Soda help! page 3

[Drumroll]

I stopped drinking soda years ago and now I find it rancid. I agree with the others - soda is pure crap and you just need to stop.

I don't even really like fizzy things anymore, but if I want something with fizz and flavor, I get seltzer. They come in all sorts of "natural" flavors, but I usually just go for plain seltzer with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, and sometimes with muddled berries. I've also added a drop or two of vanilla extract to a glass of seltzer and it's pretty damn tasty.

The danger of the "natural" flavors in the flavored seltzers is that the FDA allows ALL forms of artificial sweeteners to be labled as "natural." So, some of those "naturally flavored" seltzer waters may actually have the artificial sweeteners you were trying to avoid.

[Gadsie]

Personally. I SOMETIMES have iced tea sweetened with sugar and stevia. Because of the stevia they only add 1/2 teaspoon every 100 ml

[cantat]

I still struggle with soda cravings (non-diet soda, that is). Mountain Dew used to be my soda of choice, then when I went primal, it started tasting too sweet on the rare occasions I would have it. Then I started craving Dr. Pepper (one of the most, if not the most, acidic sodas there is). Man, I get done training and I want to mainline that shit. Anyway, I don't drink coffee or tea, but I know I'm addicted to caffeine...so I chose to work on one thing at a time. Get caffeine pills. One pill is 200 mg of caffeine, about a cup of coffee, and regular Mountain Dew has 55 mg per 12 ounces. I started out taking half a pill in the morning and half a pill mid-afternoon, but now I usually just do half a pill in the morning unless I'm really really tired. Once your body stops craving diet soda as the mistaken source of energy, you probably won't crave it as much. Also, I found the most effective way to battle sweet cravings is to cut that shit off completely, and after a few days it starts to go away, and usually by the end of a week, the cravings are minimal. Don't give in to the cravings. Eat fat instead. That doesn't mean don't eat fruit, mind you - it just means don't eat fruit in answer to a sweet craving.

Syd

[not on the rug]

water or tea.

my real suggestion is this: if you don't buy the soda, you can't drink the soda. so don't buy it.

[ennaejay]

Ok, I've been mostly primal for two months now. I do 20/4 fasting and a 48 hour fast once a week. To date I've lost 20 pounds, which it's about half of what I want.

My question concerns Diet Mountain Dew. I'm addicted to it. I drink 2-3 24oz DMD's a day. I need a substitute, something similar but healthier for me to redirect my addiction to. I've considered diet sprite, but I don't know if that will be any better for me.

Does anyone have any suggestions, please?

Thanks everyone!

Easy peasy! Haven't read through all the replies yet, but just take plain seltzer water (unsweetened, of course, with no additives), and add your lime or lemon juice, some honey, etc.... I made "grape soda" once just using Welch's 100% grape juice halved with seltzer water. As a family we never buy or drink sodas (I use seltzer in my baking sometimes) but it was a nice treat to have a fizzy drink. Totally, make you own!

[Forever Young]

THANK YOU! And for the record aspartame is the most tested consumer product in history. I have a doctor friend who calls it the most safe food on the planet.

Well your doctor friend is an idiot! But that's not surprising knowing how little most doctors know about nutrition.

Do some research of your own on aspartame. If you do, you'll find out that it didn't do well at all in the testing required for FDA approval. It was shown to cause cancer. The verdict was that it should NOT be approved. The head of the FDA then was the former CEO of the company that developed aspartame. Guess what happened next? Bingo! It was approved!! Since its approval, autoimmune diseases have skyrocketed. The number of young lives that have been ruined is astronomical. I personally know two people that are very sick and its directly attributed to drinking diet soda over a period of time.

You can deny this all you want. Put fake things in your body and sooner or later you'll pay for it.

Oh and for the record, the stuff is banned in many countries because its widely known to be dangerous. In this country, its ALL about the money and nothing else.

[MissJecka]

Well your doctor friend is an idiot! But that's not surprising knowing how little most doctors know about nutrition.

Do some research of your own on aspartame. If you do, you'll find out that it didn't do well at all in the testing required for FDA approval. It was shown to cause cancer. The verdict was that it should NOT be approved. The head of the FDA then was the former CEO of the company that developed aspartame. Guess what happened next? Bingo! It was approved!! Since its approval, autoimmune diseases have skyrocketed. The number of young lives that have been ruined is astronomical. I personally know two people that are very sick and its directly attributed to drinking diet soda over a period of time.

You can deny this all you want. Put fake things in your body and sooner or later you'll pay for it.

Oh and for the record, the stuff is banned in many countries because its widely known to be dangerous. In this country, its ALL about the money and nothing else.

You completely took the words out of my mouth.

My cousin in London has told me that he adores the fact that aspartame is banned in all children's foods (but unfortunately still allowed in "adult" foods... whatever that means...) so he doesn't have to scour food labels for his daughters. Also, a Filipino woman I used to work with would only buy/import/bring snack foods and other sweetened food items from her home country because she felt she could trust the ingredients there better (as the Philippines have banned aspartame, I believe, because of health issues that resulted from it).

[bloodorchid]

I love the bullshit claims of: "It's poison in a bottle". If you like diet soda, drink diet soda. Show me hard evidence that the chemicals in diet soda are "poisonous".... I want to see the fatalities linked to diet soda consumption... I would like to see that versus breathing the air in L.A.

i don't know if it's poison but i do know it messes heavily with my hunger levels

[Leida]

I just do club soda with a slice of lemon or lime if I feel like something cold. But, I was never addicted to the soft drinks. However, yes, I find that all sweeteners mess with my hunger levels and sugar/carb cravings a big time.

[ShakeragSusan]

Not as a final solution, but as a weaning off the Mt. Dew solution, our local healthfood store sells carbonated soft drinks sweetened with stevia. Some flavors have caffeine (like their version of Mt. Dew) and some flavors don't. The Mt. Dew and Dr. Pepper copies are pretty good. The root beer is not good in my opinion. Yes, I know it isn't Primal, but as a step to wean, I think it could help. For me, they are treats I have when I have a headache. I don't do caffeine normally and that is usually enough to do the trick.
It's called Zevia and the ingredients look pretty good to me.

My mom suffered from aspartame poisoning until she got rid of Diet Dr. Pepper. She had numbness in her fingertips so severe she hotglued her fingers to the project she was working on and couldn't feel it!