It’s very strange to include caffeine in that list of unhealthy things. Everything else in that list is proven to be bad for society/health, except for caffeine. Why did you choose to highlight caffeine consumption when there is not really any evidence it causes health issues?
I don't think there's long term evidence for negative problems. However, high dosages of caffeine are dangerous and have killed people. Those dosages are easily achieved through the likes of energy drinks.
Chronic long-term use of high amounts of caffeine (>600 mg, or two Starbucks Grande coffees) are linked with: bone density issues, sleep issues, anxiety issues, cardiovascular strain, stomach acid issues. They aren't super bad, but definitely not harmless.
High dosage of water have also killed people. And easily achieved through energy drinks? I strongly doubt that. Most energy drinks are not any stronger than coffee
Lower dosages of caffeine kill you than the water dosages that kill you.
> And easily achieved through energy drinks?
Yeah, once you start pushing 1000mg of caffeine, you are getting into areas where if you have heart problems, you could be putting yourself in danger.
> Most energy drinks
But not all. So why strongly doubt it?
There are plenty of energy drinks which are fairly popular with huge amounts of caffeine and there's little labeling requirements to let people know that. Bang energy drink is a good example of that. 300mg per can, meaning 3 cans is putting you in dangerous territories.
You can buy a bottle of caffeine pills at Walmart for a few bucks. What are we even talking about?
How dangerous caffeine is. You can also buy a bottle of Tylenol from Walmart, that doesn't mean it's particularly safe to OD on.
The comment said “putting 3 cups of coffee in a can we drink 4 or five of in a day” that would be 1,000–1,500 mg of caffeine. The FDA guidelines is 400mg a day and drinking 1200mg quickly can induce seizures
16 oz can of white monster (stereotypical energy drink) has about 150mg of caffeine. A grande (16 oz) black coffee from Starbucks has about 310mg of caffeine. You would need to drink 2 16 oz monsters to get the same amount of caffeine as a single grande cup of coffee from Starbucks.
If you're just looking at caffeine intake you'd be better off switching from coffee to energy drinks. You could drink about 3 per day and be close to the 400mg/day guidance.
edit: white monster has no sugar in case anyone was about to bring that up
Coffee varies. I've long understood that a normal (8 ounce, ish) cup of drip coffee averages around 100mg of caffeine[0].
Java Monster Triple Shot Mocha comes in a can, and has 300mg of caffeine per can[1][2].
This seems to suggest that getting the equivalent of 3 cups of coffee in one can is, in fact, a thing that people can accomplish.
[0]: https://www.aboutcoffee.org/beans/decaf-coffee/ https://ific.org/resources/toolkits/caffeine/ https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
[1]: https://www.monsterenergy.com/en-ca/energy-drinks/java-monst...
[2]: And they're delicious
> If you're just looking at caffeine intake you'd be better off switching from coffee to energy drinks
This is less true now than it used to be. I'm somewhat sensitive to caffeine and always look on the can to see how much is in it, and 150 is on the low side of most of the options available now-. 200 to 300 seems to be a lot more common among the brands that are newer than when monster and Rockstar first came out.
Caffeine ≠ caffeine.
Forget the numbers you’re being given - what does caffeine crop that goes into a Coke or Pepsi product look like, compared to green tea caffeine?
What does the sugar look like, as a supply chain, vs sugars ingested from fruit?
Hint: it’s disgusting.
Caffeine is caffeine. Sucrose is sucrose. Homeopathy isn't real.
No.
When a flock of geese shit into the pile of beets, gnaw on the beets for a few days, and then the beets get boiled down and put into your Gatorade, sucrose ≠ sucrose.
No idea what you mean with the homeopathy quip.
You know manure and the soils produced from composting are literally feces from animals and bacteria, right?
And that manure is an excellent natural fertilizer?
And that outside that, worms exist? And they poop?
Oh, and that if you were to take bird shit beets and worm poop beets and mash them up and extract chemically pure sucrose from both you'd have no way of determining which came from which?
Assuming that you do know all of these things, you're saying that horse shit and worm poop is fine, but you'll be damned if a bird is involved?
I mean, I can see where you're coming from. A potatoe coming from a toilet is probably not as clean as a potatoe coming from a sterile lab, but that's not what you're saying. You're saying that the toilet has somehow altered the physical chemical compounds involved in the structure of the potatoes rather than has potentially added other chemicals to the mix that was the potatoe. The starch is the same in both. The starch = the starch. The starch and the toilet =/= the starch and the lab because the toilet =/= the lab, but those are different arguments.
I think growing food on soil containing shit is a whole different world than boiling my food with shit,
and if you don’t, well, let’s just leave it here.
> You're saying that the toilet has somehow altered the physical chemical compounds involved in the structure
Nah - I’m pointing out the shit that comes along with your very simplified label should be known.
Same as the folic acid American rice is washed in - but never labeled with.
> if you were to … extract chemically pure sucrose
My point is: they’re not.
and in retrospect, it was weird that I ever assumed they did.
It’s included in a list of things bad for “ society/health.” While overconsumption on that level would certainly be a health issue for an individual, it doesn’t even register compared to the other things he lists as a social issue, like chronic obesity and Tobacco use. It’s just weird and misleading to include it in that list, is all I was pointing out.
less the caffine itself and more the amount. It sounds like they are talking more about energy drinks or some highly concentrated espresso shot.
I don't think that much caffeine is good for you, especially 4-5 times a day. But with everything else we gulp down it probably isn't priority #1.
Tangential, but I suppose this is a good time to highlight how caffeine undisclosed can in fact kill some people:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y95yylxv7o