diet soda

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There's nothing wrong with them in and of themselves, it's the reaction that happens when they're combined with sodium benzoate. Ascorbic acid + sodium benzoate = benzenes, one of the strongest known human carcinogens. So if you ever see the two of them together in an ingredients list, a flashing red light should go off in your head going "Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!"

It takes a week to not want any more junk food, 10 days max. Just don't have anything sugary (or sweetened with artificial poison) for a week and you won't want it any more. If I eat so much as a single sweet [piece of candy] I feel sick these days, I can't stand the taste of sugar... yuck. Give me my raw broccoli anyday!!

how did you come to this conclusion?

maybe it only took YOU a week, but it may take others longer. it took me a lot longer than a week without junk food to get rid of the cravings, hell i still get them. blanket statements like that seriously hurt your credibility. just because something works for you or has a certain effect on you, doesn't mean it'll have the same effect on everyone. maybe you gained weight on sweeteners, maybe your family did, that certainly doesn't mean it does the same for everyone. i know plenty of people who lost weight by switching to diet drinks. now you're going to say "but they aren't healthy, etc. etc. etc." and i agree, they aren't, it doesn't mean you can't lose weight with them. i realize you hate these things, i realize you want everyone to know about them, but misinformation or deception isn't the way to go about it. the link you posted about the rats was good, i'd say, but outright denying what the poster has said is pretty much like calling her a liar.

i'm sorry if i'm sounding like a jerk, i agree with you that sweeteners are bad, i just really don't like the way you're going about it. back up your claims with links to reliable sources if you're going to make a bold statement like the one above, and try to present it as an objective opinion, it makes it more believable to others.

by the way, ascorbic acid (vitamine c) and sodium benzoate produce benzene, not benzenes. it's a chemical, not a class of chemicals. just thought you should know, not trying to be an ass about it, just trying to be informative.

'They' are often compulsive liars. After a few years very casual research, having seen what goes on, i wouldnt put anything past them

The saddest thing about this is how 'they' keep the known dangers of these things hushed up for decades, whilst aggressively marketing them towards children.

i think the nutrition facts are pretty accurate, it's the unregulated stuff that's really bad. it's when they make unsubstantiated claims, use potentially harmful ingredients, falsify studies, etc. that pisses me off. it's pretty easy to measure calorie content, fat, sugar, vitamins, etc. and i'm sure it's tightly regulated.

Another aspect of citric acid, is it may be contaminated with processed free glutamate (MSG) - this happens when its processed from corn, and MSG itself be contaminated with various poisonous substances (which are never present in natural glutamates).

Its thought those substances may have a catalystic damaging effect when taken alongside aspartame.

Sorry, benzene was a typo (been doing lists all day so 's' is appearing frequently at the end of words!! Could say in return it's vitamin not vitamine? Also, ascorbic acid doesn't occur naturally in nature on its own - the ascorbic acid you get in foods is usually a chemically synthesised version, rather than natural, and it's not actually Vitamin C either [Vitamin C is the L-enantiomer of it, if we want to be chemically accurate, but even more accurate is that vitamins themselves are more complexes than single, isolated substances] Saying Vitamin C is Ascorbic Acid is misleading and not wholly true...).

It took me a week to wean myself off sugars, but the general consensus is that seven-ten days is the time it'll take for the cravings to go - you might still get them for some time later, but the intensity will have vastly diminished. This is because your taste buds renew themselves every ten days or so, so the theory goes that if they haven't tasted sugar the craving won't be there. You may still get some as your blood sugar levels balance and adjust, but the ten days is the key initially.

It also helps to replace the processed sugar with fresh and dried fruit. For example, if you're really craving sweetness, have some dried apricots or a bunch of grapes rather than candy. If you're after chocolate, try a hot cocoa without sugar rather than actual chocolate. (Real chocolate is fine if it's dark and organic in small amounts, but wait until you've done your sugar wean to have it).

And you're not sounding like a jerk - questions are good!!

Maybe it was easy for you, and that's fantastic, but I'm not in the same situation as you are. I'm not in a position to go completely changing my diet. I also hate water, as much as I've been trying to make myself like it, and I can't just go buy the bottled water that might taste better.

I do understand where you're coming from but you really are being kind of an ass about it.. but then, even if you were nice about it, I can't change anything right now.

I never said it was easy - au contraire, I had to get my friend to hide my purse from me and take all my credit cards so I couldn't go and buy any junk food!! I used to be the biggest binger you'll have ever seen when I first left home, my diet was truly appalling. I always had a sweet tooth as a child, so as soon as I was out of the house and didn't have my parents there to stop me eating it it was just about all I lived on for a good year or so, until I suddenly woke up one day and went "What the hell am I doing to myself?!" and that was it. I've never, ever felt as good as I have done in the couple of years since I went off sugar/sweeteners. I wouldn't recommend it more. You feel stronger, you have more energy, your moods are lighter, you feel lighter. And you truly get your sense of taste back as well - everything tastes so much stronger and better without that gunk clogging up your system!!


Nekowafer, can you get hold of any (sweetener-free) cordials? Add a small amount to water (fizzy water if you're feeling extravagant) and it tastes just like normal soda, but without all the crap. Most will have added sugar but you use so little that it won't have any effect on calorie-counting diets, and because you use such a small amount at a time it lasts a while as well - cheaper than buying soda all the time.

touché, although i blame that one on my schooling, i pretty much only wrote in french until grade 9. i did take english classes at my french school, but i spent most of my time writing in french. i make so many mistakes with the words that are just one letter different, appartment/apartment, vitamine/vitamin, etc.

as for weening myself off sugar and junk, it really wasn't hard for me. i got on a meal plan where i had all my meals planned out and it even gave me a shopping list. it was a really good plan with really healthy food, and all i had to do was follow it. i followed that for a month and a bit, lost 5lbs, then exams hit and my diet went to crap, gained 5lbs. rowing eventually started and i started pretty much only eating fruits, vegetables, and a meat and cheese sandwich with whole wheat bread, and something for dinner. i got pretty intense cravings, but i also had a goal that i had to reach, which was to drop over 15lbs by two weekends ago, which i did, and that really helped me stay away from that crap... also got me damn close to an eating disorder, but that's another story. lightweight rowing requires pretty strong drive when it comes to diet, some days you just have to tell yourself "nah, i don't need to eat dinner, that's two pounds that i'll have to sweat out tomorrow if i do" so that really helped me.

as for the jerk soundingness, i was in a crabby mood so when i read it i could only picture someone reading it as me sounding like a jerk, but was in too much of a crabby mood to change it, glad you didn't read it that way.

Meh, we all have crabby days, don't worry about it. I actually prefer when people are questioning things, that's the best way to learn and share ideas n stuff.

I find it very difficult to enjoy anything sweet now except fruit, veges, seeds etc and the occasional bit of honey. It's strange how your tastes change when you're off it. My friends crave Twix and Mars bars, I crave spinach and carrot and broccoli!! But if I ever eat anything like a chocolate bar these days it just makes me feel so ill I remember immediately why I stopped eating it in the first place, you just feel so much more alive without it. I didn't have any sport to motivate me... only myself and my horror as I read and read more and more about exactly what these additives are in the modern diet and what they can do. Before long it was my new obsession - I'd always been interested, but suddenly I was REALLY interested. Haven't looked back!!

And I'll forgive ya the mistake - swapping languages is hard. I was in another country whose language I speak about a month ago, and I'm still speaking it without thinking four weeks later. Woops.

well i wasn't really swapping, i've spoken english my whole life (well.. from 18 months on) but i went to a french school (i also understood french my whole life but i didn't speak it until a few months into kindergarten, where it just exploded out of me like i'd been speaking it my whole life)

and i still have a sweet tooth, just not as much as before. i enjoy ice cream when i have it, i enjoy some chocolate, etc. but it's all less sweet than it used to be. i can't handle really sweet stuff, and the chocolate i eat isn't candy bars, it's just a bar of chocolate, usually dark now. it helps if you actually enjoy eating healthy foods to start with. i love granny smith apples, bananas, LOVE berries, mangoes, salads, etc. so i can grab those when i have a craving. they don't satisfy the craving as well as the actual food that i want, but they get food in my stomach, which helps.

Ive just had an activist brainwave!

This week i started writing on banknotes ( 'Google: Money as Debt' other suggestions welcome). This thread has given me a bolder idea though - print off health warnings onto address labels and stick them on selected products in the supermarket

Hahaha, I already do that!! I got caught once and kicked out of a shop for handing out info leaflets to customers next to the soft-drink fridge and leaving them on all the drinks...

Haven't heard of the bank notes one before though, but I like it!!

Mmmm, it's the tropical fruits and berries I crave the most. I could live on berries, really. In fact I just about do live on berries, and I freeze them so I can have them out of season as well. I like chocolate, but only plain organic stuff rather than 'chocolate bars'.

actually from what I read they are only detrimental to your health if you let the plastic get hot or reuse the container

If that were true, you would still have no idea how hot the container had gotten on its way to the shop shelf.