The Jordan Reason You Should Only Drink Water
vs
The Science Reason You Can Drink Diet Soda
by Jordan Hildreth, Co-Host The Gym Closet (A Krave Gym Podcast)
Hello folks, I am here today to talk to you about why you need to drink only water all the time. No soda, no beer, no wine, no nothin’. Just good ol’ fashion H2O. I want to preface all that I’m about to say with: this is my opinion and it is not based on any science. That being said, let me tell you why science has it wrong. In this blog I will formulate a 1-part argument that can be used time and time again. That argument, “You should drink a little water”. It’s simple, direct, effective, and versatile. You will soon see how I can turn any argument against it upside down in an instant.
First thing’s first, let me debunk the myth of aspartame being bad for you. It has long been debated that aspartame, which is found in most diet sodas, can cause cancer. There was a study done on mice that had a strong correlation between the two. I don’t have the exact numbers used in front of me and I don’t care enough to look them up but it turns out that the amount of aspartame they were giving the mice was equivalent to a metric butt-ton of diet sodas. Basically, a high enough number that you don’t have to worry about it. The other “problem” with aspartame is that one of its metabolites, methanol, can produce formaldehyde. If you are unfamiliar with formaldehyde, it is not something you want to consume in large doses. Lucky for you though, the amount produced from diet soda is 1000x smaller than what your body produces naturally. At this point you may be asking: “Jordan, this is all pointing to diet soda being perfectly fine. When do we get to the part about why we should drink water instead?” To which I say, we are already at this point. If you know all of this and think you can now safely consume diet soda without water, you’re wrong and you should drink a little water.
Having debunked the major problem people have with diet soda, the next question might be: “What is diet soda made from? Can it be substituted for water?”. Well, let’s break down the ingredients! In a Diet Coke you have: carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate, natural flavors, citric acid and caffeine. Oh-HO! Look at that, nothing in there that’s bad for you AND it contains carbonated water. One might naturally assume this means it can hydrate you and work as a replacement for water. Wrong again! Carbonated water is water that has bubbles, which means? You guessed it. It’s not plain water, so you should drink a little water.
The final topic I am going to get in to, does drinking diet soda cause your brain receptors not to react correctly to real caloric intake and does the sweet taste make you want to over eat? This was one of the main ideas behind the documentary Fed Up. (We speak briefly about being skeptical when watching a documentary in this podcast). This turns out to be largely a hypothesis with little to no evidence to back it up. Study after study has been done on diet soda but this particular phenomenon has not had a single strong correlation where variables are correctly counted for. This means you do not have to worry about your appetite not being satiated if you drink a diet soda. At the very worst it has not been proven yet. You do, however, need to worry about the fact that, AGAIN, this is not water. Meaning, you should drink a little water.
This is all I have to report on this subject, I hope my line of thinking was not too difficult to follow and you are now on team water, despite what “science” says. If you enjoyed this blog and would like to hear more, please check out our Podcast! While there, if you like us, please make sure to rate, review and subscribe.