Water v Coke

[wombat2u2004]

Yes, true, all things in moderation is the go. But even then, some things are ok to consume, and others are not.
Am I to assume that Coca cola is not one of the products that is responsible for obesity and related problems in the USA ?????
Wom

[Lady's Human]

Coke, McDonalds, BK, KFC are in no way responsible for obesity in the US.

The responsibility lies (as far as food goes, there are exceptions who have no control over their metabolism) with those who have no self control and pay no attention to what they are eating. If you eat 4000 calories a day and sit on your butt, guess what? You're going to be overweight!

[wombat2u2004]

Coke, McDonalds, BK, KFC are in no way responsible for obesity in the US.

The responsibility lies (as far as food goes, there are exceptions who have no control over their metabolism) with those who have no self control and pay no attention to what they are eating. If you eat 4000 calories a day and sit on your butt, guess what? You're going to be overweight!

Well....I think differently mate. I don't let my kids eat or drink certain things, as I believe some things are harmful to them, particularly when they were young.
Wom

[Lady's Human]

Exactly my point.

If you know something isn't good for you, WHY EAT IT? Occasionally is okay, but there are people who eat fast food 3 meals a day.

There are other choices out there. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy Coke, McD's, ad nauseum.

It's not the corporations' fault. It's the person's fault.

[Edwina's Secretary]

My grandfather, who disliked cola products, warned me about the evils when I was a child. Clean nails, tenderize meat, etc. He died in 1967. So those stories have been around quite a while....

The logic escaped me back then as it does now...a product that will dissolve nails...if billions of people drink it on a regular basis...wouldn't bunches and bunches of them DIE??? Even as ineffectual as most governments are...would people keep drinking an ACID that ate the stomach???

Didn't a woman in California (of course!) DIE recently from drinking too much water?

Never made any sense to me.

But then...any doctor who suggested to me that one practice was "more healthier" than another...well...I would go to a "more smarter" doctor right away!

[wombat2u2004]

It's not the corporations' fault. It's the person's fault.

Ahhhhhhhhh....maybe. What of all of the advertising these people do ???
What of the all BS that they hit you with regards to nutrition in their products ? They don't tell us of what we really want to know, and that is, what harm it does us.
Wom

[Lady's Human]

Funny, I wasn't aware that Coke had claimed it was nutritious.

There are nutraceutical products coming from Coke, 7Up, at al, but their claims have to be approved by the FDA.

[Giselle]

I just had to add...I tried drinking the 8 glasses of water per day thing. It roughly equals 4 water bottles. I can't believe such a thing can be healthy when it makes you want to urinate ALL the time. Honestly, I tracked how often I had to "go" and I think it got as bad as going once per hour. No thanks. My petite frame can only handle 2-3 water bottles per day without reverting back to diaper days!

I think we give blanket statements a little too much nowadays. 8 8 oz. glasses of water may do the average American good, but I can't handle that much. Water poisoning didn't seem a far off idea then, either... =/

[wombat2u2004]

Funny, I wasn't aware that Coke had claimed it was nutritious.

There are nutraceutical products coming from Coke, 7Up, at al, but their claims have to be approved by the FDA.

I never claimed it was nutritious either, what Coke gives you tho.....is only a certain amount of so called NUTRITION information...........

Coca-Cola has announced that it plans to disclose the caffeine content on all of its beverages, as part of the company's rollout of expanded nutrition labeling in the US.

The move, which the firm said is part of an industry initiative, comes just days after competitor PepsiCo announced it would label caffeine on its Pepsi drinks.

Coca-Cola said the new packaging labels will provide the exact amount of caffeine in each serving.

"The inclusion of caffeine content information is an additional voluntary step taken by The Coca-Cola System. In 2005, Coca-Cola North America introduced labeling that provides consumers with nutrition information for a standard eight-ounce serving as well as for the total of a single-serve package," said the company in a statement.

The global drinks giant has already included caffeine labeling on its Full Throttle and Enviga packaging.

It will roll out the new labels on its other brands, starting with cans of Coca-Cola Classic in May, said the firm. It will then expand to other brands and packages during the remainder of the year.

The time at which the revised labels reach store shelves will vary by brand and by region as US bottlers use up existing inventories of packaging.

Earlier this week, competing firm PepsiCo also said it also plans to clearly label the caffeine content of its flagship soda.

"We're simply giving consumers more information," said PepsiCo.

Under current regulations, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted caffeine generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status in cola-type beverages, to a limit of 0.02 percent.

But the American Dietetic Association – as well as the Food Standards Agency in the UK – advises people not to consume more than 300mg of caffeine per day. Health Canada advises consumers to limit their caffeine intake to 400 to 450 mg per day. This advice is particularly aimed at pregnant women, who, studies indicate, have greater risk of miscarriage or babies with low birth weight if they exceed the 300mg barrier.

A study published last year in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology stated that all drinks containing caffeine should display the caffeine content on their labels, to prevent those at risk from consuming too much of the substance.

The research team analyzed the caffeine content of 10 energy drinks and 19 fizzy sodas, all widely available. They found all the fizzy drinks had caffeine levels well inside the 65mg per 12oz serving recommended limit for cola drinks in the US. Most energy drinks had levels in the high 60s and 70s for an 8oz serving.

Dr Bruce Goldberger, one of the researchers, said he was surprised by the high caffeine content of some of the energy drinks. He pointed out that only four of the 10 were labeled with some sort of warning to consumers.

"In certain people, consumption of caffeine causes serious health effects, such as anxiety, palpitations, irritability, difficulty sleeping and stomach complaints," he said, urging for the clear labeling of the substance on all products.

For the past decade, the US consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has been calling on FDA to require the disclosure on food labels of caffeine content.

Other food and beverage manufacturers could be prudent in following Coca-Cola's and PepsiCo's lead as a way to prevent future regulatory concerns.

FoodNavigator-USA.com will next week hear from lawyers specializing in the food industry why caffeine is an issue of rising importance, and what manufacturers can do to protect themselves from imminent regulatory action.

[wombat2u2004]

Just think about it LH.........the ingredients.............
Sugar !!!! In some drinks you can get up to 10 teaspoons of sugar in a bottle.
What would you do, if you walked in your home one day and watched one of your kids gulping down the last teaspoon of sugar ???? TEN teaspoons he/she has just gobbled down !!!! I know what I would do..........the sugar would be soon out of reach. And yet.....on the other hand, it's ok for the child to have a bottle of coke !!!!!
Aspartime (sp?) .... A real corker !!!!! Health problems associated with that one are vast !!!!!
Caffeine..........addictive ????? Hey.....guess why Coca Cola uses it ????
Phosphoric Acid........!!!!! That's gotta be not so good for the system.

No mate.....I'm not buying into the argument or the proposition that someone drank themselves to death with water.......and if that were the case.......how often would that happen ????
Would I dare to compare that event with the health damage that drinking Coca Cola causes, especially to young AND aged people worldwide ??
Yes....I'd dare to compare and then choose !!!!!
And as for my doctor.........well, I'm quite certain that if he told me that drinking coca Cola was more beneficial than drinking water, then I would surely go elsewhere.
Wom

[wombat2u2004]

Gee....Coca Cola can do this to major business partners......I wonder how they treat just the ordinary guy on the street !!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/18/bu...rtner=USERLAND

[Pam]

Wom, I don't think you and LH are that far apart with your beliefs. Of course things which contain ridiculous amounts of sugar and bad things should be eliminated from one's diet, but it is all about personal responsibility and control. I remember years ago someone sued McDonald's because they gained a tremendous amount of weight from eating there everyday. Hello.....were they tied up and force fed?

In my work I type a lot of patient notes. I am seeing an ever increasing line in my dictation ..... "the patient has a new diagnosis of adult onset diabetes." *sigh* Our bodies are like little engines. Some of us wouldn't treat our cars the way we treat our bodies. Until people realize that no one else is going to care for their bodies other than themselves there will be a decline in health.

I heard a lot of the statements about water drinking on, I think it was Oprah, years ago and it made a lot of sense. I keep telling myself I should drink more but again it is my responsibility to do it.

On the subject of Nutrasweet, don't even get me started. My brother has sent me so many articles and sites about that stuff that I wouldn't drink anything that contained Nutrasweet if it was the last beverage on earth. I have to wonder how many diseases that we are seeing more of today are a result of the increase in this and other pseudo sweeteners. Time will tell I guess.

[K9soul]

As far as the sugar content of cola being akin to someone eating straight sugar from a spoon, couldn't the same be said of a piece of candy? Ice cream? Birthday cake? I consider colas/sodas to be the same as cake or candy, nothing wrong with having it as a treat health-wise. As LH said, moderation is the key, and that is up to individuals, not the corporations to implement. My mother used to buy one 2-liter bottle of cola on shopping day and that was it. Once it was gone, it was gone until the next big grocery day which was once a month. I was not obese or unhealthy in any way. Sure if she had filled the fridge with soda and the cupboards with chips and I pigged out every day and never exercised I would have been, but that was not the case.

I browsed over the coke page some and I did not see them necessarily claiming that drinking coke was healthy, but more saying that caffeinated beverages can keep you hydrated contrary to other beliefs. I actually agree with that as I often drink tea off and on throughout the day (greens, whites, oolongs etc.) and I have no problem with dehydration. I do not have to "go" any more often than if I were drinking the same amount of water. But this could be a whole other topic and it's a bit of a tributary from the main flow of this conversation.

I also agree with Giselle about the "8 glasses of water" adage, I have actually tried to force myself to drink more water in the past after reading about the benefits and ended up not feeling well, having to go to the restroom far more often, and even feeling a bit foggy-headed and sluggish. I never made it to the daily recommended amount before giving that up.

Anyway, corporations are going to tout their products and they are welcome to it. I believe in personal responsibility and liability for the decisions we make.

[wombat2u2004]

Yes I would agree to a certain extent Pam.
Whilst I can see your's and LH's point of view, being that of one accepting their own responsibility for what they consume, I still am against this continuous advertising and such.....particularly where small children are involved. I mean kids are absolutely bombarded from a very young age with all of this junk food advertising. The young are VERY impressionable.
Of course added to this, is the fact that what they put into these products chemical wise, is usually covered up by references on their labels to a whole range of different names, mostly now coded....even something as simple as MSG has a range of names...this is all done to confuse people.
Example.......I cook a lot of Chinese food.......when I buy spices and the like, I check out what is in them......if there is MSG...I don't buy it.....if there is Ajinomoto....I don't buy it !!!! Why ???? Ajinomoto is MSG !!!!! Plain and simple. But does everyone know that ???? I have had so many people ask me what the heck Ajinomoto is !!!!! LOL
I tell ya....these food manufacturers will tell you anything to sell you their product.....and that includes Coca Cola.
Yes, there are responsible people out there who eat healthy, but there is also a lot that don't.
Wom

[Edwina's Secretary]

....I'm not buying into the argument or the proposition that someone drank themselves to death with water

It was all over the news...and discussed at length here on PT.... Too much water

But it is far easier I suppose to believe that cola will disolve nails...(as for pouring on roads to clean them of ANYTHING....have you ever spilled a soft drink???...a sticky-icky mess!)

Love the thought that I am not responsible for my action.....my actions are fault of the advertisers! (Ever think of turning OFF the tv??)