Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dagoat 2686 days ago
Except that soda has other things in it that are bad and aren't called sugar. And juice still has many vitamins and minerals retained.

I get what you're saying, and I'm not claiming juice is healthy. But it's certainly heathier than soda. Whole fruit is, of course, far healthier than juice

2 comments

For most of us vitamins is rarely a problem.. so if we ignored that.

Then do we have any studies to suggest soda contains "bad" stuff that juice doesn't.. I feel like we often associated natural things with being healthy, without necessary justification :)

> For most of us vitamins is rarely a problem.. so if we ignored that.

What are you basing that on?

> Then do we have any studies to suggest soda contains "bad" stuff that juice doesn't

Probably.

Look at a few labels of various sodas. You'll often find things like phosphoric acid, artificial colours, artificial preservatives, caffeine, artificial sweeteners etc.

Are these the worse things in the world? Probably not.

Are many of these things good for you? Probably not.

Do they do more harm than good? Possibly.

> I feel like we often associated natural things with being healthy

I feel like we often look at nutritional labels and draw conclusions based off of macronutrients/calories - without much contemplation of the ingredients

> Look at a few labels of various sodas. You'll often find things like phosphoric acid, artificial colours, artificial preservatives, caffeine, artificial sweeteners etc.

This is still just the Natural = Good, Artificial = Bad fallacy. You can't just list some stuff with chemically sounding names and say "look - scary bad chemicals!". What specifically are you claiming is bad?

You went from "soda has other bad things in it" to "probably, possibly, maybe" as soon as you had to be more specific.

> You can't just list some stuff with chemically sounding names and say "look - scary bad chemicals!"

I didn't say "look - scary bad chemicals!", you did.

> What specifically are you claiming is bad?

I provided a non-exhaustive list of things previously. You seem aware of that, so I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If the list isn't specific enough, what were you looking for?

> You went from "soda has other bad things in it" to "probably, possibly, maybe" as soon as you had to be more specific.

Sure. I usually don't speak in definite terms - especially when I haven't looked up things of this nature and studies of these particular ingredients for years - probably over a decade. So I'm going off memory.

Feel free to research various ingredients in soda that fall under the categories I've listed (and beyond) and refute them being bad with data. Otherwise, you just aren't being very specific

Edit:

> This is still just the Natural = Good, Artificial = Bad fallacy

To be clear, I am not making that argument. I do not believe this, and this is a miscategorization of my point.

Soda is not equally as healthy/the same as juice. Whether marginally, or not, my point is that juice is healthier than soda

I asked what you were claiming was bad because I can't find any evidence that any of the things you listed are bad, the worst thing I can think of is the addictive properties of caffeine.

> Soda is not equally as healthy/the same as juice. Whether marginally, or not, my point is that juice is healthier than soda

I said almost, there is of course some tiny amount of dietary fiber in orange juice, and vitamin C (which would only have an effect if you were deficient). The downsides due to the large amount of sugar, and acid on your teeth would be roughly the same for both.

> what were you looking for? "artificial colours, artificial preservatives, artificial sweeteners"

Which ones? Your repeated use of the word artificial is why I believe you are succumbing to the "artificial = bad" fallacy.

> "phosphoric acid" From Wikipedia: "Products such as soft drinks that contain phosphoric acid pose no threat to human health in general."

I'm not going to do any more research than this, I only have so much energy for internet comment arguments, but feel free to provide justification for your claims.

I'm very tempted to invoke Hitchens Razor here.

> Which ones? Your repeated use of the word artificial is why I believe you are succumbing to the "artificial = bad" fallacy.

I opted to generalize in those instances. As there are a multitude of artificial colours/preservatives/sweeteners used in the soda industry.

Sure I could have said E150d/E102 instead of artificial colours. Or sodium benzoate/etda instead of artificial preservatives. Or acesulfame potassium/sucralose instead of artificial sweeteners.

However, someone could then point out "well X mainstream soda I drink doesn't have all those". Which could be accurate, as the formulas and ingredients of sodas vary.

However, the vast majority of mainstream sodas use at least one of those _types_ of ingredients.

Listing them all out felt unnecessary, I assumed the reader would have heard of or seen an example(s) of each/some and understand my point.

There are a few others per category that are widely used in the soda industry, so it would be a decently long list - to the point where such a list would likely detract from the point (or not, from your perspective)

Edit:

> "phosphoric acid" From Wikipedia: "Products such as soft drinks that contain phosphoric acid pose no threat to human health in general."

Phosphoric acid has been linked to kidney stones and osteoporosis. Does that mean everyone who drinks a coke will get a kidney stone and break their limbs? No.

If you could avoid drinking a coke/mountain dew every morning and have fruit juice instead, would you live a radically healthier life? Probably not, but it's healthier.

As I have mentioned earlier, it could just be marginally, but I think it's quite strange to suggest they are equally as heathy/bad as each other - which you appear to support

Do you know what dietary fiber is?
> soda has other things in it that are bad and aren't called sugar

Be specific.