Diet Soda Has Jumped the Shark
And no amount of brand extension can help.
If you drink diet soda, I recommend you stop and switch to something healthier. Like beer. Here’s why:
1. Diet soda changes your DNA, which is admittedly awesome, but not particularly desirable.
2. Diet soda is actually more likely to make you gain weight than regular soda.
3. Diet soda raises your risk of heart disease just as much as regular soda. (Thanks, B!)
4. Diet soda still comes with that pesky tooth corrosion problem, according to a leading, um, spokesdentist.
5. Diet soda interferes with nutrient absorption. A lot. If you want to laugh your ass off, read this article defending Diet Coke. If you do not, because you have a very cute ass, trust me, it’s worth the sacrifice.
6. As if the faux sweeteners weren’t bad enough, diet soda is frequently jigged up with enough caffeine to put a cow down – as much as 30% more than regular soda. Because addiction is sweet with or without the sugar.
In fact, Diet Blog (30% thinner than your average blog!) has uncovered the many sodas that amp up the jitter-factor in lieu of corn syrup. I’d not been aware of Cheerwine, but Pepsi Max and Diet Coke are everywhere, and apparently Tab is en vogue along with everything else 80s. (People, people, wasn’t one decade of the 80s enough?) Pepsi Max contains even more caffeine than Pepsi One, which is essentially just trying to be Diet Coke. Diet Coke Plus doesn’t make caffeine information available, because every corporation knows opaque is the new transparent.
To see the full list of diet soda caffeine deception, scoot over to Diet Blog.
Listen, I’m all for stickin’ it to man and all but this is a little misleading.
#1. Sodium benzoate, the culprit here, is a preservative used in lots of foods. Why pick on diet soda?
#2. The study shows that obese people drink more diet soft drinks, but there is no causation link. Maybe overweight people are misguided and think that drinking diet soda will magically melt the weight off, while two-fisting Cheez-Its in front the boob tube all day.
#3. Again, the study doesn’t show causation. People who drink lots of soda, diet or otherwise, tend to have atrocious diets. Is it the “I’ll have one of everything….fried” diet or the soda?
#4. Can’t dispute that one.
#5. The link doesn’t mention anything about diet sodas interfering with nutrient absorption, only that now there’s a soft drink with vitamins added, which is just a stupid idea.
#6. Damn straight!
For the record, I don’t drink soda, diet or otherwise. Who drinks that stuff? Don’t you know that crap will kill ya!
Scott,
Good points – thanks for adding some helpful criticisms to the post.
#1: I’m happy to pick on all preserved foods. This post is about diet soda, though.
#2 and #3: True, but still interesting and worth including.
#5: Here’s the quote that I found interesting from the link: “In fact, magnesium is the only nutrient found in Diet Coke Plus that Americans consistently underconsume. Still not so useful, as it turns out. Soft drinks often are high in phosphoric acid, and phosphoric acid is very good at disallowing absorption of magnesium.”
Have you seen the Coke site’s new campaign? “Make Every Drop Count”? WTF? Apparently soda is a great way to stay hydrated…so obviously we’re misinformed!
I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’, in my opinion, the occasional diet drink isn’t going to kill you. Are there better choices out there? Obviously.
I for one welcome our soft drink overlords.
Great post! IMHO, diet and regular soda are just one more thing keeping people addicted to sweet. I not even sure that 1-2 a day is ok for a person considering the amount of caffeine and chemicals, but for a lot of people it’s more like 3-5 a day — there is a guy in my office who downs 6-8 during the day and he says he’ll usually have another couple with dinner…but he probably has Coca-Cola stock
All I know is that as a reformed Diet Coke drinker, that I never kicked my sweet tooth until I got rid of the soda, and I have been healthier ever since.
“Hi my name is Brian, and I’ve been soda free for 3 years 6 months and 18 days…”
Agreed, too much of anything isn’t a good idea- but a diet soda every now and then? No big deal IMO. I have not seen the Coke ad campaign mentioned above, but the Diet Pepsi Max one is pretty funny- http://www.wakeuppeople.com Have you seen it? Maybe it will provide a little fodder for your next post
Scott,
“I for one welcome our soft drink overlords.” Amen.
Brian,
I was never a soda drinker until my darn neighbors and I went through a seriously disturbing diet root beer phase this summer. Thankfully, with plenty of support and a few relapses, we recovered.
Jenny,
I’m inclined to agree with you – a “bad” thing every now and then (e.g. a diet soda or chicken wings or beer) isn’t going to hurt you IF you are generally healthy and fit. Moderation! Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans subsist on far too much processed food and drink. Thanks for the Pepsi link, btw!
Not really seeing the issue with this, “enough caffeine to put a cow down” although I do think you forgot “tastes disgusting” wait let me check… nope not on there. I hate diet soda’s taste. But I’m a total caffeine addict — I try to not to drink gallons of coffee, especially, since I tend to write health articles that say, DON’T DO IT. I drink water too but not sure how that’s all balancing out for me.
I do think people should cut down on soda though because then maybe 75% of us won’t be overweight a few years into the future here.
#5 the interview reminds me of the movie “Thank You For Smoking”. Try to put a positive spin on anything by being vague and not answering the question.
Having said that I must admit I am a Diet Mtn Dew addict. Do they have a rehab or support group for that? I’m trying to cut down slowly so I don’t get the caffiene withdrawal. I bought a box of the Pepsi Max cause it was on sale and hadn’t tried it yet. I had no idea there was so much caffiene in that. They should just out it in pill form.
Dorojm,
“Thank You for Smoking” – great flick. Yes, I agree it’s all spin. I’m not aware of a support group for Mountain Dew. I understand it’s a pretty tough one to break.
Good luck!
About a year ago, my mother-in-law decided that she was going to give up caffeine. She decided she was going to switch from cola drinks to non-cola drinks. Which one did she choose? MOUNTAIN DEW!
She bragged for a week that she had given up caffeine and she never had any withdrawal effects.
After I had got a good laugh, I gave her the bad news.
I always knew Mtn Dew had a lot of caffeine in it but thought of it ad the “great equilizer” with my extremely hyper-active 9 year old. But when I read the can of Pepsi Max I about hit the floor. Actually the internet so I could compare and it has more than Dew and then some. I have it hidden in the basement in case of emergency and I’m out of Dew.
Everytime I drink a soda though I have the article about what happens to your body when you drink a Coke going thru my head. It hasn’t stopped me yet but I’m working on it.
I think all soda ‘Jumped the Shark’ a long time ago! Even if if doesn’t do anything bad – it certainly isn’t doing anything good!
soda is very harmful for our body it may destroy our immune system.
I am not much of a soda-lover (i’m the lemon iced-tea and orange juice kind of girl) but occassionally i do give in to soda, say once or twice a month.
Anyway, with regards to the diet version, I’ve always thought that it’s more dangerous that the regular one.
Sugar replacements are often more dangerous because they’re synthetic.
Drink water. No calories, no additives and no conspiracy theories that are viable.
I’m devoted to the Cola Light-gods. When it’s night, I sit by the bed praying for them to bring more prosperity and glory to the western world.
Seriously though, it’s my fuel, my delight, and I know it’s cyanide in a can, but don’t give a damn because we’ve got to go anyway. I’d rather life to see fifty than go without and reach eighty ~~.
I really don’t understand why anybody would make such a big deal about this. I used to drink pop allll the time. Like 2 2 liters a day. I don’t drink as much anymore, but not because im afraid of health risks or any of that nonsense. Now I drink diet cherry 7 up cause it’s really good and has no calories. Being that I hammer down a case of beer every other night I don’t think I need any more of those. I think most people on these type of sites are forgetting what’s really important in life, being happy. I eat a lot everyday, I never think twice about what I eat either. It’s just food. I weigh like 125. Seriously unless your wolfing down 50 pounds of food a day I can’t see how anybody is fat. I actually lost weight a summer or two ago when i was eating like 3000+ calories a day. I think these pages are pretty pointless cause you can’t prove any of this stuff. Plus dude, why live life worrying about every little thing. EAT UP DUDES AND LIVE LIFE LIKE A PARTY. outttt.
1) As mentioned above, sodium benzoate is in literally tens of thousands of products, from salad dressing to fruit juice, and also occurs naturally in some common fruits and herbs. It’s not particularly good for you, but probably not as bad as either the caffeine or the phosphoric acid.
2) As noted above, correlation does not equal causation. Since I switched several years ago from drinking about two cans of diets soda and six cans of regular soda a day, to drinking the equivalent of a 12 pack of diet soda and no regular soda a day, I lost over 50 lbs. But again, it’s just a correlation, and I have no real proof that diet soda was the reason I lost all that weight. If it was factor, it was probably a minor one. It certainly didn’t hurt in my case though.
3) Actually, if you read that article carefully, the study described in the article only says that drinking diet soda is just as likely to increase your risk of heart disease at all, not that diet soda consumption will increase your risk of heart disease as much as an equal amount of regular soda.
4) First off, a random blog where the author talks about googling to find this information him or herself, is not the most impressive of sources. Secondly, yes, the phosphoric acid in diet soda is not very good for your teeth. It is also not nearly as bad for your teeth as the sugar in regular soda is. Or the sugar in fruit juice for that matter.
5) As mentioned above, the article only mentions interference with magnesium absorption. I do agree that Diet Coke Plus is a dumb idea though, and it tastes like Diet Coke Plus Chalk. I would’ve been much more impressed if they’d managed to add a bit of calcium and vitamin C as well.
6) This is true. Not all diet sodas have caffeine though, and coffee has about three-to-four times as much caffeine per ounce as most diet sodas. Diet Cranberry Canada Dry is delicious, and contains neither caffeine nor phosphoric acid.
Look, you come off extremely like you have an agenda here, considering how cherry-picked your sources are and considering how you misinterpreted or exaggerated what was said in half of them. This is not a good thing and building an argument in this fashion does more to undermine your credibility than it does to get your point across. I’m slightly biased myself, as after I became diabetic, switching to diet sodas probably saved my sanity. However, there’s something you probably should know: you actually missed some of the biggest legitimate health problems associated with diet soda. If I lost a lot of weight, dropped my cholesterol from over 200 to just over 100, got by blood sugar completely under control, and lowered my blood pressure down to the normal range, all after becoming diabetic, and with only making small lifestyle changes aside from cutting out sugar, it was because I decided to read as much as possible about nutrition in general. Critically, I did this _without_ a prior agenda, because I just wanted to know the truth. So here are some things you missed about diet soda:
1) They are a diuretic. Not as much as regular soda, but they will still generally dehydrate you. This can be offset however if you simply drink enough water to compensate. And listen to your body, as drinking so much water that you get nauseous isn’t particularly good for you either (putting a bit of lemon juice in your water will help a bit though).
2) With some people, aspartame will switch the bodies metabolic response to sweetness, meaning that when someone who drinks a lot of diet soda eats something sweet with real sugar, the body’s metabolism won’t increase to offset it like it normally would. Regularly doing some mild exercise after eating something sweetened with real sugar may help restore one’s proper metabolic response, although I imagine that’d be quite a chore. I don’t eat sugary things often enough where I feel that this is a problem, although I will still usually try and follow it with exercise due to my diabetic condition.
3) This is the one missed by the most people, and is particularly important to women: the phosphoric acid may strip calcium from your bones. You actually need a certain amount of phosphorus for your health, but if you get more phosphorus than calcium, your body makes up the difference by taking it from your bones, and most dairy products have a roughly equal amount. This can be remedied however by taking a single daily calcium supplement or a rolaid or two, even if you drink four liters of the stuff a day. This is only true of sodas (diet or otherwise) with phosphoric acid, which includes most colas. So check the label.