A Sip of Soda

Not surprisingly, this infographic doesn't paint a very pretty picture of soda drinking.

(Click for full image)

Still want to hold onto your 2-liter bottle of root beer? Here's another infographic about soda consumption.

[Source: Bits & Pieces]

"It's Just a Soft Drink."

Correlation ain't the same as causation, but I can't really blame folks for thinking that drinking two gallons of Coke each day had a little something to do with 30-year-old Natasha Marie Harris's heart attack death.

Harris' partner, Chris Hodgkinson, testified at the inquest that Harris drank between 8 and 10 liters -- 2.1 and 2.6 gallons -- of regular Coke every day, according to the Associated Press. 

"The first thing she would do in the morning was have a drink of Coke and the last thing she would do in the day was have a drink of Coke by her bed," Hodgkinson said. "She was addicted to Coke." 

Harris reportedly had some other unhealthy habits. Hodgkinson said she ate little and smoked about 30 cigarettes a day. In the months before her death, she experienced blood pressure problems and lacked energy, he said.

A pathologist testified that Harris's death was caused in part by severe hypokalemia -- a lack of potassium in the blood.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told HealthPop that drinking too much soda can cause hypokalemia because of several factors, one of which is called "fructose induced osmotic diarrhea." Too much fructose and sugar may lead to diarrhea and during diarrhea the body loses potassium. 

What's more, Glatter said, sugar stimulates insulin release which also drives potassium into the body's cells, causing potassium levels in the bloodstream to fall. Then there's the caffeine, which is known as a "beta-agonist," that also drives potassium into cells and away from the blood. 

"So you're getting a double whammy from caffeine as well as the sugar," Glatter told HealthPop. "You're drinking three to nine liters a day of this stuff, you're going to have significant issues." 

"I never thought about it," Hodgskinson told the Herald of soda making Harris ill. "It's just a soft-drink, just like drinking water.

Not quite. Pro tip: You know what's just like drinking water? DRINKING WATER.

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Just Drink Water

Remember, kids: Fruit drinks are eeeee-vil.

Check out the full infographic by clicking here.

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Seven Signs of the Foodpocalypse

1. Darth Vader Burgers -- soon available in France and Belgium!

2. Chicken & Waffle Wings -- because how else are you going to eat chicken and waffles in the car?

3. Bacon Soda -- swine plus sugar water equals yum!

4. Mountain Dew -- it dissolves rats!

5. Dulche de Leche Cheerios -- they're "naturally flavored" with caramel!

6. Chocolate Covered Totino's Pizza Rolls -- because why the hell not?

7. SPAM Mints -- for hot dates who love Hormel products.

Not everyone's trying to eat healthier this January, I guess.

"Healthy" Happy Meals?

McDonald's announced today that it's making changes to Happy Meals by: (1) adding a serving of fruit or vegetables, and (2) subtracting 1.3 ounces of French fries from the existing portion size. By next spring, all 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. will feature the new "healthier" Happy Meals.

The fast food chain will continue to serve apple slices (minus the caramel sauce that currently accompanies them in Happy Meals), but plans to include carrots, raisins, pineapple slices and mandarin oranges in the rotation.

As for the fries, why not cut them out entirely? Because "children and parents rebelled."

"People come to McDonald's and, first of all, they want the choice and the control to be theirs, but their expectation of a Happy Meal does include a fry," said Jan Fields, president of McDonald's USA. "When we did it without fries, there was a huge disappointment factor."

"Experts" have declared that McDonald's is moving in the right direction:

Geeta Maker-Clark, a family physician at NorthShore University HealthSystem, described the changes as "really good steps."

"I applaud any move toward including more whole food into a heavily processed meal," she said. "Bringing a whole food into it shifts the pendulum toward something more healthy, and I applaud the decreased portion sizes."

My prediction? These changes won't make a dent in childhood obesity.

Kids'll continue to gobble up the McNuggets they fish out of their Happy Meals. They won't miss the 1.3 ounces of fries that McDonald's is taking out 'cause they'll just grab more from their parents' large order of fries. Then, they'll suck down the Coke that came with their Happy Meal, play with the crappy little toy that came with their food, and THROW AWAY THE TINY PACKET OF CARROTS.

Let's get real: People who regularly feed their kids at McDonald's aren't the type of parents who are super-concerned about making sure their offspring finish a few carrot sticks. Don't believe me? McDonald's has been offering apple slices with their Happy Meals since 2006, but "only 11% of kids meals are ordered with apples." And of those 11 percent, I wonder how many packages of apple slices are left untouched.

If fighting childhood obesity was truly McDonald's aim, it'd get rid of the sodas. But that's not what the chain is after. As the L.A. Times put it, "[t]he business strategy for McDonald's is to make parents feel less guilty about feeding fast food to their children, so they'll become more frequent customers." And viewed through that lens, this move is likely to be a rousing success -- for McDonald's.

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The World's First Huffable Soft Drink

Are you bored with your HFCS-infused carbonated beverage? Is sucking a straw too physically strenuous for you? Have you found yourself snorting a can of Cheez Whiz for dinner on a Saturday night, wishing you could power-wash it down with a pressurized stream of sugary soda?

Well, if you're in the U.K., your dreams are about to come true.

Introducing Turbo Tango, the huffable soft drink in an aerosol-pressurized spray can!

With a retail price of £1.60 for 375ml, the product is aimed at teenage consumers.  

Britvic collaborated with a team of more than 40 developers to create what is claimed to be the world’s first plastic aerosol drink.

Simon Stewart, marketing director at Britvic said: "Teen consumers told us they found the category 'samey' and were ready for something genuinely new and different. The reaction to Turbo Tango has been amazing from consumers and customers -- we’ve certainly never had teens trying to buy a pack from us in research before."

Labelling on the cannister advise users to "Hold upright and squirt in your mouth (and nowhere else)."

What excellent advice!

My favorite quote from Mr. Stewart: "With Turbo Tango, we’ve gone one step further and come up with a world first that really is ‘soft drink meets squirty cream.'"

Yum?

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Bizarro Food of the Day

1. Butterfinger Buzz. "Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery bar with caffeine!"

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2. Cheerwine-Filled Krispy Kreme Donuts. "[A] true celebration of two southern heritage icons doing something quite magical for loyal fans in the south." Fun fact: "Something quite magical" is code for "diabetes."

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3. S'mores Sliders. I can't decide whether I want to: (A) eat this, or (B) vomit.

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Time for lunch!

Irony is Best Served in a Half-Gallon Jug

Isn't it awesome that KFC is supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation by donating proceeds from its HALF-GALLON "Mega Jugs" of sugar HFCS water?

I knew it all along: SODA PREVENTS DIABEETUS!

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Soda & Meat

An "unusual" flavor indeed.

On second thought, I guess I shouldn't knock it 'til I try it. After all, my mom braised some pork belly in Coca-Cola last year, and it actually turned out pretty good.

Plus, any recipe that starts with the words "GASH FAT" is okay in my book.

(Source: The Gallery of Regrettable Food)

Babies + Bacon

The makers of Baconnaise have outdone themselves with Bacon Baby:

The only thing that smells better than little babies is bacon. So slather some bacon lip balm on that bacon-formula-chugging baby, pop open a bottle of bacon soda while you feed your infant, and make your nursery smell like an awesome roadside diner.

(Before you get all excited and rush out to buy some bacon infant formula, I should point out that it's not real. All the other bacon-y stuff is available, though. And you can make your own Paleo-friendly Baconnaise with this recipe from Paleo Diet Lifestyle.)

Caffeine + Alcohol = Satan

Prompted by bug-eyed media reports about Four Loko-related hospitalizations (and deaths!) of college-aged drinkers, the FDA's about to ban caffeinated alcoholic drinks. In response, Four Loko's manufacturer has announced that it's preemptively removing the caffeine from its beverages.

But fear not. If you're the kind of person who can't abide the thought of starting the morning without the equivalent of three beers and three cups of coffee, you have options:

• Have three beers and three cups of coffee.

• If you need a stronger upper/downer combination, I have one word for you: Speedball.

• But cocaine and heroin don't come in exotic fruit flavors! The solution: Make your own homebrewed Four Loko with Crystal Light and grain alcohol! Or better yet, mix up a batch with Jolly Ranchers candies, caffeine tablets, a Monster Energy drink, Sprite, and malt liquor. (Bonus: Sprite kills cancer! Kind of. Okay, not really. At all.)

(Photo: Kyle James)

Sweet Thang

I have a confession to make: Although my diet has been pretty much free of sugar (aside from the fructose in berries, root vegetables, etc.), I've been getting blasts of sweetness from two very un-Paleo sources: Artificially sweetened gum and diet soda.

I'll pause while you recover from this earth-shattering news.

I chew gum only when I'm driving -- sometimes to help keep me awake and alert during my mind-numbing daily commute -- but I log a lot of miles, so I frequently go through Costco-sized boxes of the stuff. I'm sure the parking valets in my office building are revolted by the number of wadded-up gum wrappers scattered like so much confetti all over the interior of my car.

My Coke Zero intake, however, isn't limited to the car. I've stockpiled a few dozen cans of the stuff in my garage, ostensibly for "guests" who crave the sweet, sweet taste of aspartame. But even when no one else is around -- especially when no one else is around -- I'll pop open a can. And at work, the company cafeteria has Coke Zero in the soda dispenser, and it beckons me every time I pass by. I resist -- usually.

In my defense: In "The Paleo Diet," Loren Cordain -- the Yoda of caveman eats -- includes artificially-sweetened diet sodas in his list of "foods you can eat in moderation." And it's not like I guzzle the stuff.

BUT:

• Artificial sweeteners may sabotage weight loss and weight management efforts. In the words of Robb Wolf and Mat Lalonde, artificial sweeteners "cockblock fat loss."

• Despite being "sugar free," products containing sugar alcohols like sorbitol, maltitol and xylitol can raise your blood sugar.

• Use of artificial sweeteners has been linked to a two-fold increase in insulin resistance and diabetes. (Of course, the skeptic in me suspects this correlation could be explained by greater intake of diet soda by unhealthy pre-diabetic and diabetic folks who are trying to cut their sugar intake.) 

• High doses of sucralose have been shown to reduce normal, healthy gut flora by half (in rats, anyway).

• Adverse reactions to aspartame include everything from migraines and moodiness to cramps and diarrhea. (My wife, a drug dealer by trade who has a degree in nutrition and food science, puts it this way: "Some sugar substitutes are osmotic laxatives -- they can't be broken down and makes your gut hyperosmotic, which gives you the shits.")

Looks like I have some more weaning to do.

Sometimes, Paleo is no fun at all.

(Photos: bukowsky18, mastermaq)

The Sheer Awesomeness of Sugar, Soda, Coffee, Cigarettes & Guns

Ah, advertising. Don Draper would be proud.

But one of the ads below is fake. (Yes, just one.) Post your guesses in the comments!

[UPDATE: The answer is after the jump...]

16 Packets of Sugar

My only issue with this video? It's not just the calories that are the problem.

Link Dump

For those of you who think the KFC Double Down is for pussies, check out IHOP's Pancake Stackers -- a "crustless cheesecake" sandwiched between two pancakes, topped with artificially flavored fruit compote, and served with eggs, bacon and hash browns. And it contains only 1,250 calories!

I bet the increasingly girthy fast food fans over in Qatar can't wait to try out this barftastic combo.

Speaking of emetic mash-ups, half-spinning/half-yoga classes are popping up all over the place. (Well, New York, anyway.)

But before you bike like crazy, slurp down an ICEE first. As the New York Times reports, "researchers have found they can delay the time to utter exhaustion by getting people a bit chilled" prior to exercise. And apparently:

all you have to do is drink an ice slurry, also known as a slushie, before exercising. In a new study, [it was found] that young male recreational athletes who drank a syrup-flavored ice slurry just before running on a treadmill in hot room could keep going for an average of 50 minutes before they had to stop. When they drank only syrup-flavored cold water, they could run for an average of 40 minutes.

And while we're on the topic of food, we eat too much salt, as this handy (and scary) infographic shows:


Good thing PepsiCo's on the case. Rather than changing the flavor of its overly-processed snacks, PepsiCo's investing time and effort into rejiggering the crystal structure of salt to keep us happily addicted to the company's abhorrent (but tasty!) junk food.

By the way, soda makes you age faster. There's nothin' like being fat and old!

But don't worry: The Wall Street Journal tells its fat cat readers that carrying around an extra ten pounds is no big deal. (Best quote: "And it can make you look younger, too"!)

Lastly, I've been eying the Tough Mudder (which the New York Times just wrote about). But I suspect that -- as with most things that involve barbed wire, flaming hay bales, copious amounts of mud, and two-to-three hours of sustained physical exertion -- I probably won't follow through.

But the Tough Mudder home workout looks pretty decent.

Soda = Tobacco?

"Is soda the new tobacco?" asks Mark Bittman in the New York Times.

Like cigarettes, soda is clearly a health hazard. The average American drinks about 50 gallons of soda per year, and the prevalence of sugary, fizzy beverages is linked to the explosion of obesity and diabetes in children. As Bittman points out:

[S]ugared beverages are the No. 1 source of calories in the American diet, representing 7 percent of the average person’s caloric intake, according to government surveys, and up to 10 percent for children and teenagers. These calories, they point out, are worse than useless -- they’re empty, and contribute to a daily total that is already too high.

Efforts to implement soda taxes to curb consumption are increasing, but like Big Tobacco, the soda industry continues to "market[] heavily to children, claiming their products are healthy or at worst benign, and lobbying to prevent change." In fact, Big Soda's protests are almost comically similar to the tobacco industry's claims about the folly of reducing/quitting smoking. For example:

• The president of the American Beverage Association, Susan Neely, "acknowledges that obesity is a problem but says: 'If you’re trying to manage people being overweight you need a variety of behavior changes to achieve energy balance — it can’t be done by eliminating one food from the diet.'”

• J. Justin Wilson, a senior research analyst for a soda industry-sponsored advocacy group, argues that "there is no unique link between soda and obesity.”

• PepsiCo's senior vice president of "global health policy," Derek Yach, claims that “simply pricing one product higher would lead to unknown effects on total dietary consumption. It may even lead to worse situations: people may stop spending on one food and eat more of another, so taxing high levels of sugar may lead to eating higher levels of fat.”

In other words, industry reps argue that a soda tax won't help slow the obesity epidemic, and might actually accelerate it because the thirsty hordes will rush to replace their 64-ounce Super Big Gulps with fatty death shakes or cupfuls of lard. Does this sound even remotely plausible?



If soda is truly like tobacco, then the good news is that education about the harmful effects of soda consumption will likely change people's behaviors and habits. As Bittman notes, "[t]he public war against tobacco has worked, if imperfectly: Americans smoke at half the rate they once did, half of all smokers have quit, and the tobacco companies finance strong antismoking campaigns."

I have a buddy who used to guzzle Dr. Pepper. Each day at work, he'd polish off a six-pack of the stuff while sitting at his desk. But once he came to understand exactly what it was he was ingesting, he put himself on a peculiar but effective diet, which he called "Meat-or-Soda."

The rules of the Meat-or-Soda Diet are pretty simple: Each day, you can choose to consume either meat or soda, but not both. My friend wasn't about to give up meat, so his soda consumption dropped significantly, and so did his weight.

Obviously, this isn't a diet I'd recommend to anyone who's vegetarian or otherwise already eating pretty healthfully, but it just might help move the needle for carnivores who drink nothing but soda.