Diet soda doesn't make you fat. And a can of Diet Coke has about a third of the caffeine of a cup of coffee....so doesn't that make it healthier?!?

Actually, as long as health care is somewhat dependent on the collective- drinking soda does have a directly negative effect on non-soda drinkers as well. Though it won't have the direct physical danger, it just drives up healthcare costs making it even more unattainable to afford care. We're forking out a ton of money on meds and healthcare that could be partially avoided if people would stop the excessive sugar intake and maybe walk further than the distace between their couch and fridge once in a while.

diet soda contains terrible, terrible chemicals that have been linked to diseases like cancer and MS. there's NOTHING healthy about it.

Coffee consumption has fallen 25 percent in the past 15 years?

No. You can't just ignore half the words in a sentence and expect it to mean the same thing.

coffee consumption with breakfast outside the home has fallen nearly 25 percent

As in, coffee drank while ordering breakfast at a restaurant has fallen 25%. So Starbucks doesn't even come into play. (I'm assuming that picking up a pastry with your Starbucks coffee doesn't count as "breakfast eaten outside the home" in their study, but I don't know for sure. But I imagine they mean at a restaurant.)

All told, it sounds like a kinda stupid, very narrow statistic they found to poorly illustrate a point.

3 Cokes before she leaves the house!? That's insane. Cold cold water is the best thing in the morning.

It is disappointing to read stories like this in the news, because this person is clearly abusing her body by drinking three Cokes for breakfast. I do think there's a legitimate concern about overall obeseity due to the relatively smaller number of calories we are burning than we used to--now there are automatic elevators, power windows, labor-saving devices everywhere. Plus prepared food that is higher in caloric content than mom used to make. These are subtle yet real differences, and I think they're a significant part of the obesity problem. But people drinking three Cokes for breakfast is just stupid and obscene.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is a helluva drug...

Tron, my New Year's resolution to avoid high-fructose corn syrup ran into a snag when I found out KETCHUP uses it. It's in many BREADS. Ugh.

Still, swearing off the soda almost completely has to be a good thing. Or even just splitting the occasional soda with someone else might help. 6 oz. is better than 12 oz., and you still get to taste the delicious carbonated goodness of root beer...cola...cream soda...orange soda...seven up...artificially flavored grape soda...mmmmmmm

Doh! Homer Simpson moment....must find lime wedge and ice cubes to go with this WATER! God I hate this time of year. I quit smoking three years ago, that should be enough. Next thing you know eating lots of beef will cause "heart problems."

Beware soda AND bottled water!
Here's a good story on mostly the same thing but a little easier to read.
http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/

Also, who wants to support an industry that has aquired water rights in numerous 3rd world countries disallowing access to this water to native populaces just so they can bottle it to sell it at a huge profit to SUV driving fat Americans?

May I blow bubbles into some tepid tapwater? :-)

oh-- I completely forgot that you can blow bubbles with soda. Or is that chocolate milk.......

Yeah, Stilwell... it fuckin amazes me how many things say "all natural" on the front of the box, then on the back you see HFCS as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient.

LAME. That shit is NOT natural.

You can make heroin from poppy seeds and shit, but that doesn't make it "natural".

Well, duh. At least some fatty and high-calorie foods fill you up - non-diet pop is just sugar and caffeine. It'll give you a little energy burst, but you'll still be hungry.

My dad lost 30 pounds, mostly by cutting out pop.

MV - aspartame isn't great, but it isn't the killer some people say it is. Besides, my mom died of MS, and she never drank any diet pop...

There isn't enough HFCS in most breads for it to have any impact.

Somebody is taking big back-handers from the PR company:

There is nothing better than the feel of Coke on the back of your throat in the morning,” said McKinsey, a morning pop drinker since the 1970s, savoring the cold, stinging sensation that coffee drinkers just don’t get.

Fuck that. It couldn't sound more like an advertorial if it put on a Santa suit and sang "COKE IS IT".

why won't that nonsense about aspartame die...

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

Interestingly, ounce for ounce, a Coke has fewer calories than a latte from Starbucks. A 12 oz can of Coke has just under 150 calories and a 12 oz tall latte from Starbucks has 200 calories. So perhaps someone is healthier drinking Coke than coffee. (Plus, I echo divebarwife's comment about diet soda, since most of those I know who get their morning 32 oz soda drink diet. When I did, I was a Diet Mt Dew drinker. Six a day.) Also, the alternative that most people point to -- juice -- is actually higher in calories and rarely higher in nutrition than soda (unless there are vitamins added). eg, one cup (8 ozs) of apple juice has 117 calories nearly all from sugar. Whereas one cup of Coke has 97 calories. AND, not only that, but 2% milk has about 120 calories for 8 ozs, so it's higher in calories than soda, too! Sure, it has protein, calcium, added vitamin A and D, but as far as making people fat, it's worse than soda.

So before you start blaming soda for the ills of the world, get your facts straight and take a thorough look at the problem. We're a rich society that sits on its ass. I work on computers all day in front of a screen. I burn few calories until I go to the gym. That's our problem. We're designed to be efficient calorie users who have to toil all day and deal with famine. With how few calories we use, we have to consume an unnaturally low number of calories to stay fit. Most people would rather enjoy food than be fit. That's all.

Me, I almost exclusively drink water these days.

Hey! This is almost the same as Slog! Does Slog have HFCS? I thought Dan Savage was in Illinois, and here he is in Portland. He must be magic.

Just kidding around. For fun. You know. Ha.

Leaving.

"But four Cokes at breakfast is about as good for you as four cigarettes before breakfast."

Do you have a source for this statement?