my own experience. I don't consume regularly candy, sweets, etc., but I do drink diet soda and zero-sugar energy drinks and when I (rarely) have fruits or make mixed drinks with fruit components they are really sweet to my palate. When I've cut diet soda out for long periods, fruits taste no sweeter. Cooked starches and tubers are already sweet-tasting and always have been for me; diet soda doesn't affect those, either. Moderation might not be fine for you. It seems to work for me.
rocket_surgeron 4y ago
Water doesn't mix well with rum. Sure, you can do it, the British Navy did it for centuries, but "can" isn't "should".
larsrc 4y ago
I tried that, but my cakes just don't come out the same.

derefr 4y ago

Who said anything about soft drinks? They're putting artificial sweeteners in "unsweetened" sauces and condiments these days. They're getting about as hard to escape as sugar was in the "fats bad" era.

UIUC_06 4y ago
Good point. I say, have the regular stuff (w/sugar) but just go easy with it.
- eslaught 4y ago
  The thing that's crazy is that even the "regular" items sometimes have artificial sweeteners now. You basically cannot assume any product category, with any labeling, with not have it. You have to check the ingredient list yourself (and make sure you're familiar with all the names these things go under). At this point my main strategy is to minimize number of ingredients (e.g., two ingredient peanut butter) because otherwise it's just too easy to miss something getting slipped in there. It's insane.
  - unclebucknasty 4y ago
    >You basically cannot assume any product category Picked up a loaf of bread on sale the other day and, because it wasn't the brand I normally get, I scanned the ingredients. Surprised to find that it contained sucralose. It wasn't listed as "lite" or similar. Just "regular" bread. With sucralose.
    - pawsforthought 4y ago
      Does the place you shop not sell fresh bread? In European supermarkets that’s the norm. Anything branded (i.e. shelf stable and sold in a plastic bag) is to be treated with suspicion.
      - unclebucknasty 4y ago
        Supermarkets in the U.S. will frequently have a bakery, but they tend to sell other baked goods, such as cakes, pastries, etc. Whatever bread they do sell is generally more "specialty", like baguettes or sourdough. If you're looking for "standard" loaved bread, that's generally relegated to the shelf stable type, of which there is a substantial selection. Some of the shelf stable stuff is better than others WRT ingredients, and it's possible to make relatively decent selections. The cheaper stuff tends to be more awash in garbage ingredients. OTOH, it's also not necessarily the case that the in-store bakery stuff is free of garbage ingredients, to include artificial flavors, etc.
  - bagacrap 4y ago
    I hope one of the ingredients in your pb is salt
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - silon42 4y ago
      Maybe 10:1 ratio of water:isotonic drink is an acceptable idea.
Tao3300 4y ago
> unsweetened Unsweetened generally still means it. The weasel words I usually see are "no added sugar". The ingredients will then list juice concentrates, stevia, or monkfruit.
idiocratic 4y ago
This to me seems less of a problem where I come from, Italy. It's true that most Italians indulge in sugar when drinking coffee (which it's a terrible practice, we should instead push for better specialty-grade coffee that doesn't need sugar). At the same time what Americans call "condiments" it's basically just olive oil, some salt and pepper for 95% of our dishes. A traditional mediterranean diet, made primarily of grains, legumes and vegetables with some occasional meat and fish is what me and most of my friends' families would have for dinner. Of course, there's the ice cream, the cakes, the BBQ with friends, etc. But I'm just thinking about the normal daily diet here. And the standard seems pretty healthy, with most sugars coming from seasonal fruit.

brandonmenc 4y ago

Everything in moderation. If you only drink soda, you've got problems. If you only drink water, you're not having any fun. It's OK to pick a point somewhere in the middle.

jacob019 4y ago
I have fun drinking coffee, tea, and alcohol. I have no desire to drink sweet liquids. But point well taken, moderation is key to a happy life.
HellsMaddy 4y ago
Sweetened beverages, including no calorie, fall on the extreme end of the sweetness spectrum. If you consume such sweet things even in moderation, you are recalibrating your sense of sweetness. Personally, I’ve avoided all added sugars and sweeteners for a few years now. I used to find apples bland and boring, but now they taste like indulgent candy. The same goes for pretty much all fruit. I can taste sweetness in vegetables that I used to find bitter. Lightly cooked carrots, beets, squash are all deliciously sweet treats. The bottom line is that I get a lot more enjoyment out of “healthy” foods now. When I’ve recently tried “normal” sweets like cake or soda, they taste sickeningly sweet. However, I imagine that if I drank even a no calorie sweetened drink like Coke Zero “in moderation”, my sweetness scale would recalibrate and I would start gravitating more towards sweeter things, and be less able to sense the sweetness of mildly sweet things. The same concept applies to other flavor profiles. Salty, umami, starchy, fatty. Eating processed foods even in moderation reduces your enjoyment of whole foods and consequently makes you less likely to eat them.
- dannyw 4y ago
  How does watermelon taste for you?
- eropple 4y ago
  This is something that a lot of people claim with a universally authoritative tone, but it's counter to my own experience. I don't consume regularly candy, sweets, etc., but I do drink diet soda and zero-sugar energy drinks and when I (rarely) have fruits or make mixed drinks with fruit components they are really sweet to my palate. When I've cut diet soda out for long periods, fruits taste no sweeter. Cooked starches and tubers are already sweet-tasting and always have been for me; diet soda doesn't affect those, either. Moderation might not be fine for you. It seems to work for me.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago

Water doesn't mix well with rum. Sure, you can do it, the British Navy did it for centuries, but "can" isn't "should".

larsrc 4y ago

I tried that, but my cakes just don't come out the same.