I will also say that seeing the quantity of sugar in things represented as a pile was definitely a motivator for me to basically stop drinking soda, so there are people out there for whom it matters. At least one, anyway!
"Strange, my smoothie tastes like it has artificial sugar now" I thought, come to find out they're made with Splenda and I couldn't tell before that.
"May be worse" is hard to argue when one has direct, obvious negative effects and the other has a series of much more weakly linked possible results.
people should be encouraged to enjoy soda with real (cane) sugar sparingly, not just switch to slamming diet soda all day instead.
Suggests otherwise, diet soda results in obesity and diabetes at a rate approaching 2:1 when compared to regular.
It turns out that trying to fool our systems with "reduced fat" and "reduced sugar" results in our bodies not being fooled.
The old I am going to order a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, and a Diet Coke.
https://www.diabetesdaily.com/blog/2014/06/do-diet-sodas-cau...
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/diet-soda-weight-gain-metab...
I haven't heard anything about this. Do you have a source? The second item strikes me as the same health reactions non-celiac "gluten sensitives" get.
and for some evidence: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/sorbitol-side-effects.html
We already have science that shows diet sodas increase diabetes and obesity almost 2 for 1 (through calorie) craving and are in many ways worse (calcium malabsorption) than high fructose corn syrup.
Then we have you ignoring the science, and saying just choose diet soda.
A study analysing 36000 deaths and 3 million person-years (published by the American Heart Association) found a 21% increase in all cause mortality among those consuming 2 or more sugar sweetened beverages per day. Consuming 2 or more artificially sweetened beverages, on the other hand, was associated with only a 4% increase. And moderate consumtion of artificially sweetened beverages (< 2 per day) was actually, unlike sugar, associated with decreased mortality. [1]
[1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....
We already have diet soda, yet people choose full sugar.
Edit, the downvotes + comments in reply really tell the story. People don't care if things are unhealthy, if it tastes good, they do it. This exactly reflects the original comment, even if people don't want to hear it.