Can caffeine-free diet soda be considered a healthy alternative to drinking water?
The various artificial sweeteners may cause cancer or other abnormalities later in life. If the problems are not immediately apparent in the person drinking it, then it may be something that’s passed on to the children. I guess we won’t know for sure for another 50 years.
Water has a track record of a few million years of human consumption… so far, it does not seem to cause cancer.
There have been some studies that seem to show that artificial sweeteners cause the body to gain weight
I’m not sure the studies have been determined to be conclusive yet.
Water has killed millions more people than have artificial sweeteners, you know.
Good point. However, are you talking about water poisoning, toxic contaminated water, water soaker hoses used for crowd control, or drowning?
:dubious: May we see a cite on that?
As far as pop goes, I would imagine that the caffeine free wouldn’t harm you.
Even without caffeine and sugar, it’s still acidic, which can cause issues that water doesn’t.
No cite except for the obvious one of saccharine which everyone probably already knows about. If people google around, I’m sure they can find studies (maybe inconclusive) of Nutrasweet or any of the other new artificial sweeteners causing problems.
I guess I’m one of those folks that hedges his bets and takes Murphy’s Law into account. If scientists can manufacturer something artificial, then the universe says that there must be a tradeoff. Sometimes that tradeoff is price, sometimes the tradeoff is health.
A few years ago, I remember someone telling me that got a free sample of potato chips with Olestra. She was chomping on them saying how great the “fat-free” chips tasted. I was warning her to quit eating them because Olestra will do things to her digestive system and bowels that she won’t like. She ignored my warning. Later that day, she confessed I was right. I assume we don’t have to go into details to understand what I’m talking about.
The point is that I don’t have to know any rigorous scientific studies about Olestra. If I saw a bag with something artificial ingredient in it – especially a new one, then some level of defensive eating is necessary, yes?
I favor conditioning your body and taste buds to prefer plain water – or if plain water is too bland, then squeeze a bit of lemon into it. By preferring that over artificially sweetened soda, you may be avoiding problems that nobody even knows about yet. Is that too overly cautious?
Any and all of those.
Basically, there is no good evidence that the current artificial sweeteners used (including saccharin) do any harm. There are hypotheses of how they possibly could, there are some simple studies which may imply an association between them and certain poor or risky health states, and there’s a lot of verbiage out there about how these chemicals, being artificial, must be bad for you.
Whereas we know that water kills, in a variety of subtle and blatant ways.
My take: Diet sodas are probably not bad for a person. However I will note that my beverage of choice is that known killer: Water.
ETA: A diet heavy in diet sodas is still more healthful than a diet heavy in sugared sodas. All that simple carbohydrate load that many people take in is NOT healthy. That has been demonstrated.
Do you need to lose a little weight? There’s an aisle at my grocery sore for “Diet Water.”
I have a friend who drinks Vitamin Water, which bills itself as a “water beverage.”
They seem to be safe. Note that some have acids which may damage your teeth. Of course, fruit juices have acids also.
Some caffeine appears to be just fine for most dudes.
For many people, I would guess that the extremely low risk of cancer from artificial sweeteners is less of a risk than the empty calories in sugar. I’ve heard the theory that diet drinks cause people to gain weight by making them hungry. I haven’t heard it convincingly, but I’ve heard it.
The idea that synthetic chemicals are inherently safer than natural chemicals is laughable.
FWIW, I lost about 15 pounds when I switched from normal soda to diet. Granted I was drinking a lot of soda, but in any case, it certainly doesn’t cause an increase in weight in every case.
No, current sweeteners are not cancerous.
This is a meaningless statement. Spider venom, hemlock, and cyanide are 100% natural.
What? What is the tradeoff with putting vitamin D in milk or giving diabetic people insulin? Or that tradeoff with feeding starving kids golden rice? This “OMG ONLY MOTHER NATURE KNOWS” attitude is far from convincing. Mother nature is just a mess that evolution brought about; the blind watchmaker trying whatever it can. Mother nature gives us things like cancer and disease without any intervention from science.
Ruminator: There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. But you don’t need to promote misinformation. Your first post asserts things that you don’t know for sure. Your second post is much better than your first.
HorseLoverFat: I think that, while natural is not better than synthetic, most natural substances have been studied longer than synthetic ones. So there might be a grain of truth in Ruminator’s statements.
Actually, the reverse is true for many synthetic substances. They must undergo rigorous testing before being released on the market in the case of pharmaceuticals. While if it occurs naturally, it can often get rushed to market without FDA oversight or any real testing.
Soda w/ sugar = lots of calories + higher risk of tooth decay.
Soda w/ artificial sweetener = no calories + no added risk of tooth decay.
There is also no evidence that the artificial sweeteners used in soda can cause cancer.
Suffice to say, a soda w/ artificial sweetener is a much healthier alternative than soda w/ sugar.
Not only is the statement meaningful, but you appear to have understood it quite well. Formaldehyde is found in all fruit and is a decomposition product of pectin. Benzene along with polyaromatic hydrocarbons are a product of burning things including food. Natural has nothing to do with toxicity. As Qadgop says, natural sometimes means lower standards of safety.
I think that the self-assured tone of your claim is premature and misleading.
I had thought that this was a typo. I thought **WarmNPrickly **meant to say: *The idea that **natural **chemicals are inherently safer than **synthetic **chemicals is laughable. *
His follow up post seems to bear my thoughts out.