Whats wrong with an occasional diet coke?

Exactly what I was thinking Woo. I would hardly describe an occasional Diet Coke as crap....

Eh. I'm surprised only one person has trolled on me so far. The "certified nutritionist" can't be the only person with inflated ideas of their own omniscience.

I guess part of the reason why I didn't sound off on this woman was because her advice was so ridiculously off base and unnecessary. I felt absolutely no need to defend myself or my child raising to her. And, of course, I was stunned (for once in my life) into almost speechlessness.

I agree with you there, Katie. You're making the decisions about your own children. If sniping at you for your choices makes people feel better, I guess there isn't much you can do for them.

Same thing that's wrong with regular coke. While less crap is better than more crap, no crap is better than less crap. As if it was the SIZE of the turd that mattered.



Me too.



Maybe I'm just a carebear, but I hope I'm not alone (here) in thinking it's mean to make fun of overweight people. And maybe I have to stand alone with this woman in thinking that it's mean to feed caffeine and aspartame to a five year old.

Is it an inflated idea to believe that if you don't know what it is or where it came from, you shouldn't eat it? Is it omniscience to believe that when a trim cardiologist told you the same things about aspartame that a portly nutritionist did, that you didn't post your outrage here?



Almost. We will have to be comforted that you kept quiet in the store, but felt it necessary to share your namecalling and ad hominem with us, instead. And comforted that you later wished you'd handled it in a kinder manner. I've found that diplomacy frequently fails me when I know I'm wrong.

I don't want to derail the thread but I humbly disagree that DC is just as bad as real coke. Most people think DC is the worse choice, but knowing what I know about nutrition I have to say a regular coke is MUCH worse for you. The artificial sweeteners don't cause nearly the extent of problems real sugars (especially fructose) do.

I mean just to illustrate... I tested my blood sugar in September to verify my carbohydrate intolerance. My doc gave me one of those gestational diabetes glucose solutions which is, basically, a 20oz Pepsi (50 G dextrose). 2.5 hrs later, in a zombie like state, shaking and drenched in sweat, my sugar was all the way down at 40.
Think of the short term consequences: imagine if I didn't know about my condition, decided to chug Pepsi for breakfast, and went on a long car ride without access to snacks. That's a life threatening danger (which is one reason diabetics are not permitted to operate a lot of machinery/vehicles). Then there's the long term consequences of metabolic syndrome and that constellation of diseases which regular Pepsi consumption most assuredly contributes too...

I don't know how we can equate the crappiness of DC with the crappiness of real soda. DC is like a pimply teenager selling pot, coke is like a psychopathic serial killer (literally ). If we equate all "less than ideal" food as equally bad, where does it end? Is grain-fed factory farmed meat and non-organic produce also "crap"? You might argue this isn't comparable since these foods offer significant benefits despite flaws. Well, there is something to be said for the emotional value of food, too. For me, it helps a lot to be able to be "normal" and enjoy a coke like the regular humans. My condition already makes me seem a freak to the pizza-loving masses, at least I can share the soda with them.

The point is that CertifiedNutritionLadyInTheStore thinks that Diet Coke is crap. She probably also thinks low-carb is crap. It really doesn't matter how accurate she is on either point. She has no stewardship over a stranger's child's food.

I've found that diplomacy frequently fails me when I know I'm wrong.

I can see that.

Emotional value of food? Oh yes indeed. We're talking about the same thing, but I'll describe it differently and hopefully dodge a turd-size argument.

The farmed meat/polluted produce example has two important twists that the coke comparison doesn't have. First, the human requirement for animal and plant food is high compared to the human requirement for soda, which is decidedly zero. Second, there is a cost difference between factory meat and grass-fed, hormone-free meat, and between pesticide produce and organic produce. The cost difference between coke and diet coke is zero. How would it change our argument if diet coke cost twice as much a regular coke?

It might change in a way that includes other costs, like the ones you outlined in your post above. To drink a regular coke and have it do something awful to you is a cost you have included in your purchase, making a diet coke much cheaper than a regular.

Emotional value of food? Oh yes indeed. We're talking about the same thing, but let's partition "emotional value" so it's a bit less vague, at least to me, into the social value of food and the neurochemical value of food.

You wrote of the social value of food, and being able to share food with friends. Very important, we'd agree. Sharing food gives us a fellow feeling, a sense of good that transcends the value of the food shared. With friends, it makes us feel bad to sit there and not share, expressing or implying that they're eating crap, and the crappiness of the food overcomes the desire for fellow feeling with people that you love. Offense taken by other people enters into our calculation whether or not to share, and offending friends makes us think twice, whereas offending strangers SHOULD roll off our backs.

And all this important calculation is done while under the influence of neurochemistry. Diet coke has the advantage of caffeine without the blood-sugar freakout of regular coke. In addition to being a stimulant, caffeine raises cortisol which raises blood sugar, which is always nice if your blood sugar is low after a long day of errands and suffering through Walmart. It's not a "treat" in the nutritional sense, but absolutely a treat in the neurochemical sense. You may also be getting thirsty as well, a neurochemical state that's almost impossible to resist fixing.

Then there's the real biggie: dopamine. The neurotransmitter of desire. Makes us feel oh so good. Want something? That's dopamine. Thirsty as hell on a hot summer day? The near-spiritual feeling of putting a cold glass of water up to your lips is your dopamine cranked on full blast.

We, as overweight people, usually have abnormally high serotonin, which gives us the opposite feeling as dopamine. Dopamine is the excitement we feel, and serotonin is the contentment we feel. It's no wonder that we are so inclined to cheat on our diets with our dopamine so low all the time. The dopamine rush we get when we open the lid of a box of doughnuts is a welcome change from swimming in serotonin all day. For those of us hooked on our own dopamine, it's the thrill of anticipation that captivates us neurochemically (emotionally).

This powerful stuff is our brain's way of telling us, "Now don't do anything stupid like think!" Don't do anything stupid like pull the glass of water away from your lips before taking a drink! Dopamine is there to override our more rational serotonin. Dopamine distracts our neocortex so that the mammalian, reptilian, survival part of our brain can take over and get its way.

After it's all over, dopamine disappears, and our neocortex resumes command to rationalize our behavior after the primal part of our brain has made our decision for us. Just like standing in line at the supermarket and making a bad impulse buy, posting to an internet forum is an immediate gratification that our rationalizing brains have to cover for in order to keep us sane, and only preferably right.

A diet soda at the pizza parlor is a brief calculation that (you're right, Wooo) no one should fret over, no matter which way it goes. To make fun of fat people and then try to justify it to total strangers requires heroic neurochemical effort.

I just drank a diet Pepsi. Am I going to die? Yes, we all will eventually. Will the diet Pepesi hasten my demise? I doubt it. Now those packs a cigarettes that I smoked years ago may, but the diet soft drinks? I also used to drink numerous Dr. Peppers and eat lots of carbs. Those I now believe were taking years off my life.

I know that their is no nutritional benefit from artificial sweeteners, but I know they are less harmful to me than the equivalent sweetness of sugar or HFCS would be.

I see numerous small children walking around drinking sugarly drinks and would never chastize their parents for allowing it. I think that the children are in more danger being driven to the store in the first place than they are drinking a soft drink.

Caveman...just out of curiousity...do I take your posts to mean that your children will never be allowed a soda, maybe a cup of iced tea at a summer bbq... or any other "crap" by you? Never a Hershey's chocolate bar? What about a sprite? (no caffeine but certainly liquid sugar with no nutritional value)...I mean, where do you draw the line? Just curious.

PS:...while my kids may not have regular access...they do get that kind of thing on occassion.(family bbq's...maybe a cookie at the grocery bakery...candy at a school party etc....and, once in awhile...I might even let them have a soda at a restaurant ) My kids are wonderful eaters, but I honestly believe that if I always said "NO!!!...give it here...you're not having it" 100% of the time...I honestly believe they'd be far more enamored with the "crap" items than they are.

It would of took the hand of God to stop me from shaking that can of Coke and spraying her with it!

Vanya

Maybe I'm missing something or suffering from hypocaffeinemia , but I re-read the thread and don't see anyone making fun of overweight people. The OP described the buttinsky at the store as being obese, nothing more.

As for the caffeine, it helps my ADD daughter focus before her medication kicks in after she takes it every morning, so in my view not letting her have it and instead watching her grow more and more frustrated trying to get ready for school in that state would be meaner than allowing her a small amount of coffee. I'm not talking about giving her a triple shot espresso, but half a cup of regular coffee with cream and *GASP* Splenda. Both of my daughters rarely get to drink pop, but when they do, it's diet, not regular. Hmm...caffeine, Aspartame and Sucralose...okay...call child protective services...I'm obviously an abusive parent.

Bottom line: if you think that Aspartame = don't use products that contain it or give it to your kids. However, if you happen to see another adult give a product containing Aspartame to their children, it would be wise to keep your opinion to yourself unless you know them very well and even then proceed with caution.

Agreed.

Even when she did mention the woman's weight...she wasnt poking fun (at least not that I saw). I read her posts as a comment on the annoyance factor of having a rude backseat driver (which is annoying under any circumstances). What made it worse was that this particular backseat driver's never been behind the wheel of a car but took the written test and somehow got a drivers license anyway(annoyance factor goes up in direct proportion to the belligerence of the under-qualified backseat driver.)

Sorry...sometimes I can't help but make analogies.

God may well shake the can for you!