We are being sold #%*! food

[scipio]

Yesterday at work I felt like something fizzy, so bought myself a diet coke for the afternoon. The girl on the opposite desk looks at me in surprise and asks why I'd choose a diet coke since everyone knows it has way more sugar than regular. I snort and say that of course it doesn't, that's why it's diet coke. She gives me a withering glance and says DUH it's diet coke cos it has less fat than the regular but they have to make up for it with sugar! I explain that there's only a negligible amount of fat in coke and it's practically all sugar, but diet coke is pretty much sugar free. She then tries a different tack and says that actually she meant calories, yeah, diet coke has more calories not sugar, that's it.

I gave her my can and let her compare the nutritional information label to the one on her bottle of regular coke and she was absolutely shocked! This girl, like me, is trying to shed excess weight but is seemingly too lazy to do the little bit of reading that's printed right there on the food to see if it's suitable for her to consume or not.

Has the situation got so bad that old wives tales and made up rubbish are trumping information printed right in front of people? Or is the marketing so good that it doesn't have to? This isn't dieting advice or weight loss fads that you can choose between, these are numerical values that you can directly compare to each other that are sitting in front of our noses. I nearly ended this post with "That people wouldn't bother to do even a little bit of reading before making up their minds about something beggars belief" but then I realised that, actually, it really doesn't.

I'm not sure how many calories there are in a can of "normal" coke. I'm suspecting a good few hundred. You might want to mention to her that you burn approx. 350 calories on a 5KM run. For every can of coke she drinks she needs to do a 5km run to work off the calories.

I tend to find that focuses peoples attention. Then you can mention about the 1000+ calories in a Big Mac meal and how that is a 10-12km run....

[adouglasmhor]

I'm not sure how many calories there are in a can of "normal" coke. I'm suspecting a good few hundred. You might want to mention to her that you burn approx. 350 calories on a 5KM run. For every can of coke she drinks she needs to do a 5km run to work off the calories.

I tend to find that focuses peoples attention. Then you can mention about the 1000+ calories in a Big Mac meal and how that is a 10-12km run....

140 Calories in a can of coke, but as it's nearly all from sugar (apart from a tiny amount of oil in the corriander flavouring) that 's the same as just under 9 teaspoons of sugar - enjoy the insulin spike. A lot of dieters don't really know the difference between fat and sugar, so many low fat products are full of sugar and many sugar free products are full of fat. That is probably what has confused Katje's colleague, it's meant to - that's how the diet industry keeps selling the same shit year in year out to the same people who never really get where they want to be.

[scipio]

140 Calories in a can of coke, but as it's nearly all from sugar (apart from a tiny amount of oil in the corriander flavouring) that 's the same as just under 9 teaspoons of sugar - enjoy the insulin spike. A lot of dieters don't really know the difference between fat and sugar, so many low fat products are full of sugar and many sugar free products are full of fat. That is probably what has confused Katje's colleague, it's meant to - that's how the diet industry keeps selling the same shit year in year out to the same people who never really get where they want to be.

Quite agree - another thing that really gets up my nose (I'm talking UK here) is the so called fat free yoghurts that people tend to eat if they think they are dieting, again might be fat free but full of sugar.

[Katje]

Both good points, especially the one about hidden sugars. I'm trying to cut out sugar & most carbs but I have to read nutritional labels so carefully because there's sugar squirrelled away in stuff you'd never think it has a right to be - like 'diet' food and stuff that's supposedly fresh and additive free.

Another bug bear of mine "oh, diet stuff has so many chemicals in it it's actually healthier to eat the full fat/sugar version" as though they actually know what those chemicals are and that the non-diet versions aren't stuffed with chemicals and preservatives of their own anyway.

[Yoj]

Just point out to her its her ignorance about food thats probably made her fat in the first place.

[Vieux Normand]

...I explain that there's only a negligible amount of fat in coke...

"Fat Coke."

DJ, or rapper?