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The Decline of 'Big Soda': Is Drinking Soda the New Smoking?
HughPickens.com writes: Margot Sanger-Katz reports in the NYT that soda consumption is experiencing a serious and sustained decline as sales of full-calorie soda in the United States have plummeted by more than 25 percent over the past twenty years. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are actively trying to avoid the drinks that have been a mainstay of American culture but bottled water is now on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category in two years. The changing patterns of soda drinking appear to come thanks, in part, to a loud campaign to eradicate sodas. School cafeterias and vending machines no longer contain regular sodas. Many workplaces and government offices have similarly prohibited their sale.
For many public health advocates, soda has become the new tobacco — a toxic product to be banned, taxed and stigmatized. "There will always be soda, but I think the era of it being acceptable for kids to drink soda all day long is passing, slowly," says Marion Nestle. "In some socioeconomic groups, it's over." Soda represents nearly 25% of the U.S. beverage market and its massive scale have guaranteed profit margins for decades. Historically, beverage preferences are set in adolescence, the first time that most people begin choosing and buying a favorite brand. But the declines in soda drinking appear to be sharpest among young Americans. "Kids these days are growing up with all of these other options, and there are some parents who say, 'I really want my kids to drink juice or a bottled water,' " says Gary A. Hemphill. "If kids grow up without carbonated soft drinks, the likelihood that they are going to grow up and, when they are 35, start drinking is very low."
For many public health advocates, soda has become the new tobacco — a toxic product to be banned, taxed and stigmatized. "There will always be soda, but I think the era of it being acceptable for kids to drink soda all day long is passing, slowly," says Marion Nestle. "In some socioeconomic groups, it's over." Soda represents nearly 25% of the U.S. beverage market and its massive scale have guaranteed profit margins for decades. Historically, beverage preferences are set in adolescence, the first time that most people begin choosing and buying a favorite brand. But the declines in soda drinking appear to be sharpest among young Americans. "Kids these days are growing up with all of these other options, and there are some parents who say, 'I really want my kids to drink juice or a bottled water,' " says Gary A. Hemphill. "If kids grow up without carbonated soft drinks, the likelihood that they are going to grow up and, when they are 35, start drinking is very low."
bottled water is now on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category in two years.
Everyone should note that for the most part bottled water is just "tap water" that has been filtered. At $1 plus a bottle (plus the almost always not recycled plastic bottle), why don't people just get a Britta filter for home or office? Filtered tap water is now more expensive than soda!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Now they are bottling municipal water supply and selling it at the same price as soda. No need to guard recipes, no need to worry about making concentrates... Their profit margin has increased despite the decrease in soda consumption.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
When you pry it from my cold dead hands.
... the trunks of police cars. According to widely circulated "facts" about cola one thing I still remember is, "Every police car in America has a two liter bottle of coke in their trunks. It is the best thing to dissolve blood stains off asphalt" and "put a chicken bone into a bottle of coke, and it will dissolve completely in six days"
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I am happy as long at keeps people from spitting half swallowed soda in my face at meal times and other social gatherings.
Weird to see people complaining about sugar but switching to fruit juice, though. Many if not most fruit juices have a higher sugar concentration than coke.
Now, that's only from the sugar perspective. Caffeine has its good and bad sides, so if one wants to cut down, there's that. Phosphoric acid may or may not have a negative effect on bone density (lower bone density is associated with soda consumption but there's dispute over whether it's the phosphoric acid or just the aforementioned caffeine). Fruit juices have vitamins and minerals that most colas won't. But really, the biggest health issue with colas is the sugar, and one may actually increase their sugar intake by switching to juice.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
In other news, Energy Drink sales are surging with the younger crowds!
When people drink soda, they don't blow toxic and disgusting smelling fumes into people's walkways, they don't leave butts all over the ground, and they don't return from a smoke break smelling like an ashtray.
Chuck, I'm going with, "No, drinking soda isn't the new smoking."
This language is being hyperboled away as we speak; the meaning of words are inflated away. A 25% decrease over 20 years? That's an annual decrease of a measly 1.1%! What's the word then to use for what happened to the Volkswagen stock?
Nah, the expression to be used would be: 'slowly eroding, culminating in a 25% decrease over the past 20 years that some observers[who?] consider significant.'
Most fruit juices have a lot of sugar. Fruit contains a lot of fructose, water, and fiber. So squeeze out the water that contains the fructose, the fiber gets left behind, and you have something that is by volume and weight a tons of sugar.
Apple juice is a good example. If you go and have a look at the Simply Apple stuff at a grocer you can see easily. It really is 100% pure apple juice. They don't add any sweetener or anything else, they just squeeze the juice out of apple and bottle that shit up... and it is as high calorie as soda. 180 calories per 12 oz (355ml). For comparison Pepsi is 150 and Mountain Dew is 170.
I love apple juice, it tastes fantastic, but you can't fool yourself in to thinking that because it is juice it is magically good.
I just finished installing a 6 head soft drink fountain dispenser next to the playroom. It's gonna be carbonated drinks as far as the eye can see.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Fructose sweetener. Forget it.
Switch back to cane sugar. Fuck the sugar cartel. Throw them all in prison.
Have gnu, will travel.
I woudn't at all be surprised if drinking sugary sodas is the number one cause of diabetes. Additionally, most artificial sweeteners really aren't all that great for you, either, if for no other reason than they don't break you of the habit of drinking sweet drinks all the time. People who live that way need to bite the bullet and drink nothing but WATER (the kind out of the tap that's free, not stupid overpriced bottled water!) for at least a year. Then they can have a soda once in a while.. assuming it's cane sugar-sweetened, not HFCS, not aspartame, not sucralose. In my opinion, stevia is OK, but as with most things YMMV. But everyone needs to get out of the habit of swilling sodas all the time and drink WATER instead. You'll be healthier and happier in the long run, and have more money in your pocket, too. In my opinion.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The nannystate regulators who ban soda because of the high calories are curiously prone to carve out exceptions for drinks containing dairy. They're very concerned about the health of those other people drinking cokes from large cups, but not about to start interfering with their own consumption of ridiculously high calorie Starbucks coffee-based concoctions. It's a class based prejudice, the wrong sorts of people can't be trusted to organize their own affairs while us enlightened folks need no restrictions whatever. As always with the leftists, it's about control, not about health.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
Right now, it's just the in thing to avoid soda. The pre-teens and teens I see who tell you they "don't drink that stuff" are the same ones buying up those nasty tasting "energy drinks" chock full of caffeine and all sorts of other chemicals.
Anything you eat or drink too much of can be bad for you. The people I knew who'd wind up with a huge tower of empty soda cans in their cubicle at work, for example? Probably wasn't doing them much good, health-wise.
But honestly, I'm already well into my 40's and am one of those people who gets a fountain soda pretty often at the gas station, or with lunch or dinner when I go out. I occasionally buy a 2 liter of Pepsi or Dr. Pepper or something to drink at home too. I've been doing this since I was a teenager. Can't really say I've had any negative heath effects from it, so far. And I'm getting to the age where stuff starts going wrong, regardless. So I expect someone will blame my thumb that keeps popping out of its joint on the soda drinking or who knows what.... But hey, I don't smoke and really cut back on drinking alcohol since my late 20's.
Personally, I'd trust any of the sodas with real cane sugar in them more than these artificially sweetened low-cal/no cal drinks and/or the energy drinks on the market.
Now kids are drinking 'energy drinks'. Not sure if this is an improvement or not. On a side note, soda isn't really that bad, it's just that they give such gigantic amounts of it to you now. I wish my company vending machine would just vend a can of coke, rather than the giant 1/2 liter bottles. And god help you if you order a 'large' soda at any place now days...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Oh, and even better is 100 JPY for a bottle of iced Oolong tea from a convenience store. Oishii ne.
I worked in the restaurant industry. The soda costs the store about 2 cents per glass. The rest is markup.
It allows them to lower the food cost (which has very little profit).
Spirits have a high markup but not as high as soda.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Carbonic acid is an intermediate step in the transport of CO2 out of the body via respiratory gas exchange. The hydration reaction of CO2 is generally very slow in the absence of a catalyst, but red blood cells contain carbonic anhydrase, which both increases the reaction rate and dissociates a hydrogen ion (H+) from the resulting carbonic acid, leaving bicarbonate (HCO3) dissolved in the blood plasma. This catalysed reaction is reversed in the lungs, where it converts the bicarbonate back into CO2 and allows it to be expelled. This equilibration plays an important role as a buffer in mammalian blood.
Adding additional carbonic acid to your system in sufficient quantities (as in drinking only or primarily carbonated beverages) stresses your lungs they try to decompose the excess.
Don't feel bad about not knowing this, it's new information to me, too. It also explains why I run out of breath walking up 2 flights of stairs after drinking a large soda when I otherwise have excellent stamina and doctors say there is nothing wrong.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
1) adding CO2 to water turns it into an acid- carbonic acid- which is bad for the teeth because it demineralizes (dissolves) tooth enamel.
2) most sodas contain additional phosphoric acid- the same stuff dentists use to etch teeth to help composite restorative materials bond to the teeth
3) the sugar in soda feeds the bacteria in the mouth. The bacteria cling to the teeth in biofilms that must be removed by mechanical actions of brushing and flossing. Many of the bacteria that live in the mouth convert sugar into lactic acid which, like soda, dissolves the enamel on the teeth. Eventually anaerobic bacteria move in to the newly created environment and invade the soft tissue and bone. This is when teeth start getting loose and breath smells like death.
4) minerals in the saliva can harden on the teeth (calculus) above and below the gum line and can't be removed by brushing and flossing- they must be removed by a hygienist with steel bladed instruments, sometimes with ultrasonic assistance. Calculus is porous and is like a high rise condo for bacteria- party all the time! Everyone should see a hygienist regularly to keep calculus build up under control.
5) sugar is high in non nutritive calories which contributes to obesity.
6) a huge number of health problems are related to obesity including type II diabetes, cardiovascular problems, joint problems, etc.
7) "sports" drinks are as bad for the teeth as soda.
8) "Mountain Dew Mouth" is indistinguishable from "Meth Mouth", probably because the condition is largely caused by meth users consuming large amounts of candy and soda because it's easier, faster, and cheaper than cooking/eating proper food and well, you know, food costs money that could be spent on more meth...
9) Keeping teeth healthy is important for maintaining overall health and quality of life. When you lose teeth your ability to chew food properly before swallowing is diminished. Poor chewing performance leads to poor digestive performance. Lose enough teeth and you're stuck eating soft foods that you can mash with your tongue. Dentures help, but they are prosthetics- like an artificial leg, and a poor substitute for the real thing when it comes to function. Imagine spending the last 30 years or so of your life unable to eat the things you like to eat. What will a diet of spaghetti, mashed potatoes, and apple sauce do to your disposition and overall health?
10) Your immune system helps control bacterial populations in the mouth, but in diabetics the immune response is lessened by the disease so it becomes even more important for diabetics who want to keep their teeth to step up their self care and see professionals regularly. It is extremely important to monitor your blood sugar and take your medications as instructed by your physician/endocrinologist.
11) Smoking is bad for the teeth. Nicotine causes the small blood vessels that carry immune system components to constrict, reducing blood flow to the teeth, gums and surrounding bone. The bad bacteria freely invade the soft tissues and bone and before you know it, you start losing teeth. Smoking makes the breath stink and stains teeth. It is a filthy habit. Chewing tobacco is just disgusting and equally bad for the teeth. Any form of tobacco use delivers carcinogens to the soft tissues in the mouth and can lead to oral cancer, a particularly disfiguring form of cancer.
Please reduce or stop soda/sports drink consumption and drink more water, quit smoking or chewing tobacco, brush and floss as instructed by your dentist, and see the dentist/hygienist regularly for maintenance. Your life will be a more pleasant experience, guaranteed.