The fact is, it has nothing to do with soda, it has to do with fructose - fructose isn't as "healthy" as glucose, but it comes down to the percentage of your total caloric intake that fructose makes up that determines the health risk. Oh, yeah, and fructose is in everything that has sugar in it if you live in the US like Toady....
Are you aware that high-fructose corn syrup generally has exactly as much fructose as table sugar does?
Not that I'm a fan of HFCS, but it does not usually contain more fructose than other sources of sugar. In fact, fruits probably tend to have more.
Ok, I actually read the articles Graebeard linked, and in nearly every one of them the stated reason that soda is bad for you was the HFCS content. Because fructose metabolizes differently than other sugars, messing with insulin levels - so, y'know, science. I'm just pointing out the blame isn't soda per-se, but one ingredient of it. (As an aside - I actually meant
sucrose - not glucose - in the bit you quoted there. My bad.)
So if the risk was really so terrible, we'd all be a lot worse off over here.
Worse? In the US, obesity is a freaking epidemic. It doesn't take much to realize how terrible things are "over here". Obesity is a huge problem, diabetes is a huge problem, and I have no idea what makes you think otherwise.
Wait, what? You just said there's no problem with the HFCS, and now when I'm saying that the health risk with fructose is not as bad as indicated - NOW you're arguing that it IS an enormous problem? Huh? Besides that, Obesity and diabetes are only two of the many health issues that were being discussed - and no, we don't have a gout epidemic among soda drinkers, or a soda-induced-cancer epidemic, or any of the others... So yes, if drinking soda was as big a deal as was being indicated, we'd all be a lot worse off.
And honestly, blaming obesity or diabetes on soda consumption alone is silly when, as i pointed out, HFCS is in practically everything, and it
is the ingredient in soda that is the CAUSE of the diabetes/obesity risk in the first place.
Research is great, but when it doesn't support the obvious, personal experience and observations of the actual world at work around one, it's hard to take as absolute truth so passionately as you do. (Linking an article stating that orange juice can be worse for you than soda doesn't help with the convincing either....) It's still ongoing research, it's not conclusive. And Toady is, as he stated in the article, entirely aware.
I'm not about to harp on the guy for it, but no, drinking a bunch of caffeinated soda every day and little water is not a good thing. It's clear he's dependent on it, which is bad, ingesting that much of your calories in simple carbs isn't healthy, and he doesn't seem to have the best diet either. This is not to say it's any of our business, really, but I think it's a bit silly to dispute the claim that drinking that much caffeinated soda every day and little else is not a bad thing, especially when the person admits that he's dependent on it and can't function well without it. Yeah, there are plenty of other factors involved in anybody's health, but when something is that extreme and the person specifically says they're physically dependent enough that they can't function without it, then that obviously is a problematic factor in itself.
See, now you're exaggerating what's been said. He said he gets headaches if he goes without caffeine - That's a withdrawal symptom and it will go away after a few days. That's it. That's a far cry from "can't function without it". Caffeine dependency is really not a big deal health-wise, and his soda drinking is no different from all the people who need their coffee to get going in the morning. If he stopped cold turkey tomorrow, he'd be back to normal in a week or less.
The most bizarre thing here is how nowhere is it stated in the article how much he actually drinks in a day - but everybody seems to be assuming he's drinking massive quantities. We have no idea how much he drinks, for all we know, it's a completely reasonable amount.
And everyone assuming he has a poor diet - Where is that coming form? The Single Meal eating pattern is not unhealthy - read the articles I linked to a few pages back - in fact it has specific health benefits, including, for example
lowering your risk for diabetes and maintaining a healthy body weight. Just because his fridge is empty doesn't mean he's not eating - or eating poorly, in fact the article implies that he's buying his meals as he eats them. That's a common habit for folks on this dietary path- don't keep excess food around, then there's no temptation to snack.
However - and this is the key thing here, I never once said that his lack of drinking water isn't unhealthy, and everyone who quotes me keeps implying that I have. But it's definitely not the death sentence everyone seems to fear. I know plenty of people who drink very little straight water- getting their hydration from other sources - and not one of them is the unhealthy wreck that people seem to be fearing is Toady's fate.
-snip-
The problem with soda is that you're drinking caffeinated candy; it's nothing but sugar (HFCS virtually all the time in the US) and caffeine, and some flavoring/coloring.
Wait, WHAT? This is EXACTLY what I was saying at the top of the post - it's not the soda that's the problem, it the ridiculous sugar content that's IN the soda - and you argued that it wasn't - said that FRUIT had more... and... But now you're saying that yeah, the problem with soda is the high sugar content? What?
