I think a good rule of thumb is "everything in moderation." Excessive use of anything isn't healthy.
- Except plutonium, man that stuff will mess you up.
  
  Everything in moderation. Just one or two atoms at a time.
  
  Allegedly crack also isnt that good for you
- Yeah, I mean drinking too much soda in general isnt exactly gonna be good for you regardless of how its sweetened.
  
  However, if you are drinking a lot of soda, better you drink diet versions and get exposed to this spurious "possible" cancer risk than get exposed to ridiculous amounts of sugar that will all but guarantee weight gain and the build up of insulin resistance
People have been freaking out about it since it was first introduced. Can't count how many times someone has told me to put down my diet soda because it causes cancer/diabetes.
- Same as microwave oven, cell phones and laptops. Human beings freak out about stuff that they don’t understand, it was then thunder that human freak out about, it is now technology that human freak out about.
- I wonder if there would be that much worry about it if it didn't taste like shit.
I quit artificial sweeteners last year. Just use real sugar in moderation. Seems to be working for me. Biggest change is switching to water to drink. Once you conquer that the rest is cake.
- Sugar is still a highly processed sweetener. Even brown sugar sold on a supermarket has gone through several processing steps. At this point, the healthiest way to sweeten your food is not sweetening it at all.
  
  Abstinence is the safest way to have sex.
Soda companies could literally just switch to stevia or monk fruit tomorrow and it wouldn't be a problem. The only issue is their refusal to change.
- Aspartame doesn't taste great, but stevia is just awful
  
  A lot of people complain about it, but I don't have any problem with it. I enjoy stevia-based sodas like Zevia or even hard seltzers with it (Truly has a few) with no problem. I wonder if it's one of those things where it tastes different to various people like cilantro.
  
  It's the most metallic, awful tasting thing. It feels like I'm allergic to it or something. Like it makes my mouth subtly burn.
  
  I'm more of a monk fruit person myself too honestly.
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32811239/
  
  TL;DR Stevia is shit and bad too
- I find stevia based sodas taste better anyway
- I'm a card carrying hippie and I fucking hate stevia. It ruins all it touches.
- Yeah buuuuuuuuut bottom line et al
  
  If you don't mind me being pedantic, "et al." is short for "et alia" which means "and other people". "Etc", short for "et cetera", means "and other things". You only use "et al." when talking about people not named in a list.
  
  The More You Know 🌠
  
  Which I don't understand. It literally would be cheaper for them to use stevia or monk fruit and call it a day than to quibble over something so trivial.
  
  Bottom line won't change when users of your product are addicted. Since coke etc. are full of sweetener, which I assume causes a similar level of addiction to regular sugar, those that drink it won't mind if the price goes up 5 cents or whatever because cola put some slightly better sweetener in it. Cola would probably just make a new branded version or slap a "new an improved flavour" on the can and jack up the price by 10 cents anyway. Actually, people are pretty particular about the flavour, so that's probably why they won't do it. They must have gradually shitted up the recipe to get to the current version so people didn't burn down coke HQ.
I mean, to be honest, with 1 in 2 women and 1 in 3 men in the US estimated to get cancer in their lifetime, I'm just not surprised anymore when someone tells me <insert whatever> is linked to cancer.
- The main risk factor for cancer is old age. Wealthy countries have a lot of cancer because a lot of people live long enough to get cancer.
  
  Yep. Nobody dies of just “old age”, there’s always a cause. Unfortunately cancer is the cause that is the hardest to treat.
Still tastes like crap.
- I seriously take issue with how artificial sweeteners taste. It's terrible.
  
  I really don't understand how people can't tell, I'm starting to wonder if it's a genetic thing like with cilantro.
  
  Unfortunately, not everyone thinks it tastes badly. Even worse I’m someone who can absolutely tell the difference between sugar and sucralose (Splenda) and it tastes god awful.
  
  I’ve gone from drinking sugared drinks to almost none or low sugar only. I try to keep it at 28g or less per 16oz if possible. However, I’ve really taken a liking to sparkling water. There are some great flavors out there.
Wasn't aspartame also linked to liver failure in the 90's? 🤔
- Afaik it has been linked to cancer for about that long too. Used to tell my mom that aspartame (in her diet cokes) causes cancer all the time in ~2000-2001, don't know where I heard it back then but obviously someone knew because child me was not a biochemist with a lab enough to come to that conclusion by myself.

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