Ok, I actually read the articles Graebeard linked, and in nearly every one of them the stated reason that soda is bad for you was the HFCS content. Because fructose metabolizes differently than other sugars, messing with insulin levels - so, y'know, science. I'm just pointing out the blame isn't soda per-se, but one ingredient of it. (As an aside - I actually meant sucrose - not glucose - in the bit you quoted there. My bad.)
From what I've read, I've never been able to tell how different the metabolism of 50/50 HFCS is from sucrose, but I'm not surprised if there
is a difference.
Wait, what? You just said there's no problem with the HFCS
No, I didn't. I was correcting what I perceived as a misunderstanding of how much fructose is in HFCS as compared to table sugar.
Besides that, Obesity and diabetes are only two of the many health issues that were being discussed - and no, we don't have a gout epidemic among soda drinkers, or a soda-induced-cancer epidemic, or any of the others... So yes, if drinking soda was as big a deal as was being indicated, we'd all be a lot worse off.
You can't treat something like "obesity" as a singular problem, seeing as how it's correlated with so many other problems.
And honestly, blaming obesity or diabetes on soda consumption alone is silly when, as i pointed out, HFCS is in practically everything, and it is the ingredient in soda that is the CAUSE of the diabetes/obesity risk in the first place.
I didn't blame it on "soda alone", but it's a major contributor. For some reason, people treat soda much differently than they'd treat, say, candy, just because it's a drink, when it's basically the same thing. Also, in regular drinkers, caffeine can pose a problem as well; giving yourself a steady caffeine drip every day is
not a great idea.
See, now you're exaggerating what's been said. He said he gets headaches if he goes without caffeine - That's a withdrawal symptom and it will go away after a few days. That's it. That's a far cry from "can't function without it".
Huh? He specifically states that he needs to drink it in order to do his work. Sure, it might go away relatively quickly if he were to wean himself off it, but he
does have a dependency. He
explicitly states that he can't function in his work unless he gets it.
Caffeine dependency is really not a big deal health-wise, and his soda drinking is no different from all the people who need their coffee to get going in the morning. If he stopped cold turkey tomorrow, he'd be back to normal in a week or less.
When did I say anything about how it compares to drinking coffee in the morning? I never implied that it was any better or worse. Also, the difficulty of withdrawal has
nothing to do with the actual health effects of something. Well, unless you're trying to stop using it.
The most bizarre thing here is how nowhere is it stated in the article how much he actually drinks in a day - but everybody seems to be assuming he's drinking massive quantities. We have no idea how much he drinks, for all we know, it's a completely reasonable amount.
It says that he
drinks soft drinks instead of water, so he
must be drinking a lot. Enough to hydrate you in a day is a lot of soda! Okay, sure, I'll give you that it says "soft drinks" and not "soda", but he mentions soda specifically, the sugar content would be similar anyway, and the headaches lead me to believe it's caffeinated.
And everyone assuming he has a poor diet - Where is that coming form? The Single Meal eating pattern is not unhealthy - read the articles I linked to a few pages back - in fact it has specific health benefits, including, for example lowering your risk for diabetes and maintaining a healthy body weight. Just because his fridge is empty doesn't mean he's not eating - or eating poorly, in fact the article implies that he's buying his meals as he eats them. That's a common habit for folks on this dietary path- don't keep excess food around, then there's no temptation to snack.
His dietary habits
might not be unhealthy, but my initial guess would be that they are, for a number of reasons, including the "root-beer popsicles and handfuls of dry Crispix" mentioned. I guess I shouldn't assume much, though. It's not my business; I'm just speaking academically.
Wait, WHAT? This is EXACTLY what I was saying at the top of the post - it's not the soda that's the problem, it the ridiculous sugar content that's IN the soda - and you argued that it wasn't - said that FRUIT had more... and... But now you're saying that yeah, the problem with soda is the high sugar content? What?
Saying "it's not the soda that's the problem, it's the caffeine and sugar that's the problem" is kind of like saying "it's not cigarettes that are the problem, it's the burning tobacco that's the problem"; a tad silly, no? I also didn't say that fruit had more sugar, I said that it likely had more
fructose (as a proportion of monosaccharides).
Also, can you please pay more attention? The reason that quote doesn't make sense to you is because it
wasn't directed to you in the first place. It was a response to SirPenguin.
Suffice to say, and I'm done with the subject entirely: A "Good Diet" is not something that you can generalize. It is not an exact science. Every person is different. Different metabolism, different tolerances to various foods, different effects from any given nutritional source, different caloric quantities needed to function. So just because something works for you doesn't mean it's going to work for someone else. And Toady seems to be functioning just fine.
First off, although you're right, there are still some things you
can generalize, like "getting all your hydration in the form of acidified fructose-glucose syrup mixed with caffeine isn't a good idea". And I don't think whether or not he "functions fine" is even relevant; you can have completely atrocious and unhealthy habits and still function okay, especially when young. When it comes to poor diet and such, the risks are long-term, not so much short-term. Most smokers "function fine" too, even if they're going to die in 35 years from COPD. It's just not a valid argument to make. At this point, I'm speaking less about him, though, and more about your poor arguments. You cannot assume, in general, that a person's habits are healthy for them simply because they seem to be functioning okay at the moment. That just doesn't work.