Calorie free?

Random

I'm truly confused. I thought everything contained calories in one form or another? I look at a bottle of "7up free" and it says that it's calorie free?

Can someone explain?

rubadub

It is basically water with artificial sweetner, acids & flavourings. There are calories but there are only trace amounts. I expect guidelines allow them to say calorie free if under a certain amount. Some diet drinks like club orange are 10%+ juice so do have a few calories. Water contains no calories, in fact if you drink cold water your body must heat itself up again and uses calories in doing so. I also imagine drinking lots of water gets the body processing/working more even if at body temp.

Random

So this means that it's like drinking water in terms of being "bad for you" or "good for you" ?

Forgive my stupid questions

olaola

Most liquids (even from food) contribute to your 2ltrs a day.

So this drink will be used by your body to rehydrate. There are different views
on carbonated drinks/artifical sweetners etc. At the end of the day, water is probably best. But if you don't care about the possible effects of sweetners, drink away.

Random

The effects of sweetners being what?

And you're saying that drinking 7up free doesn't effect trying to loose weight or whatever?

rubadub

The acids will still be bad for your teeth (acid is worse than the sugar). Drinking stuff with caffeine will dehydrate you, caffeine like alcohol is a diuretic (makes you pee).

Water would be best, but I drink lots of diet drinks myself, 7up free & club orange are my favourites. Coke free does taste very like coke now. And I prefer diet pepsi over pepsi max.

Studies show that drinking spirits with diet mixers leads to a higher concentration of alcohol in your blood than drinking the same amount with normal mixers in the same time. This means if you are out to get to a certain level of tipsiness then you only have to drink a small amount of spirits, so you take in fewer calories from the alcohol, and of course less calories with the diet mixer. And saves you money in the boozer.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1646002.htm

TerrorFirmer

No, it won't. As someone just said if you're not concerned about the potential issues arising from artificial sweeteners (it's not that big an issue to be looking at unless you're drinking an awful lot of the stuff however), drink till you burst.

BigTommyBomb

There are some health issues with sweeteners but not as far as weight loss or gain is concerenced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame

rubadub

ciaranfo wrote:

And you're saying that drinking 7up free doesn't effect trying to loose weight or whatever?

Drinking it will not make you lose weight, niether will drinking lots of low fat milk or lean cuisine meals.

It only helps if you are substituting stuff. So if you eat 2500kcal per day and usually drink 1000kcal worth of 7up then switching to 7up free means you have knocked out 1000kcal per day via substitution. Same goes for low fat versions of foods, they will not be calorie free but will cut down on your usual amount. It all adds up.

I love fizzy drinks, and though sweetners might have some side-effects, I figure they are better side-effects that the ones are from being overweight.

hardtrainer

It's calorie free. It does contain some, but they are trace.

Like everything though, best to be kept in moderation. The jury is still out on artificial sweetners. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid them, but I wouldn't go eating them with gay abandon.

If you are trying to lose weight, read the stickies, lots of good tips on reducing your intake, or better yet, just getting your daily calories from better, wiser sources.

And remember, Low fat doesn't necessarily mean it's better for you. If they've laiden it with sugar to make up for the loss of fat (as they usually do) then you'd be better with the full fat original, just reduce the portion size a little.

Transform

I know of NO ONE absolutely never met anyone who got in great shape while consuming any kind of soft drink, period!

Sweeteners keep people hooked on sweet foods, excess carbs and so forth

Random

I never ment to suggest a person would get in great shape by drinking 7up free - I just don't understand how it could add calories if it says that it's calorie free?

davyjose

Transform wrote:

Sweeteners keep people hooked on sweet foods, excess carbs and so forth

Any protein shake I have ever taken (almost any supplement) has been sweetened in some way. Surely then these are as guilty as sugar-free soft drinks?

olaola

Transform wrote:

Sweeteners keep people hooked on sweet foods, excess carbs and so forth

I would have to disagree here - I'm not a major fan of sweet things. But sometimes if I'm parched I love something cold and fizzy.

If you're looking at it from a pure calorie point of view a 500ml bottle of regular soda will have about 200 cals, while a diet version will have about 5.

Random

So out of the average person supposed to consume 2000 or whatever calories per day ... the drink is only 5? So it's not bad for you?

hunnymonster

cold and fizzy could be sparkling water though.


I have no evidence but I would have to side with Transofrm on this one. I'm fighting a very serious pepsi max addiction at the moment. I tried going cold turkey (g'em met me that day) I had the shakes, felt awful, walked out in front of a car......... I'm reducing it by a bit each day now and starting to feel normal. I assumed it was just the caffeine but I drank some coffee still had the terrible withdrawal effects. I've no idea what's inthat stuff but it ain't pretty.


Another thing I've read about and not really understood is the insulin thing. The way I read it was when your mouth tastes the artificial sweetness, it thinks it's getting sugar so releases the appropiate hormones who don't find the sugar they're expecting <insert bit I didn't understand> and ends up using good stuff (muslce glycogen? muscle?) to make bad stuff <stored fat??> like I say I didn't understand the full arguement and I think it may have been in some sort of pop science rag, not exactly double blind, peer review studies.

olaola

ciaranfo wrote:

So it's not bad for you?

Depends on what your classification of 'bad' is.
If you are on a diet, and you wish to reduce the number of calories you take in per day and you replace your daily 500ml bottle of coke with diet coke.
You could have an approx deficit of 200 cals per day, which would add up to about 3500 in about 2 weeks. So, theoretically you would lose a pound every two weeks.

If your definition of bad is artificial sweeteners/carbonated drinks etc etc.
Then it is not good for you - period.

I don't think they are healthy, but I don't think they are detrimental to your health either. The most immediate effect would probably be on your tooth enamel (acid in the drink).
I would drink about 2 cans of diet drink a week. At the end of the day, while I would consider my diet to be quite good I still use artificial hormones, breathe second hand smoke and I sit for an hour a day in traffic fumes. A few grams of aspartame is not really at the top of my list of worries.

Here is some good info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_sweetener

davyjose

hunnymonster wrote:

Another thing I've read about and not really understood is the insulin thing. The way I read it was when your mouth tastes the artificial sweetness, it thinks it's getting sugar so releases the appropiate hormones who don't find the sugar they're expecting <insert bit I didn't understand> and ends up using good stuff (muslce glycogen? muscle?) to make bad stuff <stored fat??> like I say I didn't understand the full arguement and I think it may have been in some sort of pop science rag, not exactly double blind, peer review studies.

I heard something like this myself before, and that it can perhaps lead to metabolic problems. In fact someone, I believe, claimed that long term it could contribute to your metabolism dropping and that if you want to lose weight long term, your better off with the sugar (I dug about online for this and couldn't find it, but it was a definite theory)

rubadub

davyjose wrote:

I heard something like this myself before, and that it can perhaps lead to metabolic problems.

I have heard something like this too. The age old question are things that taste nice bad for you, and why dont I like the taste of stuff that is good for you. You have primitive brain programming to look for foods that will give you energy to stay alive, so high calorie foods taste "nice" as your brain is telling you that they will keep you alive. So I imagine your brain is telling you that these fizzy drinks are going to give you lots of energy, then you dont get it and it gets confused. In one way you might think that your brain will make all sweet things not taste as nice as it thinks you will not get much energy from them. Either way it messes with your system.

I'll still drink em though!

hardtrainer

Tasting something sweet in your mouth does not lead to insulin spiking. Blood sugar levels are responsible for changes in insulin levels and artificial sweetners do not change blood sugar levels (with the exception of sucralose, which is made from sugar and is still recognised as a sugar, despite having less calories).

Aspartame, acesulfame K and saccharrin are all approved sweetners. There have been weak links to cancer in humans and/or animals. Saccharrin has been found to cause cancer in rats but there is no evidence that it has any similar effect in humans. Aspartame was thought to cause brain tumours in people because there was an overall increase in CNS tumours following the introduction of Aspartame in the USA in 1981. We now know that the rise in CNS tumours actually began as early as 1973, 8 years before aspartame was available. As I said, very weak links and no conclusive evidence to say that they are dangerous. However, we cannot say they they are completely harmless yet either.

As to whether diet drinks are good or bad, thats really for you to decide. Many of them are acidic and will damage your teeth and as has been said, they do maintain the sweet addiction (which is a psychological addiction, not a physical addiction).