https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9471313/
Inflamation is well known for increasing biomarkers associated with aging.
It got eyebrows, but it was also a third of the calories of a large Starbucks caffinated milkshake (and that's what they are -- addictive milkshakes).
Less liquid, less piss, more code, I'm surprised more hackers don't seek out quality espresso instead of these weird XTREME energy drinks.
Anyways yes, a donut is about 500 calories, a big soda or coffee with fillings is much much more.
I think you answered it though, lots of (younger) people do not like the taste of coffee, so you get the caffeine and the delivery mechanism is sweet & sugary.
Here's a free idea for anyone out there: Caffeinated Ketchup. It already turns up every flavor component to 11 so why not make it heavily caffeinated too!
The caffeinated lemonade from Panera has apparently killed people.
I got the impression (from some online browsing) that Starbucks has started offering coffeeless frozen drinks.
But I also got the impression that their drinks are more "crushed ice mixed with syrup" than "ice cream mixed with milk". How much milk/cream are you getting in one of these milkshakes?
200$? What is that, a fine for ants?
There have been some restaurant foods that I knew weren't healthy but didn't realize how unhealthy they were until I looked at recipes for how to make them myself.
How often will the $200 fine be assessed? Unless it's daily, it won't likely make a difference.
If successful/popular, then it's much easier to pass full coverage later.
Since their menu is the same the study to get the calorie counts is not as costly per location.
a big chain like McD's may literally sling millions of burgers in a similar timeframe.
it's also a lot easier to enforce this with a single corporate entity then track down hundreds of one-off mom-and-pop locations.
Mexico has big labels saying things like "EXCESO DE GRASA" o "EXCESO DE AZÚCAR" which make it super clear what they're warning about. I used them to find the high-calorie snacks for hiking :)
Once over the hump of assuming it's the sugar that makes soda tastes good, I think it opens up a lot higher chance of trying other sugar free drinks which can be even healthier (while still tasting amazing). At least it did for n=1.
However, Olipop has sugar alcohols as a sweetener, which give me gastrointestinal distress after only two cans. Soiling yourself is a good disincentive for drinking a lot of soda.
shitting yourself cuz of drinking too much soda is a you problem mon ami
- these specialty sodas have less than a third of the calories as a normal soda and are touted as a healthy alternative
- fast food meals often include a large soda which is more than two cans worth
- people often drink even more soda in a day, especially diet soda
- the GI issues are specifically for these new specialty sodas, not normal ones
This, for example, is targeted towards chains. If every restaurant you eat at has fewer than 15 locations, it doesn't exist. Where do upper-middle class people eat?
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[*] like the fake work that RFK, Jr. is doing trying to make it impossible to buy soda and snack foods on SNAP. Only positive press he's gotten from NYT etc.. Yes, make those poor people eat better! But somehow also fat acceptance.
Unfortunately this does lead to a lot of small, weak rules being passed because elected officials have to "do something" in order to stay in the public eye to get reelected.
So, it might actually be pretty clean, from that perspective.
I look forward to the counter-ad campaign from Big Gulp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Star_Rating_System
It’s a raw calculation between 0 to 5 stars on how healthy the food is. It’s basically calories (with some bias to the type of calories) divided by fibre+protein. These days you don’t see products in supermarkets or chain restaurants without the stars shown on the front of the box. It’s become an expectation of customers. Even snacks like tim tams clearly show .5 stars on the front indicating they are high in calories for how filling they are.
It works well. A high protein and high fibre food can indeed have high calories and score well. But you know what? High protein and high fibre foods are extremely filling. So fair enough!
Obviously any such system is high level and misses all the micronutrients etc. but in general calories divided by fibre+protein provides a reasonable guide. One behavioural thing i’ve seen come out of this is parents allowing children to pick snacks and cereals themselves provided it’s 4+ stars. This usually leads to kids adding wheat bran cereals and muesli bars to the cart by their own choice. Kids love freedom and guidelines that it must be 4+ stars give that freedom without overly sugary crap being allowed. It’s also great for adults wanting to spot clearly unhealthy food for their own goals. Setting a guideline of only 4.5+ foods in the cart is so simple. You can still find good snacks, it’s just that they’ll undoubtedly be very filling too.
I quickly skimmed to the article you linked. I couldn't find anything as to whether it pertains to cooked or uncooked food?
For example, in the EU frozen pre-fried French fries have an A score (best), but that isn't correct, as no-one eats them like this. You fry them again in your home fryer.
Whereas smoked salmon is D or E because of the higher fat content, and the salt used for drying.
Still while no system is perfect and there's a need to call out brands that claim it's prepared with skim milk when it's clearly not i still think it's pretty damn great.
Jarmsy•1d ago
neom•1d ago
It's not just the Americans at all, in fact: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/sugar-con... // https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d...
I'm saying this as a general reminder: Sugar intake is a major issue globally.
rkomorn•1d ago
quesera•1d ago
The astonishing thing to me is that we can sell a 32 fl oz (950 mL) drink as "large", instead of "a week's supply of empty calories that you should never consume in one sitting".
grishka•1d ago
nicoburns•1d ago
Food sizes too. I was regularly splitting a meal across two sittings (e.g. eating the other half of my lunch for dinner) when I was in the US.
bluGill•1d ago
Activity level matters a lot. Genetics matter a lot. There are a lot of late teen boys (teen boys are likely in sports at school, and hormones means they will use a lot of energy anyway) who need 6000 calories per day. There are a lot of adults only only need 1700 per day (they really should exercise more!). We can talk about the 2000 calories daily requirement, but that is a round number that is close enough for discussion but not really relevant to any individual.
What you grew up with matters - if your body is always low on calories it will compensate by growing less, so if you someone young gets calories they will tend to be larger (there is a lot of genetic variation between humans that makes hard to measure at levels smaller than national population over decades), in various ways and need more calories to maintain the same weight. It isn't clear if this shows up in anything other than body size though some suspect it does.
There is also the question about what people eat between meals. Some people eat big meals but never snack between meals. Some people don't eat much at a meal - but they always have snacks in between. There is a lot of variation. I know some people who get half their calories from soda (beer is another large source of calories for some people, but that starts to get into alcoholism).
There is probably more that you don't know about others and so be careful about drawing any conclusions.
Reubachi•1d ago
That growing young male teen you reference (not sure why we need to focus on boys, here) would not in any circumstance choose a 500ml Coca Cola to satiate their "hormones". Nor word any trained dietican.
That's the point of this discussion. There is enough information to learn everything about a healthy balanced diet. Your point is not that; rather your point is that there are....different habits of animals. Yes, agreed.
bluGill•1d ago
I agree that soda is not a good way to get those calories
ThrowawayTestr•1d ago
discomrobertul8•1d ago
As the sugar level is directly proportionate to the overall volume, it can be quite surprising how much sugar there is when you aren't used to such massive servings.
thaumasiotes•1d ago
There are two sizes of single-serving sodas sold commercially in the US.
A small one, a can, is 12 oz, 355 mL.
A large one is 20 oz, 591 mL.
To buy a 32-ounce soda, you'd have to do something very strange.
(There is another common commercial size, the two liter bottle of exactly 2000 mL. Those aren't intended to be bought and drunk; they're intended to be bought, taken home, and stored in your refrigerator over time.)
eigencoder•1d ago
parineum•1d ago
thaumasiotes•1d ago
You might be able to do it at a 7-11, since they sell empty cups that you're meant to fill with a slurpee. I don't know if they also have soda fountains to fill those cups.
rkomorn•1d ago
The largest coke you can order at McDonald's in the US is 380 calories (100g sugar) (not sure what size because it's not obvious from their website).
The largest coke you can order at McDonald's in Portugal (where I happen to be) is 197 calories (49g sugar).
- https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/coca-cola-large.h...
- https://www.mcdonalds.pt/produtos/mcmenu/bebidas/coca-cola-5...
ted_dunning•1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Gulp
At least they eventually reduced the Double Gulp down to 1.5L.
rufus_foreman•1d ago
noelwelsh•1d ago
The stats say it has greatly decreased sugar consumption in soft drinks. From my point-of-view (someone who rarely drinks soft drinks) it seems that most soft drinks now mix artificial sweeteners and sugar, so effectively all soft drinks are now "diet" varieties.
masfuerte•1d ago
Swizec•1d ago
Wait till you see all the tricks food producers use to avoid the added sugar label. “grape juice concentrate” is not an added sugar if the food is grapes flavored, for example.
Increasingly marketed-as-healthier foods don’t include any sugar at all. Yet half the ingredients are various sugars. Sometimes as cheeky as “sugarcane concentrate”
parineum•1d ago
Of course, all of this information is already available via nutrition facts for most sold foods.
The root problem here doesn't seem to be the availability of information, I expect it to be more about the availability of time and effort to spend on priority of personal health. I don't think the issue is that people don't know that food isn't bad for them, it's that their health is lower priority than their immediate needs of feeding themselves and their families.
If anything, as you point out, this seems to be a better way for food manufacturers to bend the rules to avoid the logo and make something seem healthier than it is rather than giving more information to consumers. The _fact_ (X Grams of Sugar) is on the package but the logo indicates that the food contains more than x grams of "recommended" "added" sugars, two things that can be misunderstood and/or gamed.
Swizec•1d ago
Drinks in particular are tricky here. Take apple juice for example. You can have 2 brands with vastly different sugar levels and neither has added sugar. Just different concentrations.
Consumers (especially kids) will generally prefer the sweeter brand. And it all sounds healthy because it’s marketed as pure fruits! It’s even true, the juice is pure fruit. Just in concentrations that are extremely unhealthy.
mikeodds•1d ago
Only 146g of sugar, 26g of saturated fat and 1100 calories.
https://foods.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/sonic/banana-...