When you imply that sucrose is not "artificial," then obviously what you say is not scientifically justified.

Sucrose doesn't occur naturally in significant quantities -- it needs to be extracted from cane or sugar beets. If you actually tried to eat the amount of sugar cane required to equal a can of Coke, you'd probably end up screwing up your bowel from excessive fiber intake.

The reality is most sugars occur in nature in contexts where they have significant amounts of fiber or other nutrients that affect how our bodies process them. Honey is one of the few exceptions, and its composition is basically equivalent (other than trace minerals) to something like high-fructose corn syrup. Just that last statement can cause you to question the arbitrary divisions in the "nature" vs. "artificial" idea.

Anyhow, to address your question directly -- there are limited scientific studies that show various downsides to artificial sweeteners compared to sucrose, though they do exist. But there are also plenty of studies that show better results for various populations consuming sweeteners instead of sucrose (mostly in terms of weight gain, diabetes, etc.). As for "corn syrup" (which I assume means "high-fructose corn syrup," rather than the mostly-glucose stuff used in candy-making), I'm aware of only 1 or 2 studies that seem to indicate some sort of negative effect compared to sucrose -- most studies find no difference or don't actually compare HFCS to sucrose directly.

For Europeans, the problem with the American diet regarding sweeteners mostly has to do with excess sweetener consumption everywhere -- hidden sugars in all sorts of processed foods, etc. Whether those sugars are sucrose or corn syrup or some sweetener is often irrelevant, because there are simply too much of them, and even when some calories are saved by sweeteners, they are often made up by excess other calories or bad things.

In sum, if we ate quantities of sweeteners or corn syrup that would replicate the amount of sweetness we'd experience naturally eating most "whole foods" in nature (fruits, vegetables, etc.), we'd probably be fine. But most people are addicted to the excess sweetness found in everything...

THIS.

The whole discussion in this subthread seems to presuppose that everyone would obviously WANT to drink regular soda. But that's not a good assumption.

I rarely drink soda, but if I'm in a situation where it's the main drink being offered, I drink diet -- mainly because I can't stand the level of sweetness in normal soda. I've had many conversations with other people (both normal weight and obese) who feel the same way. "Regular" soda just tastes terrible to a lot of people, particularly if you don't like sweet things.

Diet soda also tastes really sweet, but somehow it's not as bad. AND you know that you're not ingesting hundreds of empty calories for a drink you detest.

I think it's what you're used to. I never grew up drinking a lot of soda. But I know people who grew up drinking loads of soda or syrupy iced tea, and they just love the stuff -- they think it's refreshing to have a cold Coke or iced tea loaded with multiple tablespoons of sugar per cup.

Me -- I can't stand the stuff. But once in a while, I do like the fizz in a drink. And since one can't typically order soda with a quarter of the normal sugar (which would be about the level I'd want), diet soda's really the only commonly available option.

Or, to put it another way, what is "worth the calories" to somebody? I don't like fast food -- most of it tastes horrible to me as well. If I want a burger, I want a REAL burger (I often grind my own meat fresh at home), not a processed calorie-bomb that has to have loads of sauce on it and flavor-enhancers to convince you to eat it.

Anyhow, to me it's "worth the calories" to have a homemade burger sometimes that might have the same calories as a Big Mac or whatever. To others, they might think it's "worth the calories" to eat the Big Mac, because they like the taste, but they might not like overly sweet sugary soda enough to make it "worth the calories."

Maybe there are some people out there who order diet soda even though they hate it, just to save calories. But I also bet there are a significant number of people who just don't really like regular soda that much. Frankly, I know very few adults beyond college age who do -- maybe it's just the people I hang out with, though.

I took a look at buying Stevia in the store awhile back. I am also a reader of contents labels, so I put it back on the shelf really fast. The first ingredient listed: dextrose

Boy you're a really clever one aren't you, catching onto secret calories in stevia that nobody else did?

First off, stevia is available in many different forms. Stevia is many times more potent than sugar in terms of sweetness, it's extremely hard to use pure (I have pure stevia - to use it pure you have to make very large batches and very tiny measurements!). To dilute it down you obviously have to mix it with something. There are all sorts of mixes, but there are two main categories: those that try for parity with sugar in terms of how much you use (which generally mix with maltodextrin), and those who try for a product that is much sweeter than sugar but not as extreme as pure stevia (these can come in a variety of forms, but a common blend is with dextrose). So yes, the dextrose has calories - but it's far outmatched in terms of sweetness by the stevia therein, so you only need to use a very small amount (depending on the ratio of the blend). The 1:1 parity versions as mentioned use maltodextrin, which is also caloric - but it's so light and fluffy that there's very little mass (and thus calories) per unit volume; basically, what the stevia is blended with is mostly air.

More fun facts about stevia here [100daysofrealfood.com].

Hahaha, Food Babe? Are you joking? The woman who says she hates air travel because they compress your bodies with high pressure air and it restricts your digestive organs? And how "the air that is pumped in isn’t pure oxygen either, it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50%. To pump a greater amount of oxygen in costs money in terms of fuel and the airlines know this!" Or her microwave rant, where she talks about how microwave ovens are evil because once water has been microwaved it no longer crystalizes into pure forms when frozen, but rather into forms similar to water that has heard words like "hitler" and "satan"? This is your information source?

Yeah, I think I'll stay over here in the real world and not get my information from a living joke, thanks.

Although this neologism is suspect on etymological grounds, one could only hope that this word will become more popular and overtake the various misuses or imprecise uses of "agnosticism" for example.

For the record, "agnostic" (literally "lacking knowledge") in the traditional sense doesn't mean "I don't know" nor "I don't care," but rather is a positive philosophical belief that it is impossible to know for certain whether god(s) exist, e.g., because of the impossibility of collecting appropriate evidence or the nature of knowledge/deities/the universe/whatever.

Or, in terms of familiar statements:

"I believe" = theism
"I don't believe" = (strong) atheism
"I don't care" = apatheism
"I don't know" = weak atheism (aka "negative" or "soft" atheism)
"I can't know" or "No one knows" = agnosticism
"I don't know, and I don't care" = apatheistic atheism
"I don't give a crap, and nobody could ever know anyway" = strong agnostic apatheism

etc.

Nope. Poor breaking behaviour doesn't cause crashes, people not keeping a safe distance causes crashes.

In most sane countries you are required to keep a distance long enough that the car in front can perform an emergency stop without you hitting it. If you do hit it, you've caused the accident (and in Oz, will get hit with a negligent/careless driving charge).

I cant control how badly the people around me drive, but I can control the way I drive and take steps to minimise and avoid accidents. Keeping a safe distance is one of the simplest things I can do.

Dear god man,

Dont let reality or the facts get in the way of a good anti-immigrant rant.

Having a strict target is not impossible, and when the difference between consumption and expenditure is on the order of 500 calories, you have room for error on both ends - on your estimation of your consumption and on the estimation of your burn.

There was a rousing ITV, or BBC, I don't remember, documentary on a woman

Whoa - throw away all of the scientific data, there's an anecdote here involving an TV show about an uncontrolled experiment whose data we can't see and whose name you can't even remember!

The human body works on calories. The human digestive system does not throw away energy from digestible substances. It's energy in vs. energy out.

American manufacturers decided to make cheap cars and rely on bells and whistles to make their cars look advanced rather than actual engineering. They also tend to rely heavily on advertising and faux patriotism to sell the Korean designed, Mexican manufactured cars in the US because Ford/Chevrolet is 'Merican.

Every time a car is built down to a price they have an issue with reliability.

Huh? What does that even mean?

If you said that collisions have to do more with "how other people drive than how **I** drive," maybe your statement would be logically comprehensible.

Or, to put it another way, for some values of "you", "others" = "you." (I.e. some people you (the parent) are including as "you" are part of the bad "others" who apparently are poor drivers.)

This.

Artificial sweeteners are recommended for diabetics because you dont process it, you pass it. Things like Aspartame, Xylitol and Stevia (I know Stevia is natural, but it's in the same class of sugar alternative) dont tend to increase the amount of sugar in your blood.

The reason a lot of people who drink died soft drinks dont appear to be losing weight is because they're eating wrong AND not exercising. Switching from sugary soft drinks to artificially sweetened soft drinks is a good thing as long as you're eating a healthy diet and getting a bit of exercise as it cuts out a huge source of sugar, but on it's own it will do nothing.

The thing that annoys me here is that I like the taste of Pepsi Max over Coke Zero, I hope they haven't ruined it thanks to some peoples irrational fear of something they dont understand.

Some curious results:

"occupation:omnivore". Apparently Bob Dillan is the best omnivore out there.
"gender:animal": Obama is #1.
"citizenship:cops": Alfred Deacon, the second prime minister of Australia
"genre:set" William Shakespeare, of course.

Of that, its 1.4 litre turbo-charged diesel engine weighs about 90kg.

The engine, of course, being only part of the drivetrain components that can be eliminated by a switch to electric drive. Transmission, radiator, all fluids, fuel, the whole exhaust system, etc. In some designs you can even replace the driveshaft. You basically gut 90% of the moving parts.

The fuel tank holds about 42 litres of diesel weighing... whatever that weighs.

About 30 kilos.

It can do 600 miles urban or ~700 miles motorway, driving normally.

And that spec is relevant why? No seriously, please tell me. In what sort of realistic scenario is it critical to be able to drive for 700 miles nonstop without ever setting foot out of your car? How can you even do that? Do you not pee? Do you not eat? Even if you could it's not safe to drive that long nonstop, a person is supposed to take regular rest breaks. You stop for lunch, you plug your car into a fast charger, and you go off on your way afterwards.

The reason gas and diesel cars have such huge tanks has nothing at all to do with that being some sort of remotely practical requirement. It's to minimize a great inconvenience of ICE vehicles, that is, how often you have to go out of your way in your daily life at regular intervals in whatever weather it is and stand outside pumping fuel into your car. In your daily life, you never have to do this with EVs. Not once.

The longest range electric car that I can actually touch right now is the Tesla Model S; It's 3 times the size of my car, weighs over twice as much and has a third of the mileage, and costs 10x as much.

Really, we're going to compare a brand new luxury sports sedan with a used family car? That's the comparison we're going for? Have you tried comparing your car with a Bugatti Veyron?

No contest there!

Slow down there. You're comparing the complete-cycle efficiency for petroleum to just the end-stage efficiency for electric.

You seem to have not noticed what this article is about. It's about making fuel from electricity and then giving it to cars. Both sides start with the same feedstock: electricity. So it doesn't matter how efficient the electricity was to make because it affects both paths equally.

But let's switch back to your "scenario that I want to talk about that's not the one in the article"

Slow down there. You're comparing the complete-cycle efficiency for petroleum to just the end-stage efficiency for electric. That electricity needs to be made somehow. Toss in 40% efficiency for coal plants (we'll leave out pumping/mining and fuel transport costs for now, assuming they're similar for oil and coal), battery charging efficiency of about 75% [futurepundit.com] (discharge efficiency is unspecified, but since the EPA mileage estimates are based on battery capacity it's safe to ignore it), and the 85% motor efficiency you've specified, and suddenly your EV is .4*.75*.85 = 25.5% efficient. Same as a diesel.

I don't see that figure in your link, and I don't really need your link because I'm familiar with the numbers already. It depends on what you mean by "charging efficiency". The US grid averages about 8% distribution losses, plant to breaker. Li-ions are over 99% efficient at slow charging, but depending on the type can drop a few percent in faster charging scenarios, and in an extreme situation down to the lower 90%s. The charger itself has some losses, if I recall correctly from the breaker they're usually 92-94% efficient. So a good middle of the road number is more like 84%.

Also note that EVs automatically also function as hybrids: they regen and don't "idle".

Their EV is cheaper to operate not because the EV is more energy-efficient, but because coal is so much cheaper than gasoline

Coal is of course the dirtiest widely used power source, and its usage is declining in most first-world countries. Natural gas and wind have the highest growth rates. The most efficient combined cycle natural gas plants are upwards of 60% efficient, although that's not an "average" efficiency, but even old plants are generally over 40%. Efficiencies on things like wind, solar, etc are of course not particularly meaningful, since you're not burning a fuel. Nuclear has a low efficiency, but again, that's not particularly meaningful.

Even putting solar panels on your roof and amortizing the costs in most climates makes running an EV cheaper than gasoline. It's not because coal is somehow ridiculously cheap. It's because oil is a really expensive energy source per joule.

Wind is only about twice the costs of coal

If this was true, people would be churning out new coal plants, not wind farms.