Original story on Men's Health, posted on the Blue. One thing of note: only comparisons are made based on sugar content, so it's not exactly apples to apples.

I'm addicted to Red Bull (off and on) but it's scandalous how many calories are in those energy drinks. Sometimes I get mad that one company can monopolize my physical / mental state that way; at least if you're addicted to coffee or something there are multiple purveyors but with something like energy drinks comparison-shopping doesn't even make sense; I'm addicted to more than just its essence or whatever there's a mental connection with the taste.

(I promise to never write a sentence like that again)

I just emailed this to our nutritionist, to see if i could make her faint. She didn't.

I'm also developing a sense of taste that rejects a lot of these bottled contraptions when it comes to juice-like stuff (i.e. 'that's just bad-tasting.') Sometimes it's good to organically get to that point rather than have to intellectually parse out what's 'real' vs just flavoured.

Refusing to even consider consuming high fructose corn syrup goes part, but not all, of the way to staying away from these things.

Great illustrations. . .I hope that they are accurate. I have no idea how to tell if then are.

I blame Rockstar for putting me in the hospital with diabetic complications (aka HONK). I had been feeling run down, so I tried to counteract it with up to three Rockstars a day. I had no idea what it was doing to my glucose.

Anyway, weaned now. I subsist mainly on diet green tea today.

I've been enjoying reading that thread, how people's own food pecadillos [whether it's milk or aspartame or coffee drinks or caffeine] comes out in how they talk about the linked article which I agree was sort of weird, since it's only comparing sugar and not other good and bad for you stuff. How do people here feel about milk? I sort of like it, I get the political argument against it, but I always get surprised when I see people who are not vegan getting so grar about it.

I hope that they are accurate. I have no idea how to tell if then are.

They're just directly comparing the grams of sugar and the total calories from the nutrition information on each. Some of the drinks, of course, also have additives to supply vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes, so if one of these is, say, an important source of iron for you, and you eat the donuts instead, you're not going to get your iron. But on the other hand, you would be as well off eating the six donuts and taking a vitamin/mineral pill supplement.

Dare I say it: the donuts might even have more fiber.

The Cold Stone PB&C has the same saturated fat as 68 slice of bacon? Whoa!

Wow, craziness. I'm grateful that I lack a sweet tooth (just keep the salty/crunch snax away from me) and thus haven't been interested in these kinds of drinks but my son loves stuff like this and these pictures will be very helpful in the ongoing effort to educate him about making wise food choices. Thanks for the link, Miko.

hmm, yea personally I find that reading article comments in the wild seems an exercise in selectively ignoring idiocy.

to speak to jessamyn's observation, some of the GRAR in the article is pretty over the top, but then people sure do love to grind their personal dietary axen. I don't drink milk personally, but that's simply due to childhood lactose intolerance creating a lifetime aversion (reactionary puking does that to a person). I highly doubt soymilk, being the highly processed sugar laden artificial creation that it is, is much better for me or the environment than cow's milk. But it does taste yummy on Grape Nuts.

in other news: holy shit, beer snobs are snobby!

I think I tried Red Bull exactly once and it tasted (and smelled) like cherry ass. But that's just me. For me, energy drink = tap water. If I need electrolytes, I'm as apt to mix my own homebrew as buy expensive supplements.

Re milk: I like milk products but they hate me so. Lactose intolerance set in for me in my early 20s, the only surprise was it didn't happen sooner as it's near universal in Asians. Once in a great while I'll treat myself to a big chunk of stinky soft cheese and make my guts (and SO) suffer.

Being an infrequent dairy consumer, I always forget about the whole political thing attached but am occasionally reminded by it by a friend who has boycotted herself into only eating hay or some such.

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personally I find that reading article comments in the wild seems an exercise in selectively ignoring idiocy.

I think jessamyn was talking about comments on the blue, rather than comments in the article.

I think of milk mostly as an ingredient. Sometimes I enjoy a really cold glass of milk with something sweet. I don't have a big problem with keeping animals (humanely) for food, so I don't get GRAR about milk. I do get a little GRAR about the decpetive industrial foodmachine that produces this kind of stuff in the article.

These articles tend to interest me not so much for axe-grindy reasons, but because they are a good demonstration of how off perceptions can be. People are notoriously bad at estimating calorie content and portion sizes to begin with - throw a little marketing in there and it becomes very confusing. The comparisons make some points about the contents very clear. Just like with restaurant Ceasar salads that are diet-killers, this stuff might look like a pretty harmless indulgence, or even a health promoter, but that illusion has to stop when you look at what the stuff contains.

Even a peppermint mocha is fine if it's a rare thing.

I haven'r been able to tolerate sugary drinks since being sent to fat camp when I was 14. The only drink I put sugar in now is hot caffe latte (two teaspoons).

How do people here feel about milk?
Well, as long as it's cow milk, I love it (Soy milk tastes like crap and isn't milk, breast milk is far too sweet for my taste, although I've never tried it chilled). Love it, love it, love it. When I was at school, I used to work evenings delivering milk and we used to have competitions to see who could chug a pint bottle the fastest. Three or four times a night ...

I still love to drink milk out of the bottle, much to the disgust of my family.

The only thing better than milk is icecream. Well, and sex. Maybe.

As far as the link goes, it's all confusing to me and I don't understand most of the products they are comparing to, so it means little. I would have preferred a consistent product comparison so I could grasp the differences. What I did grasp though, was the thought 'my god, you Americans eat a lot of crap!'

'my god, you Americans eat a lot of crap

I think you got the gist of it. ;)

I've developed lactose intolerance in the last couple years, and after avoiding things I've finally come to terms and admitted it. My roommate has been since college so it wasn't a huge adjustment. We always had soymilk on hand, and used lactaid for cooking. Now it just means if I eat something with dairy I take a pill instead of getting sick and denying there was any connection.

Also, I too find myself addicted to red bull. And loathing the sugar free variety.