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Coke vs. diet coke

Loads of sugar vs. chemicals. I'm curious...which one is worse?

Wed. Jan 4, 1:12pm

Well, they BOTH are full of chemicals! Aspartame isn't any worse for you than any of the other stuff in there.

I like diet better because it's less sweet-tasting.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 1:16 PM

It depends on your viewpoint, no one can really give you that answer.

If you're drinking just a few a week, or on special occasions, it probably doesn't make much difference (though you should make allowances for the calories if you drink regular). If you drink many throughout the day, though, studies have proven that either one will cause weight gain (or loss when you stop). You're better off drinking something else and saving soda for a special occasion.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 2:50 PM

I'm curous -- which studies?

There was one VERY hyped study last year, covered in the press as if it definitively showed that all non-calorie sweeteners triggered a physiological response in people similar to that caused by sugar. I read the original paper and wasn't very impressed: (1) sample size wasn't great; (2) experiment was done on mice only, and it's not as if it would have been difficult to do on people; (3) because it was done on mice, which don't taste aspartame (aspartame is only "sweet" to higher primates) they used saccharine, which is a totally different compound!

I'm not too credulous about studies generalizing from saccharine fed to mice in mouse chow ALL the way to aspartame fed to people in soda. Has anyone done the experiment with people?

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 3:24 PM

I'm in agreement that cutting out (or seriously decreasing) soda intake is the best bet. I was a Dr. Pepper girl in my teens and throughout college. After thinking about all the ways in which it's bad for me, and realizing that I was wasting money and that often I didn't even WANT the soda that I thought I'd been craving... I stopped drinking sodas a year and a half ago. Admittedly, I do still drink an occasional root beer, but it's very infrequent. I drink lots of water all day, and feel great.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 3:38 PM

Neither one is good for you. My doctor told me diet coke has aspartame in it and that triggers you to eat sweets. Aspartame is not good for your liver. I was a avid diet coke drinker for over 35 years and I stopped a year ago and only drink water. I sleep alot better and my complextion looks great. Also when I went off the diet coke I got bad headaches doctor told me I was having caffiene withdrawls. I don't drink coffee so I thought he was crazy. Check out with your doctor about drinking any cola's.

Saturday, January 7, 2006, 5:31 PM

I used to drink more soda than I do now, althought it was only diet. I find the sugar sweetened ones too sweet! I have since switched to water and tea (w/o sweetner) and choose soda occasionally when I am out- it seems to taste better out of a fountain anyway. I don't seem to miss it at all.

As for answering the original question- I would pick diet, unless you have room for all the empty calories sugared soda contains or you're sensitive to non-nutrative sweetners.

Saturday, January 7, 2006, 5:38 PM

Personally, I vote for NEITHER as well.

I mean, the commercials tout Caffieine free diet Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, etc. to have
no sugar and no calories....

Think About it:

1) Grab a glass of water-- no sugar, no calories....
2) Add some Splenda or aspartame.
3) grab a COs cannister and inject some bubbles
4) Grab some artificial colors and dump that iin... If you want regular Coke, grab a container of sugar and start spooning it in...
5) Oh, and don't forget the No-Doz tablets if you want the caffeine....
6) Drag a cola nut through the whole thing and Voila! your own homemade diet Coke.
7) Natural flavors are usually "naturally occuring MSG"... so don't forget to add that in as well!

Sound yucky or silly? Take a moment to think about what goes into any type of pop (soda)... then ask yourself whether you want to put that in your body...

The answer should be clear....

Saturday, January 7, 2006, 5:41 PM

I think the original poster knows that "neither" is the ideal answer. However to answer the original question of which is worse. From a Chinese Medicine/Holistic follower's point of view the regular soda is better. No one really knows the long term affects of drinking diet soda. Aspartame is a man-made sweetener. In general, the more processed something is, the worse it is for you.

Saturday, January 7, 2006, 10:05 PM

I disagree

What's important, short-term, is your sanity. So is it better for your plan (if you're trying to lose) to have regular or diet? Of course, diet. I mean, yes, ideally we would drink only distilled water and occassional herbal tea, and eat only organic foods, and never indulge in chocolate or deep-dish pizza, but for many of us that's just not realistic. You have to make changes that are sane to you! I myself have tried eliminating EVERYTHING that might be processed, chemical, or unhealthy, but it's not do-able for me. I suggest switching to diet, and having less over time. Eventually you can cut it out altogether but the occasional diet soda is not going to make or break your health. I don't have any "studies" to back that up, but I can tell you that eliminating just one 8oz. regular soda from your day can allow you to lose up to 15lbs. in a year.
It's Diet for me.

Saturday, January 7, 2006, 10:30 PM

I would hove to say that it is neither. I stopped drinking all pop about 6 days ago and I already feal better. I drink tons of water every day now. Now pop is not only bad for your health when it comes to the concerns of weight loss but it is also horrible on your teeth. I used to go to Lawrence Tech University in Michigan which has some of the best programs in the country including chemical engineering. They did a study to see how bad of an affect pop has on your teeth. They put an adult molar in a glass of regular pepsi and by the time they got back to it the next morning, the tooth was litteraly gone. The acid in the pop completly wiped out the tooth. The had a camera on it too and they were showing the 15 minute progress of the tooth dissapearing. I believe it took 7 and a half hours for the tooth to completly dissapear.

Sunday, January 8, 2006, 2:23 AM

Lawrence Tech? That's in my neck of the woods! (And, you say "pop" vs. soda, so I know you're from the midwest... LOL)

Yes, you are right, the acids in Colas are really bad. I think I read somewhere that you could use Coke to clean the toilet (because of the acids) and that if you put a steak in it, it would also dissolve...

Artificial sweetners, in general, concern me. We don't really know the true long-term effects of those types of chemicals. In the U.S., we've become so reliant on processed foods, that it's not too surprising that children are hyperactive and suffering from allergies, etc. For many of us who are a little older, our parents tended to make our lunches and dinners instead of packing "lunchables" and microwave dinners.... Consuming sugar and other artificial sweeteners is a learned behavior, not something that is natural.

So, like what we are trying to do with our fitness, we need to re-program our brains to accept something else in place of the things that are bad for us...

Not to say that all processed foods are bad, but i think that if you were to make a spritzer with tonic water and a shot of juice, I'm sure it would be a lot healthier and still have the fizziness of other pop....

Put it this way, if the doctor told you tomorrow that you would have to give up chocolate or cola because the caffeine was causing you fibroids in your breast tissue or ovarian cysts (which is something that has happened to several of my close friends), would you continue to drink it? or would you give it up? Those of my friends who have had to do so did it unwillingly, but now they are not even tempted to even try either one....

Sunday, January 8, 2006, 12:29 PM

My decision

I read up a lot on this, and I discovered that artificial sweetners have the same glycemic index as table sugar. On top of that, some farmers feed their cows artificial sweetners to FATTEN THEM UP. So I made a decision...I used to laughingly refer to myself as a "coke whore" because I couldn't get through the day with my diet coke fix. Now, if I have a diet coke, I ONLY have it on Saturdays (my free days). Also, I don't drink regular coke at all. My mom was diabetic and I was raised on "diet" everything (and still ended up obese) hmmm...

Sunday, January 8, 2006, 12:59 PM

A little perspective: regular Coke is acidic enough to be a great brass cleaner. Really, I've used it at home. But a normal person's stomach is a lot more acidic than that.

Also, (to the person two posts above) do doctors still tell people that caffeine causes fibrocystic breast disease?? I thought this was disproven 20 years ago.

Refs., although many may not be able to access them:
Ernster VL, Mason L, Goodson WH 3d, Sickles EA, Sacks ST, Selvin S, et al. Effects of caffeine-free diet on benign breast disease: a randomized trial. Surgery 1982;91:263-7.
Allen SS, Froberg DG. The effect of decreased caffeine consumption on benign proliferative breast disease: a randomized clinical trial. Surgery 1987;101:720-30.
Lawson DH, Jick H, Rothman KJ. Coffee and tea consumption and breast disease. Surgery 1981;90:801-3.

I'm not saying that knocking back a liter of Coke a day is good for you, but once in a while it is really not going to hurt.

Sunday, January 8, 2006, 2:50 PM

Apparently yes, they do. I have several close friends / family were told to lay off the caffeine because it aggravated their fibroids (they were all advised this in the recent past, not 20 years ago.)

They have had to give up all caffeine, INCLUDING chocolate, but they figured that if it meant a healthier lifestyle and lessening a risk, that would be better than indulging. In fact, my one friend won't even touch a single M&M--she is that religious about it (She had fibroids, and is a very health-conscious person.)

I hope I didn't come across as being hyper critical of the Original Poster, I am only trying to give her some food for thought...

And, yes, you are right-- the concept of moderation is the key thing. Having a soft drink once in a blue moon is not going to cause too much havoc on your body.

Although, I have other friends who drink diet Coke religiously and rarely drink water... In fact, they sometimes wake up and have a diet Coke first thing in the morning...That's not a good idea in general...

For those who want a pick-me-up with caffeine, there is a product called "Water Joe". Basically, it's caffeinated water-- sold in lots of college towns.... If it's the caffeine you're craving, then you might consider that option, vs. the colas with artificial sweetners... ( I haven't ever tried the Water Joe, so I have no idea how it tastes.)

Monday, January 9, 2006, 12:56 AM

thinking short term is a little naive- it's more short term thinking that makes people fat and unhealthy- because you assume long term, your habits will change, and they don't change that much.

Weight isn't the only health concern, and filling your body with chemicals it wasn't designed to digest, consume, or intake, is not healthy- short term or long term. We're naive if we think that all of our health concerns will go away because we lose weight via the calorie in/calorie out equation.

Go for sugar over artificial sugars any time.

Or better yet, try Knudsen spritzers- sugary, but all fruit juice sweetned, and absolutely yummy.

Monday, January 9, 2006, 2:44 AM

Hi, I'm the geeky fibroid reference poster above...

So, uterine fibroids are a different thing from fibrocystic breast problems. But what the heck, I'm a med ctr. researcher so I've been scrolling thru the literature databases at lunch. I can't find any studies at all on the effects of caffeine on existing uterine fibroids (leiomyomata). I did find 1 2004 study on black women's health indicating that caffeine is NOT correlated with initial development of fibroids in black women, but that BEER is.

There may be some older studies on caffeine worsening uterine fibroids that are not electronically indexed. OTOH, some doctors repeat some seriously out-of-date "common knowledge," such as the breast thing.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006, 12:50 PM

Another neither....

Coke is no longer made with sugar, but high fructose corn syrup, which is very hard on your liver among other things. It has also been linked to irritable bowl syndrome in women. If water doesn't appeal to you and you need something sweet and fizzy, mix fruit juice (100%) with plain seltzer or club soda. Over time, decrease the amount of fruit juice. You will find soda is sickeningly sweet after this.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006, 8:07 PM

From the view point of someone who was drinking up to 2 cans of 'normal' coke a day I would say diet is a much better option. Going cold turkey I've found is extremely difficult so I'm replacing coke with diet and then I'll reduce how much of that I'm drinking until I don't need it at all.

But I really wish I had never started drinking coke in the first place I never use to but for the past year I've been drinking it like water.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 6:55 AM

Trust me, 2 cans of coke a day is not "drinking it like water," although it's probably more than is good for you! I used to go out with a guy who drank two LITERS of Pepsi every day.

Years later, I went out with a different guy who (a) had trouble sleeping, and (b) had TERRIBLE breath. I made him go to the doctor about the halitosis -- the doctor asked him how much coffee he was drinking (I only ever saw him drink 1 cup in the morning at home) -- when he totalled it all up, it was more than 2 GALLONS every day.

So don't beat yourself up over a couple cans of Coke -- you're doing well to reduce gradually, and I'm sure you'll succeed.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 8:43 AM

My son collected some coke cans with the Blue Jays world series on them. (This was years ago) And within a year the coke ate through the cans and leaked all over his closet. If it does that within a year of eating the can what is it doing to your stomach?

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 11:26 AM

Considering that it sits in your stomach for about 15 minutes, and that your stomach acids themselves are much stronger, not a whole lot.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 11:41 AM

Some practical advice

Fruit juice mixed with fizzy water and unsweetened tea (iced in the summer, hot in the winter) are my preferred cola alternatives.However, if I'm in a restaurant and they don't have fresh-brewed ice tea (I always ask because packaged teas often have as much sugar as soda), then I order diet coke. Why? restaurants usually serve way, way more than 8 oz and I usually drink the whole glass without really tasting what's in it.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 3:06 PM

As someone who drinks about 1 can of DIET pop a week (at the most 3) I say that just because it is diet we should cut back. No matter what the problem is. We don't need those chemicals in our bodies,whether they are harmful or not. Lets face it people, chemicals are chemicals we aren't factories.

Link

Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 3:12 PM

caffeine effects of coffee vs. soda

it really depends on how much caffeine is in the coffee and what you put in it. A single toxin is easier for your body to handle than multiple toxins. Black coffee might be something to consider if you are worried about overall health effects.

Saturday, April 21, 2007, 9:13 PM

try the sodas made with splenda, they're tasty without the fake-y aspertame after taste.

Saturday, April 21, 2007, 10:26 PM

I don't like sodas, diet or otherwise, for the simple fact that they bloat you for a day or two even after just one. I drink water with lemon or lime juice instead. I treat myself to a diet soda only if I'm craving something sweet. Better to drink 0-cals than eat 300-cals in a chocolate cake! lol

Sunday, April 22, 2007, 12:48 AM

Fountain

For years I've been convinced that fountain diet coke from McDonalds dominated any other fast food resturaunt. I ran into a manager from Coke this past week and found out that McDonalds filters their water for their fountain drinks. They also calculate the average time it takes the ice to melt so that the syrup in the fountain will still taste fresh. Amazing. I always knew it was better. Just thought I'd share.

Sunday, September 30, 2007, 7:06 PM

And here I just thought it was their fat straws that made McD's sodas more appealing! Interesting stuff 7:06!

On Diet vs. Regular. They're both evil - stay away!!

Sunday, September 30, 2007, 7:27 PM

Thank goodness my mother the hypocrite would drink her Diet Shastas but never let any of us kids have any soda at all. To this day I loathe cola and drink maybe 1 orange pop a year, if that. Thanks, Mom! One less nutritional concern I have to deal with. Good luck to the rest of you who are trying to kick the habit. Plain water is the best.

Sunday, September 30, 2007, 11:29 PM

my rule

I used to drink diet coke all day long (I work at home) but I stopped buying them and drink water or tea instead. But I allow myself to have one if I am eating out - which is not that often.

Monday, October 1, 2007, 6:17 AM

Quit

Is cold turkey the best way to stop drinking diet coke? I understand the health risks associated w/ the fake sugar, but every time I try I get bad headaches in the morning and throughout the day...

Any advice??

Monday, October 1, 2007, 3:39 PM

Im for team diet coke!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 4:27 PM

Coke vs DIet coke

Regular Coca-Cola is actually far better for you than Diet Coca-Cola believe it or not. Aspartame, the chemical used as a sugar substitute is very harmful. The FDA has come up short yet again and let corporations slide by adding the chemical Aspartame to be able to label products as "Diet". Not only is there much controversy as to whether the chemical has any benefits in regard to weight loss but it was never thoroughly experimentally tested.

Various studies have shown that long term effects in lab rats given aspartame include; developed tumors, deterioration of skin tissue, and loss of vision. Unfortunately the Coca-Cola company has largely supported politicians in favor of leniant FDA policies in regards to Aspartame, thus such findings are over-looked.

http://www.myaspartameexperiment.com/index.php?page=2.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 11:43 PM

I prefer the taste of diet pop vs regular pop. I find that it doesn't taste as sweet.

Diet Pepsi all the way!

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 1:00 AM

If you are not ready to give up your (diet) coke habit -- I know I'm not ready to do that entirely! -- you should buy yourself a large box of straws and always drink out of them. The acids and carbonation in both are very bad for your tooth enamel, and using a straw will keep your teeth healthier and whiter. The more you drink, the more important this is.

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 11:12 AM

Artificial Swwetners and Cancer

OK, let me be up front in saying, I drink Coke Zero on occasion. It is true. Not judging.
My mother back in the 80's drank diet Pepsi like a fiend. Diet Pepsi had sacharrin, which later we found causes cancer in animals. My mother got throat cancer, never smoked a cigarette EVER! Throat cancer is the #1 brand of smokers cancer which is why I mention it. It was concluded that the throat cancer was most likely caused by years of artificial sweetner. I gave this some thought recently and threw out all of my Equal and Splenda. Thought being, sugar is natural, since forever, people enjoyed sugar and the body knows how to break down and deal with sugar. Who knows how the body deals with the chemical alterations involved in artificial sweetners.
Seperate note, I have also given up margarine in favor of butter for the afore mentioned reasons.

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 5:35 PM

Caffeine Headaches... BE GONE!

This may sound ridiculous, it may not. Cold turkey is best, I quit cold turkey and yes, oooohhh yes, I had headaches. When you start getting a headache from caffeine withdrawal, Take your pointing finger and thumb, and on your other hand, squeeze the flesh between your thumb and pointing finger. Put pressure on this spot and you should feel your headache disappear. You may have to do this 2 or 3 times. This is a reflexology technique and it works wonders for me. It may not work for everyone though.. Try it out!

Thursday, May 27, 2010, 2:25 PM

Neither. One has high fructose corn syrup plus chemicals. The other has aspartame plus chemicals. I used to drink a lot of coke before I found out I had diabetes. Then I started drinking diet coke, and drank a whole lot of that before my doctor told me that aspartame has been shown to aggravate migraines and fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome.

You can make your own sodas with natural fruit juices and seltzer water. If you can start with fresh pieces of fruit and put them through a juicer or smoothie maker, that's even better.

Of course there is no fruit that tastes like coke or diet coke, but I'd rather drink something without chemicals and high fructose corn syrup or aspartame than have that specific taste.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 1:04 PM

NEITHER, no pop is good for you!!! It makes you bloated and pumps you up with sugar and chemicals. There is no point in drinking these empty calories!!!!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 2:38 PM

exactly. I don't want to drink my calories away, and I've switched to water with a little help from my friend Crystal. Crystal Light LOL It's hard. but Diet (IMHO) is better, since there's fewer calories and you don't get the sugar spike. IF and WHEN I have one. There's actually a Weight Watcher's Diet Soda Cake that's pretty interesting. So I keep diet on hand, just rarely drink it.

Friday, June 4, 2010, 8:53 PM

There is not much difference between coke and the diet coke as the main difference is more and light sugar. So that have a look on their preparation best phd dissertation writing services it is easy and use some alcoholic products in it.

Thursday, September 24, 2020, 2:54 AM

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