Can I Just Enjoy This Damn Diet Coke Without Being Ashamed of My Health?
Another day, another wet blanket article that talks about my true love: Diet Coke. According to The Cut , my favorite soft drink (and # 1 energy source) can kill me a little:
A recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that drinking one artificial sugar drink per day may lead to a higher risk of weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
As someone who has been using Diet Coke since the mid-eighties, I don’t find the above set of words extremely interesting. Also, I don’t think this is exactly what the study says. In fact, the interpretation of the data printed in this study seems a little hazy:
Data from randomized controlled trials does not clearly support the purported benefits of non-nutritive sweeteners for weight control, and observational evidence suggests that regular consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners may be associated with increased BMI and cardiometabolic risk. Further research is needed to fully characterize the long-term risks and benefits of non-nutritive sweeteners.
For me, “clearly does not support” means that you do not have very strong arguments, but this is not my point of view. I don’t think anyone is under the impression that diet soda is healthy, and those who consume it definitely don’t believe it is a healthy drink. Of all the soda drinkers I know, very few drink diet sodas because they think it will lead to weight loss. (APPENDIX A: This unscientific Twitter survey .)
Diet Coca-Colas drink Diet Coke because we love it as hell . (I also drink it because I’m from a Diet Coke family; I didn’t even try regular Coke until I was eight.) But Diet Coke is a drink that people just love to hate. I have a lot of bad habits, but no other habit has fought off as hard as my habit of enjoying an ice cold diet drink. This suggests that two of my favorite bartenders, who served me far more alcoholic drinks than soft drinks, only threatened to interrupt me once, and the threat came not from a martini or campari, but from a sweet silver can of aspartame … packaged nectar. I had real cocaine users who would end up telling me the story of how much cocaine they ate over the weekend (the most boring story ever) and then start a lecture on how the Diet Coke I was holding in my chubby little hand was going to kill me (a cocaine user usually holds a pint of tequila or whatever).
Here’s a hell of a hacking life hack for you: enjoy a couple of vices. Sure, you can try to extend your life by giving up gluten or drinking coffee (or not drinking coffee), but life shouldn’t be about denying yourself, and what’s the point of living if you do it without joy? Diet Coke fills my day with joy (and enough caffeine), and I don’t understand why so many people want to rob me of my joy. (Again, don’t say this because they’re worried about my health; if people were really worried about my health, they wouldn’t want scams like this on Instagram.)
Do I have a headache if I drink more than four a day? Yes, but I got a stomach ache if I ate a whole box of kraft pasta, so I just consume less of these foods. (Anything worth loving should hurt you a little – that’s my motto.) There is no compelling case for Diet Coke as a healthy choice, but the study I mentioned at the beginning of this article on soda versus diet was wrong. … also not very convincing. If you’re really concerned, I think you can enjoy La Croix – although I’ve heard the soda naysayers are trying to take that away too – but please leave my Diet Coke alone.