Artificial sweeteners 'do nothing to help weight loss' (who knew)

[Cyn]

I fought science and won yo. I'm so badass.

[Ivve]

I lost 40 lbs in a couple months by just taking sugared beverages out of my diet. I don't feel very ridiculous.

I think it depends on exactly how many sugared beverages you're drinking. If you have one a day or less, you might not see dramatic results in doing this alone, but a lot of people really do just slam cokes all day long because they don't realize how many extra calories they're adding with all the beverages they drink. If you have 5 cokes a day at 150 calories each, just eliminating those is reducing your calories per week by like 5200. That's pretty significant.

[Kaali]

nearly all 'diet, lowcal, lowfat, reduce fat, fat free, etc' products are misleading. people are usually stupid and end up eating 2x as much as they normally would cause they think it's helping them to lose weight.

[Boyiee]

Well there is a lot of people that are on diets and drink diet coke, or put sweet n low sugars in their coffee.

Diabetes is a good thing.

[archibaldcrane]

nearly all 'diet, lowcal, lowfat, reduce fat, fat free, etc' products are misleading.

Name one beverage this applies to.

[Khamsin]

Name one beverage this applies to.

Diet sodas, skim/2% milk, etc. are all examples of diet/low fat/reduced fat/fat free beverages.

[archibaldcrane]

And how are they misleading again?

I guess I'm operating from the "not completely retarded" point of view here. If you are mislead by a 0-calorie bevereage...I don't know what the fuck.

2% milkfat milk is the least misleading labeling I've ever seen.

[Mayareira]

They aren't really misleading. Its consumers problem if they interpret low-fat as low calorie.

Low fat goods are pretty good for lowering your daily fat intake.

[Cyn]

Diet sodas, skim/2% milk, etc. are all examples of diet/low fat/reduced fat/fat free beverages.

What? Diet sodas have fat in them? Milk is pretty fucking obvious. 2% of the milk is fat, how is that misleading?

Fat in beverages has never really been much of a problem, it's sugar in them that has. Regular sodas and things like sweet tea have a TON of calories from sugar. For someone who consumes a decent quantity of those a day, guess what? You gain weight.

Marketing a 0 calorie soda as "Diet" is never misleading. If it had fat or sugar in it, it would not be 0 calories.

[Khamsin]

What? Diet sodas have fat in them? Milk is pretty fucking obvious. 2% of the milk is fat, how is that misleading?

Fat in beverages has never really been much of a problem, it's sugar in them that has. Regular sodas and things like sweet tea have a TON of calories from sugar. For someone who consumes a decent quantity of those a day, guess what? You gain weight.

Marketing a 0 calorie soda as "Diet" is never misleading. If it had fat or sugar in it, it would not be 0 calories.

No, but diet sodas are "diet", and fall within the "diet/low fat/reduced fat/fat free" category.

As for misleading, that wasn't me who said they were misleading, I was just saying what beverages those labels can apply to.

However, I think the guy who said they were misleading really meant instead that people see "diet" or "low fat" and think drinking it will take fat away, rather than simply lessen the rate of gain. i.e. you're only applying more pressure to the brakes, you're not switching gears to reverse.

[Cyn]

No, but diet sodas are "diet", and fall within the "diet/low fat/reduced fat/fat free" category.

As for misleading, that wasn't me who said they were misleading, I was just saying what beverages those labels can apply to.

However, I think the guy who said they were misleading really meant instead that people see "diet" or "low fat" and think drinking it will take fat away, rather than simply lessen the rate of gain. i.e. you're only applying more pressure to the brakes, you're not switching gears to reverse.

I don't know, I honestly think several people are blaming the products as being mislabeled and not people for being too retarded to understand what they read on the packages.

[Khamsin]

I don't know, I honestly think several people are blaming the products as being mislabeled and not people for being too retarded to understand what they read on the packages.

Well, it is true that in some cases, not necessarily this particular one, there is a lot of flexibility and ambiguity on what requirements must be met in order to apply a certain label to something. The FDA has its rules for many labels, but sometimes those rules aren't always in line with people's own intuitions on what those labels mean to them.

While it's common enough on food, you also see it on drugs a lot, too. Drug commercials and infomercials are notorious for being vague about the exact effect of what they're advertising, and can be somewhat loose with their labels, too.

But the "label" tangent might be veering off topic a little.

[Kerberoz]

So... you're saying that a lot of people are too stupid to educate themselves, apply common sense, and use the information available to them? Truly shocking.

...do people actually think that "diet" means it causes weight loss, or that random catch-phrases on the labels supersede the nutrition facts? Holy shit.

[Howard Roark]

I always laughed at what this one guy Jeff said in high school,

"What's with these fat chicks at the mall who order 2 Big Macs.... and a diet Coke."

[Cesaria]

The shit that's mildly misleading is the stuff that runs around labelling itself as "95% fat free" or whatever - while the average 11 year old is likely to turn around and point out that it's 5% fat... their parent on the other hand... Or shit like Special K cereal running all the ads on how low fat it is when it's full to shit of sugar is quite an amusing one.

If I drink soft drinks I tend to make it the diet option (I avoid diet coke cos it tastes like shit though) just to cut down on a bit of unnecessary calories, not out of some misguided belief that if I drink it I'll suddenly develop the body of a supermodel. I would say people ain't that stupid - but I did customer service work in the past so I know some probably are. Tend to prefer flavoured water anyway to diet fizzy pop these days - can't do the whole just drinking water thing (do at work tho - mainly to save my voice).

[wop]

Coke Zero > Diet Coke

[Bluefrostie]

I don't know, I honestly think several people are blaming the products as being mislabeled and not people for being too retarded to understand what they read on the packages.

Sounds like that McDonald's lawsuit from a few years back --- "I didn't know McDonald's would make me fat."

Is it really misleading, or is it that people either want to make a quick buck off suing places & having a reason to be overweight without blaming themselves?

[ByeByeTasai]

I think what's being said is that drinking Diet Soda will trigger a reaction that will cause you to absorb more Glucose from the other things you are eating and drinking, making up for the amount of sugar in non-diet drinks.