Okay, no more pop for me...

[elfs]

First, there's a study that shows that the increase in processed carbohydrates, especially those from corn syrup, precisely parallels the growth of type-2 diabetese in this country.

Part of the problem is sheer obesity: between 1980 and 2000 the average American consumed an extra 500 calories per day and 428 of those calories came in the form of corn fructose from soft drinks. But there's also evidence that the insulin spikes caused by high sugar intake can lead to insulin resistance.

Then, this study comes out showing that discouranging kids from drinking carbonated beverages discourages obesity in elementary school children. A group of kids who swore off pop had a 0.2% decline in obesity; the control group had a 7.5% increase.

Omaha and I recently started making lemonade at home rather than buy and drink so much pop. We ran the numbers and discovered that a 12-oz glass of lemonade, if using the recipe recommended in our cookbooks, ran to 116 calories of refined sucrose. That's almost as much as a can of Coke, at 120 calories. In contrast, a cup of coffee (for me) has about 20-30 calories, since I take a heaping teaspoon of sugar in it.

Great Ceasar's ghost, a bottle of Sobe Green Tea has 225 calories of high-fructose corn syrup.

Comments

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

Great Ceasar's ghost, a bottle of Sobe Green Tea has 225 calories of high-fructose corn syrup.

Whereas a bottle of chilled home-steeped genmai matcha has no calories, unless you choose to add some, and it tastes a lot better than Sobe Green Tea, too.

[talisker.livejournal.com]

A friend was telling me something along those lines. But da-yum! That's rightfully cause for concern. No more pop for me either...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Concern, but not panic...

Worry more about the obesity than the diabetes. There's an association between the two, but obesity is associated with far more than just diabetes, and testing for high blood-sugar is easier than ever.

Diabetes isn't a nice, easy, yes/no disease; high blood sugar is a condition with fuzzy edges. And any disease which needs treatment for the rest of the patient's life is, at least, a temptation.

At the margins, good diet and sensible exercise can be enough, and you don't have to pay a medical practitioner's hourly rates to get that treatment.

But don't you have Diet Coke in the USA?

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

We do, but aspartame tastes like shit to me. I'm one of those people who perceives it as a bitter flavor, not a sweet one. I've tried Splenda (sucralose?) and like it, but it makes me nauseous after just having a little bit, so that's out too.

[rapier.livejournal.com]

Great Ceasar's ghost, a bottle of Sobe Green Tea has 225 calories of high-fructose corn syrup.

Yep, and I love how the bottle contains 2.5 servings, and the calories per serving is a good deal less than the calories per bottle. I've never known someone to drink just 8 ounces of a 20 ounce drink and put it away. 20 ounce bottles of soda do the same thing.

That's almost as much as a can of Coke, at 120 calories.

Now, I know that diet sodas generally don't have any calories to speak of. The can of Diet Coke with Lime that I'm sucking on right now says just that: 0 calories. I remember someone trying to tell me that because the sweetener simulates sugar (but without the calories), that the body produces insulin anyway, and that that's a Bad Thing. Does that sound even remotely accurate? I don't buy it. I figure if aspartame is going to kill me, it'll do it the old fashioned way. Cancer. Or something else.

Maybe not

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

There's no clearly established link between aspartame and cancer. I'd go with "something else", if I were you.

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

"sigh".... no more store bought green tea for me now that its no longer a viable substitute for my soda cravings. I wonder is there anything left thats tasty and yet not obscenely unhealthy?

What do you give kids, though?

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I remember being a child quite clearly, even though I'm very thoroughly old now. Water gets boring as hell, and milk is never really refreshing on a hot day. Pure fruit juices get expensive, and even they have a fair amount of sugar and carbohydrates. The majority of Celestial Seasoning and Bigelow herbal teas are safe for most kids, but there are herbal teas and blends out there I wouldn't give to a child, either hot or iced, on a daily basis. Then there's the eeeuuucccchh factor. Many kids don't like the taste of herbal teas, even mint or lemon flavors. I hope you aren't going to suggest that tykes be made into little coffee-heads, Elf.

Re: What do you give kids, though?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Oh, dunno. I don't think "pure fruit juice" is that expensive-- frozen apple juice and orange juice are pretty cheap when I buy them in bulk from Costco. A four-pack of cranberry juice from the warehouse stores is less than ten bucks, and it lasts a month or so.

While I'm trying to give up routine drinking of Coke and Pepsi (both of which are available free at my office), I'm not going to go apeshit healthnut and tell the kids that I'll never make them another Italian cream again. Hey, with 35 calories for blackberry and 40 for kiwi flavor in sugar and 20 in fat per 8 oz serving (which is what I make for the kids), it's not a health food but, wow, it's gotta be better than pop. And they get it about once a month.

The obesity study shows that the dramatic decrease was apparent in the group that gave up the equivalent of one can a day. That's pretty strong evidence that the obesity problem, at any rate, is caused by the ease with which one can overconsume processed sugar. It's so readily available that it's almost an environmental hazard. Early mastery of one's food desires and choices probably gives kids the best chance of growing old healthily.

Have you looked closely at the cranberry juice?

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

You might want to do that. Although some are sweetened with white grape or apple juice, which makes them acceptable, others rely on corn syrup for sweetness, which makes them just as icky as "juice drinks".

Re: Have you looked closely at the cranberry juice?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Omaha's religious about reading the labels and making sure that it's "100% real juice," no artificial sweeteners (including corn syrup) allowed.

Re: Have you looked closely at the cranberry juice?

[blaisepascal]

Personally, I don't care if the fructose is coming from corn or from white grape and apple juices. I tend to view the huge sugar content to be a problem even if it is "100% real juice".

I've personally noticed that apple juice has an immediate and bad effect on my blood sugars (I can feel my brain fuzzing out in less than a minute or so). I can't imagine that "100% real juice" from fruits that have been bred to be sugar-farms to be any better than the commercially refined stuff.

What I go for when I don't drink tea, water, or milk are flavored seltzers, or water with some lemon juice in it.

[ambar.livejournal.com]

I drink water, unless I specifically want a hit of either caffeine, warmth, or both in which case I drink coffee or tea. My life has not been made measurably less pleasurable by this policy. Water may be boring, to quote a response above, but it's also something your body needs.

Try to convince a child of that!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

My post was quite specifically about children, not adults. I've seen children refuse water if that's all they're being offered when the other kids around (at the zoo or another public venue) are getting sugary drinks. Children are quite remarkably stubborn creatures and will often go against the needs of their bodies to satisfy the needs of their minds and wills. Preaching health needs to them will not help.

Water gets boring...

[tonyawinter.livejournal.com]

I gave up soda except on extremely rare occasion well over a year ago.
A few months back I was running into problems with getting dehydrated because water gets boring. So I started to experiment with putting just a little something in my water. I've found that just a little lemon makes it interesting and drinkable. Then when I got board with that I went to PCC and bought organic cranberry juice that is NOT from concentrate [great for your liver] and started adding an inch of that to a nalgene bottle full of water. Its fairly bitter if you put too much of it in so mix to taste.

I don't put sugar of any type in them, and I've found that over the past 5 months I've started to appreciate the sweetness of things that were not previously sweet. Soy milk for example has added sugar, I noticed a couple of months into my experiment. Now I buy the organic unsweetened soymilk. I keep the normal soymilk for the occasional morning when I would have put sugar on my cereal.

Re: Water gets boring...

[fallenpegasus]

Cranberry juice is a diuretic, too. That's ok if you have lots of water handy, and don't mind cycling it fast thru your body. Good for the kidneys, too.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

My solution for the soda cravings is fruit juice and seltzer water, about 50/50 or thereabouts. There's also a company called Nature's Flavors (www.naturesflavors.com, I think) that sells the flavorings to make your own flavored selzer. The wild cherry is really quite good. They also sell Splenda syrups with no other sweeteners, some of which are better-tasting than others.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Heck, I was that kid when I was in high school. Caffiene first thing in the morning and all day through, Nytol to get to sleep. It's a horrible cycle. I'm pretty disciplined about it these days, avoiding drinking anything caffeinated after 5pm. I sleep better when I limit my caffiene intake even further, but it's a terrible addiction to break especially when it's widespread, legal, and pervasive. That's why I think this break is going to be harder than just saying, "Okay, that's it."

I'm so glad I never had an opportunity to try cigarettes when I was in high school.

It's only when I go out to eat that I often slip. I hate when I do that because I can't sleep and I'm not allowed to use Nytol with my allergy medicines, the latter without which I'd be miserable most nights.

Love the Laughing Man icon.

[cleverfox.livejournal.com]

When I was in University for a year, I was up to about four liters a day. As soon as I got to school in the morning, I'd down a liter before my first class. One between first and second, one after lunch and usually one or so when I got home. After about eight months I realized what this was doing to my body, since I was waking every morning with stomach pains and having a great deal of difficulty getting more than three hours of sleep or so a night. So I quit cold turkey.

I missed a week of school because I was shaking all the time, I had cold sweats and I was alternating between insomnia and sleeping 16 hours at a stretch. I have never felt anything so terrifying as that kind of withdrawl. So I started drinking it again, but I limit myself to a can a day or so now.

Let's hear it for the nice legal addictions.

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

Im like you with caffine...It doesent affect me too much but I do enjoy it in the morning when I have a headache. And believe it or not but caffine seems to possibly help put me to sleep now and then.

[warstoke.livejournal.com]

well if you give up sugar for a while then take a drink of even diet cafeen free coke then watch out you will be bouncin off the walls lol

Don't I know it..

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, it has been a true bi**h to find products that aren't full of sugar. at this point, what I can suggest is some of the protein drinks makes by EAS..taste isn't bad, 0g of sugar, 15g of protein and only 60 calories for 11 fluid ounes. You may also want to look into Minute Maid Light Lemonade which is 5 calories a serving and seems to be a new product on the East Coast.