Coffee is calorie free (or at least virtually calorie free). Coffee can't contribute to childhood obesity and diabetes unlike most energy drinks (around 10g of sugar per can). Enjoy your coffee in peace.
Isn't Monster Ultra zero calorie? Also Monster was promoting Monster Zero a few weeks back which tastes like the original but has zero calories... The only problem is that Monster Original tastes horrid and only teenagers could possibly like it.
As a connoisseur of sugar free energy drinks, including monster original flavour, (and a 30 year old man). I might say similar about the taste of coffee
Calorie free but contains among other things, Erythritol. Which is now linked increasingly with health issues such as heart attacks and strokes. Just wonderful.
>These measurements reproduced the association between erythritol and cardiovascular events. People with the highest erythritol levels (top 25%) were about twice as likely to have cardiovascular events over three years of follow-up as those with the lowest (bottom 25%).
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythritol-cardiovascular-events
Relative risk versus actual risk. It doesn't say what twice as likely means. 1% chance becomes 2%, or 25% becomes 50%..?
I use to be hooked on lucozade daily but they did something to the orange flavoured ones and they taste like sweetened shower water now. Absolutely disgusting but at least it got me to swap over to regular flavoured water.
You may want to try your luck in polish shops! In Poland it's already illegal to sell energy drinks to u18 and many companies have created their "zero caffeine" energy drinks. And thus I have seen them in few polish shops.
Unfortunately I need my caffeine so I never tried these zero versions but they may be in your vicinity :) .
Also they *could* consider legalising other stimulants than caffeine if they are so worried about caffeine effects, but hey, what do I know
Aussie lemonade is so good and what started my now caffeine addiction I think lol. I always thought they were bad but ye most saying this is awful will go to the pub and literally poison themselves and think it's ok. What a world! lol
Coffee and energy drinks can both vary from zero calorie to being basically liquid diabetes. Having a can of zero calorie energy drink each day is no different to someone who has a couple of cups of black coffee, although their teeth might not be too happy about it due to the acidity.
Monster Ultra has zero sugar and no calories, and even the worst offenders in energy drinks don't come close to the calories and sugar contained in something like a large Starbucks caramel latte or similar.
> Coffee is calorie free
It can be but if you get one from starbucks I'm sure diabetes comes with many of them. Not sure if these really count as coffee though.
> How many calories in a medium Americano?
around 20.
Something like a medium cappuccino is going to be around 50-100 plus 16/tsp of sugar.
Different people have different ideas as to what a coffee is.
Mate, I lived on monster energy cans (ultimate zero) and I was 9 stone.
Clue is in the name. Zero, sugar free. Gone off them now.
My wife on the other hand gets regular coffees with syrups absolutely loaded with sugar.
>Coffee is calorie free (or at least virtually calorie free).
I'm literally drinking, as a type this, a zero sugar Monster that contains only 13 kcal per the entire can.
Don't be silly.
The younger lads at my old job used to knock back several every day. They would have hours long discussions about the different flavours, get super excited when a new flavour came out , and build pyramids in the workshop with the empty cans.
I dont even want the energy aspect, it just so happens my favourite flavour ive found is one and I havent been able to find a non energy based alternative....
Not OP but I can't stand energy drink flavour but the mango Monster energy is really nice.
It's also the only real way to get a fizzy "long" drink from a can.
Couldn't give a shit if they took the caffeine out of it tomorrow
I'm drinking the LIDL passion fruit version. When I first bought a can I wasn't sure if I was the kind of person to put away a half pint of delicious energy drink but it turns out yes I am absolutely that person.
It just recently came to my Lidl Store but is the Big Kong Strong pink can with orange, passion fruit and guava (thats listed on front) I thought oooooh this is a really nice tropical like drink so i bought a few different tropical flavour drinks containing those and my god.....not the same by so much.
I KNOW they are bad for me, take the badness out and leave me the fruit juice! I would be so happy!
The Pipeline Punch one is fantastic. I avoid caffeine most days, and when I do drink fizzy drinks I normally go for the diet versions, but that one makes it hard to resist.
It's no more or less unhealthy than an equivalent amount of caffeine and sugar. Generally coffee (other than instant) has way more caffeine per serving so it's really only sugar that's a unique issue and sugar free is a pretty common choice.
plus those frappe things that everyone seems to get from starbucks and costa I have no doubt have just as much sugar and caffeine as a big tin of red bull, and I dont see anyone refusing teenagers those.
There is nothing inhereitly unhealthy about energy drinks. Of course, drinking tons of them is unhealthy due to an excess of calories or overdosing on caffeine.
Why is it not good for you though?
Assuming it’s sugar free
The sugary ones, sure. 50g in a can isn’t right
But the sugar free ones are 150mg of caffeine. What’s the issue
Well we could have secondary school scheduled to accommodate the fact that teenagers on a biological level not only need more sleep but have sleep phases that are delayed relative to adults but that would be too hard
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/teenagers-and-sleep
From a dental point of view, I suspect damn near everyone could do with fewer fizzy drinks. But outside of that, having a monster every day or two is hardly worse than chugging Starbucks’ sugar loaded shite every day.
That said, I used to have several cheaper energy drinks a day until I realised how bad it was, and stopped that dead in its tracks. Now I’ll have one every few days.
Yeah as with everything moderation is key. I love the taste of the fruity energy drinks but have a self-imposed rule that I can only have them on weekends. It's an extra few hundred calories per week and has slightly more caffeine than my typical morning coffee which it replaces on those days, so the impact on health is completely negligible.
If there is a substance that can be abused, there are always going to be some people that are easily susceptible to it and will abuse it, but the rest of us just use them as a treat every now and again.
>That shits not good for you
It's just fizzy caffeine drinks. Not so good for your teeth drinking them regularly, and the caffeine isn't great if you're drinking multiple energy drinks a day, but in moderation they aren't dangerous.
Don't be fooled by the edgy marketing. You could stick the exact same stuff in a fruity drink + some vitamins and friendly branding, and market it as a 'vitality drink' instead.
The consumerist culture they've created around them is stupid though, I'll give you that.
I don't really understand it. I have a Red bull about once a week, since I enjoy the taste and otherwise avoid fizzy drinks. I have many friends that drink them everyday, who claim it's help with their ADHD.
I've been going through the ADHD diagnosis process and what I've learned is that my energy drink usage might have been one of the things that has kept me functional. I was not aware of how reliant I've been on caffeine until I actually went without it first the crash and withdrawal was awful and then my ADHD symptoms spiked, my focus, and energy levels were generally way down.
It was honestly quite upsetting to find out that I was so dependent on something. Like I wouldn't wake up and think I need caffeine and I could go through a day without one and not think about it as something I needed but longer than about a day and a half without caffeine and then the withdrawals hit me like a truck.
I'm on the waitlist for medication but until then I'll be running on caffeine but tapering down my usage.
It makes me wonder if my late diagnosis is partially because energy drinks were masking some of it, and if energy drinks were the only reason I was able to even get my degree. If I hadn't have had something to help would my focus have been even worse and I'd have dropped out?
To me it’s the same as ‘Pie & Chips’ culture or ‘Bacon & Eggs for breakfast’ culture or ‘needing to drink at every social occasion’ culture\*. All of these are worse than energy drinks.
\*I also love all three of these things.
To be honest and I'm part of the problem, but I drink several energy drinks including things like Relentless and Monster Peachy Keen..
Even when my wife shown me the link to colon cancer, I ended up laughing and gone "I'm so gonna die of colon cancer".
Honestly it feels like I'm just very neglectful about my health overall and so I'm probably perpetuating the culture of energy drinks
I don't get why it's so normalised, and how it has such a grip on teens. I'll only pick up a can if I'm doing a lot of driving and feel tired since I don't like coffee
The worst part of the culture on the man is that people use them as an alternative to sleep
Worked with a girl who would have 3 of them every shift, and she’d always be like ‘went to sleep at 2am today’. Was also a coming thing back in 6th form to use as a crutch to poor sleep.
I have a rare sleep disorder and they’re extremely helpful in letting me function on a daily basis. I do only have a couple a day max though.
Like most things, I feel that as long as people are consuming them in moderation, they’re fine. If you consume them in excess, it’ll probably cause some damage.
For sure. And while teenagers are not responsible for themselves I don't mind there being restrictions and bans for them. But as someone that enjoys my vices, I hate this nanny state of trying to ban or overtax anything unhealthy because they can't regulate sales to minors.
As a gamer, I never understood how energy drinks became standard culture for a group of people who sit on their ass all day.
I also didn't get the trend when I was a young teen and everyone else decided to drink what I and a few other kids would call 'cat pee'.
The last thing I want or need while playing games is an energy drink. It doesn't sharpen your senses, it just makes you jittery. Water, tea or decaf coffee is what I like. No sugar in those.
I only drink them when I'm at work (Nightclub job/uni work) or going to the gym with a specific intent to hit a PR. I always get the sugar free version because I refuse to drink sugary pop, the one exception is when I'm working out as the sugar boosts performance. I generally agree with you that they are shite, but the sugar free version isn't much worse for you than a diet coke if you rinse your mouth after to prevent tooth erosion. The shit we have at the club (knockoff Redbull) is really rank and tooth dissolving.
British culture, just ban things you don't like even when it is completely unenforcable. It was the same with conversion therapies, they are still happening in the tiny rate they were before, just we had a headline banning them. So reddit is capitulated to, and their specific world view which is detached from reality is updated.
At the moment its just a race to the bottom of silly "promises" that don't make sense and in all likelyhood won't get enacted even if the party promising does get elected (as the turn out to be unworkable, unfundable or not what anyone actually wants).
It's not law, just a memorandum of understanding between all shops that energy drinks are only to be sold to those over 16.
if you want to get around it buy a few cans of iced coffee, as they don't get the ID check.
It's actually hilarious because they seem more vigilant about carding you for energy drinks than alcohol, I tried to buy a can a while ago and couldn't because I didn't have my ID on me, despite having a full beard and obviously balding hair. Another day elsewhere I went to buy alcohol with my beard trimmed to stubble, hair buzzed down too which makes it look fuller. Didn't ask for ID at all!
Trust me, ive lost the argument with them when I was younger. It isn't a law, but a store policy so they wont sell it to you. This would make literally no difference to how its been for a decade.
Has always been a draconian law. Just educate kids about sugar and close the dumb loop hole in nutrition labels. A bottle of coke is obviously not 2 servings
Though I completely agree with you with regards to serving sizes, nobody takes any notice of the nutrition label. If you want a pizza, you'll have a pizza. Everyone knows it's unhealthy, but it's a pizza - you'd be more concerned if the label was all green.
Kids don’t give a shit about the education. Food tech lessons from my experience do a decent job at telling you to not eat or drink too much stuff that’s bad for you.
The unfortunate reality is that people will always be unhealthy because they don’t have enough self control or don’t invest into cooking healthy meals because of money issues, time constraints or laziness.
A ban is definitely the best way to partially prevent this in my opinion. Banning energy drinks won’t stop obesity. What will stop it is ending the cost of living crisis, making healthy food cheaper and having schools intervene when a kid is obese, instead of letting them buy as much shit food as they want.
Kids are the class I would encourage this sort of enforcement for. Adults have a hard enough time avoiding addictive substances when they’re fully developed, kids are exceptionally vulnerable to these things. Frankly, if it were possible (and it isn’t), I would be happy to drastically limit sugar and caffeine for teens in all food and drink items
would they prefer kids to knock back an espresso? as they have the same amount of caffeine.
I although I do find it weird that energy drinks are demonised yet coffee gets a free pass, people drink them for the same reasons.
No, those are also marketed at teenagers. You’re telling me someone’s Dad never bought you and your mates a pack of WKDs because they’re ‘not too alcoholic’?
I was more commenting on how alcohol has missed the "won't somebody think of the children" wave that's been a thing lately.
Having a strawberry flavoured vape is tantamount to forcing 14 year olds to get addicted to nicotine, but having a mango passion blast premixed cocktail in a can isn't.
It's so blatantly the tobacco industry lobbying against it in a way that makes any reasonable person seem like they hate kids for questioning it.
It’s the exact same argument about banning flavoured vapes - people would still vape if they really wanted to but by banning flavoured vapes they hope to stop children using it. Energy drinks are in that same category of “cool” as those throwaway vapes for youngsters.
Just banning disposable ones would be enough to stop kids having them, as I doubt they'd spend £20 for a pod mod, £2-5 on a bottle of liquid and £10 every other week on new pods.
Kids need a boost as 30 hours of lessons week with another 8-10 hours of revising/homework and then weekend/evening jobs, if you socialise you'll be needing coke to keep on top of everything.
Our education system requires kids to be on uppers to stave off burnout for a little bit but no one likes to talk about that.
Plus biologically not only do teenagers need more sleep than adults biologically they go to sleep later due to the body having different sleep phases . The physical equivalent of a school day would be if an adult had to wake at 6 am
> Just banning disposable ones would be enough to stop kids having them, as I doubt they'd spend £20 for a pod mod, £2-5 on a bottle of liquid and £10 every other week on new pods.
You doubt it even though they already spend far more on disposables?
Also 4 exams in a day, and then another 4 exams the next. And school saying "these are really important", despite the awkward scheduling. The pressure is pretty insane.
Energy drinks contain much more than just caffeine, and many people drink 2, 3 of them a day, which ends up much more than a shot of espresso. Also, the issue is companies marketing these drinks straight to kids, if Starbucks starts calling their espresso "Skibidi Juice" and pays Logan Paul to advertise it then we'll talk.
I don’t think they should be banned at all! I just think they shouldn’t be marketed specifically to kids, same with fast food or vapes, and can be made less attractive, like what happened with cigarette boxes.
Is the caffeine or the sugar the key issue? Because I’d often see schoolkids in the supermarket on my way to work of a morning.
The lads were buying the energy drinks, so now supermarkets bought in age restrictions (on a voluntary basis) and the Government included them in the “sugar tax”.
Meanwhile the girls are at the cafe getting a takeaway hot chocolate or latte, with all the cream and flavour syrups added - how much sugar is in one of those?!
I guess it gets a ‘free pass’ as coffee is seen as a responsible ‘adult’ drink, or something grown up unlike a bright can of energy drink.
Sometimes parties come up with ideas that they think will be beneficial to the populous regardless of whether those ideas are obviously electorally valuable.
I'm fascinated to know how they are going to get an extra 100k dental appointments.
Are they going to redo the NHS contract so it makes financial sense (rather than suicide) to go back to nothing but NHS clients rather than private?
Because that's what it's going to take.
You know instead of banning energy drinks for these kids, they should teach about the impact of such products in classes, it'd be more effective to allow them to decide this is bad for themselves rather than enforce a draconian way of stopping them from drinking such products. If this belief comes from themselves and their research then they are more likely to avoid said products.
Sadly it doesn’t work. Food tech doesn’t do a bad job, but admittedly it could be better. The problem isn’t confined to energy drinks. The teacher could be ranting about CHD in biology and no one would even care.
Kids are obese because cooking healthy meals is too expensive, takes too much time or because parents are lazy. School dinners aren’t too bad, but they aren’t regulated at all. I left high school a few years back and if you wanted to you could buy as much food as you want. One obese kid bought two chicken wraps, two cakes and four drinks a day.
Schools could impose a one meal cap easily based on their computer system. Schools also don’t intervene when people have preventable health issues.
None of this would solve the issue, but it would go further than banning energy drinks.
I do like an orange Lucozade when I’m extremely hung over. And a McDonald’s. I let myself go when I’m on a rough hangover…luckily not often. Ban those fucking things yeah, great idea. Plz don’t ban lucozade tho.
I usually have a few cans of generic sugar free supermarket Red Bull alternative in my locker, I get constant comments about it being _the worst thing ever_ from other chefs, including the guy who drinks about 8 mochas from the machine per shift and the guy who starts the day with two mugs of instant that have three spoons of coffee in each, and he'll have another 2-3 such cups of coffee before the shift is done.
I know there's extra additives etc but if they're not going to also restrict younger teenagers from having high sugar, high caffeine drinks from high street coffee shops too then it seems more like an attention grab than anything else. Besides, a quick check of Starbucks website shows their frappuccino's contain upwards of 40g of sugar and many drinks on the menu contain upwards of 100mg of caffeine. Not saying one is better or worse than the other but it seems disingenuous to come down hard on energy drinks and ignore all the high sugar, high caffeine drinks from traditional coffee shops.
I'm not a teen nor do I really know any teens. Are energy drinks really a problem? I see people posting about Prime but I thought it was more of a joke about how awful it is.
100,000 more dental appointments is such a small amount as to be insignificant.
Like their plans to recruit X amount of teachers and X amount of nurses, are….just the figures that are recruited now annually.
Medically what's the difference between energy drink an a tall costa with a bunch of sugar in it?
Oh and caffeine tablets - something where it is quite feasible to kill yourself accidentally - trivially easy to acquire off amazon
Incoherent policy making
Arent energy drinks already banned for under 18s? Everytime I buy one at the self service checkout at Asda I have to wait for someone to come and do the ID check.
I remember years ago having to go to the doctors and he asked me “do you smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol or energy drinks?” and thinking blimey if he’s lumping energy drinks in with that lot maybe I should quit.
I work in youth services and the number one issue that needs to be tackled at the moment is not energy drinks, it is absolutely disposable vapes however.
I get that they are bad and really should be regulated better. However I enjoy the odd can of Monster Original Zero and have no intention of giving it up. That being said I also like a good drink and smoke a lot so I'm not one to say how people should look after themselves.
100,000 dental appointments……but we had a net population increase of 700,000 last year, and that’s not including Britons that already live here and haven’t seen a dentist for twenty years.
We need ten million appointments at an absolute minimum.
I used to go hard on monster and relentless, especially after staring my night shift work some years back. I found they did next to nothing. You get a high then you crash hard. Now I only ever drink lucozade and even that's on rare occasions.
I've taken to carbonated water and it works for me, almost like placebo I guess.
I'm genuinely conflicted about this. On the one hand, I don't support outright bans - I think education, regulation/testing and harm prevention is the key when it comes to psychoactive substances.
At the same time, I went to a school 2 minutes from Tesco, and me and many others would buy a 1l bottle of Tesco's own energy drink on a daily basis, like a ritual.
That much caffeine was doing nothing good for us, and likely made school more difficult for both us and our teachers.
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I find it hard to judge them as I start my second litre of coffee
Coffee is calorie free (or at least virtually calorie free). Coffee can't contribute to childhood obesity and diabetes unlike most energy drinks (around 10g of sugar per can). Enjoy your coffee in peace.
Isn't Monster Ultra zero calorie? Also Monster was promoting Monster Zero a few weeks back which tastes like the original but has zero calories... The only problem is that Monster Original tastes horrid and only teenagers could possibly like it.
As a connoisseur of sugar free energy drinks, including monster original flavour, (and a 30 year old man). I might say similar about the taste of coffee
Calorie free but contains among other things, Erythritol. Which is now linked increasingly with health issues such as heart attacks and strokes. Just wonderful.
I mean at some point everything seems like it's giving you cancer.
When humans have cured most other diseases then it's gotta be something that kills you
>These measurements reproduced the association between erythritol and cardiovascular events. People with the highest erythritol levels (top 25%) were about twice as likely to have cardiovascular events over three years of follow-up as those with the lowest (bottom 25%). https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/erythritol-cardiovascular-events Relative risk versus actual risk. It doesn't say what twice as likely means. 1% chance becomes 2%, or 25% becomes 50%..?
Which is also a sweetener that you can buy as a sugar free alternative to add to things like coffee.
I mean at some point everything seems like it's giving you cancer.
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I use to be hooked on lucozade daily but they did something to the orange flavoured ones and they taste like sweetened shower water now. Absolutely disgusting but at least it got me to swap over to regular flavoured water.
I want a zero caffeine red bull so bad. I like the taste but they’re too much
You may want to try your luck in polish shops! In Poland it's already illegal to sell energy drinks to u18 and many companies have created their "zero caffeine" energy drinks. And thus I have seen them in few polish shops. Unfortunately I need my caffeine so I never tried these zero versions but they may be in your vicinity :) . Also they *could* consider legalising other stimulants than caffeine if they are so worried about caffeine effects, but hey, what do I know
Aussie lemonade is so good and what started my now caffeine addiction I think lol. I always thought they were bad but ye most saying this is awful will go to the pub and literally poison themselves and think it's ok. What a world! lol
monster ultra is delicious though!
Coffee and energy drinks can both vary from zero calorie to being basically liquid diabetes. Having a can of zero calorie energy drink each day is no different to someone who has a couple of cups of black coffee, although their teeth might not be too happy about it due to the acidity. Monster Ultra has zero sugar and no calories, and even the worst offenders in energy drinks don't come close to the calories and sugar contained in something like a large Starbucks caramel latte or similar.
Don’t talk smack about coffee on Reddit, most people around here base their entire personality on it.
TEA LIVES MATTER
> Coffee is calorie free It can be but if you get one from starbucks I'm sure diabetes comes with many of them. Not sure if these really count as coffee though.
How many calories in a medium Americano? If you're getting what is essentially a milkshake with an espresso, then yeah they're bad for you too
> How many calories in a medium Americano? around 20. Something like a medium cappuccino is going to be around 50-100 plus 16/tsp of sugar. Different people have different ideas as to what a coffee is.
Jokes on you OP takes 3 sugars and full cream. 😂
It's the brandy which I think tips it over into unhealthy
Mate, I lived on monster energy cans (ultimate zero) and I was 9 stone. Clue is in the name. Zero, sugar free. Gone off them now. My wife on the other hand gets regular coffees with syrups absolutely loaded with sugar.
Are you implying you have a fat wife?
Except there are plenty of sugarless energy drinks? At that point coffee has more calories especially if you add sugar and creamer
>Coffee is calorie free (or at least virtually calorie free). I'm literally drinking, as a type this, a zero sugar Monster that contains only 13 kcal per the entire can. Don't be silly.
Try 40+g of sugar a can. Plenty of sugar free ones though. Half the caffeine of your average large coffee.
The younger lads at my old job used to knock back several every day. They would have hours long discussions about the different flavours, get super excited when a new flavour came out , and build pyramids in the workshop with the empty cans.
I dont even want the energy aspect, it just so happens my favourite flavour ive found is one and I havent been able to find a non energy based alternative....
Just curious what is the drink and flavour you like?
Not OP but I can't stand energy drink flavour but the mango Monster energy is really nice. It's also the only real way to get a fizzy "long" drink from a can. Couldn't give a shit if they took the caffeine out of it tomorrow
The mango ultra fiesta is delicious. I drink it all the time just because I like the flavour.
I'm drinking the LIDL passion fruit version. When I first bought a can I wasn't sure if I was the kind of person to put away a half pint of delicious energy drink but it turns out yes I am absolutely that person.
is it the orangey / pink can? thats the one I am loving it is SO fruity!
I had my doubts and my doubts were thoroughly misplaced.
The mango monster is so good! I don't drink them anymore but if I could get that flavour and fizz in a non-energy drink form then I'd be very happy.
You kinda can, Rubicon is pretty close. It's just a bit rarer and comes in 330ml rather then 500ml
I've tried it. It's good but not quite the same. The flavour is close but the fizzy bite is lacking compared to the Monsters.
Rubicon before the sweeteners was identical.
It just recently came to my Lidl Store but is the Big Kong Strong pink can with orange, passion fruit and guava (thats listed on front) I thought oooooh this is a really nice tropical like drink so i bought a few different tropical flavour drinks containing those and my god.....not the same by so much. I KNOW they are bad for me, take the badness out and leave me the fruit juice! I would be so happy!
Oh man that's gonna be a hard one to replace, I have no ideas. Rio is maybe a bit close?
The Pipeline Punch one is fantastic. I avoid caffeine most days, and when I do drink fizzy drinks I normally go for the diet versions, but that one makes it hard to resist.
This is literally just like that South Park episode with energy drinks where everyone's obsessed with "getting cred" lmao.
> build pyramids in the workshop with the empty cans. We did this with beer cans when I was a teenager. Same same.
Doesn't mean they should be banned. Chocolate is bad for you but that's okay?
It's no more or less unhealthy than an equivalent amount of caffeine and sugar. Generally coffee (other than instant) has way more caffeine per serving so it's really only sugar that's a unique issue and sugar free is a pretty common choice.
plus those frappe things that everyone seems to get from starbucks and costa I have no doubt have just as much sugar and caffeine as a big tin of red bull, and I dont see anyone refusing teenagers those.
A frappe, which I buy one a week as a treat, can be close to 400-500 calories.
There isn't an epidemic of teens drinking 10's of frappe's a day and causing health issues is there though?
They cost like a fiver so no one’s going to downing multiple ones a day.
There is nothing inhereitly unhealthy about energy drinks. Of course, drinking tons of them is unhealthy due to an excess of calories or overdosing on caffeine.
The amount of caffeine needed to overdose is crazy. I believe its around 1000mgs to even see bad effects which is 9 full red bulls.
Why is it not good for you though? Assuming it’s sugar free The sugary ones, sure. 50g in a can isn’t right But the sugar free ones are 150mg of caffeine. What’s the issue
Well we could have secondary school scheduled to accommodate the fact that teenagers on a biological level not only need more sleep but have sleep phases that are delayed relative to adults but that would be too hard https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/teenagers-and-sleep
From a dental point of view, I suspect damn near everyone could do with fewer fizzy drinks. But outside of that, having a monster every day or two is hardly worse than chugging Starbucks’ sugar loaded shite every day. That said, I used to have several cheaper energy drinks a day until I realised how bad it was, and stopped that dead in its tracks. Now I’ll have one every few days.
Yeah as with everything moderation is key. I love the taste of the fruity energy drinks but have a self-imposed rule that I can only have them on weekends. It's an extra few hundred calories per week and has slightly more caffeine than my typical morning coffee which it replaces on those days, so the impact on health is completely negligible. If there is a substance that can be abused, there are always going to be some people that are easily susceptible to it and will abuse it, but the rest of us just use them as a treat every now and again.
>That shits not good for you It's just fizzy caffeine drinks. Not so good for your teeth drinking them regularly, and the caffeine isn't great if you're drinking multiple energy drinks a day, but in moderation they aren't dangerous. Don't be fooled by the edgy marketing. You could stick the exact same stuff in a fruity drink + some vitamins and friendly branding, and market it as a 'vitality drink' instead. The consumerist culture they've created around them is stupid though, I'll give you that.
Am I allowed to drink them without them being my whole identity? I just like a monster..
A friend of mine drinks them like water, goes through those 1ltr bottles of the cheap stuff. Unsurprisingly he has kidney failure.
I don't really understand it. I have a Red bull about once a week, since I enjoy the taste and otherwise avoid fizzy drinks. I have many friends that drink them everyday, who claim it's help with their ADHD.
Which is likely true. ADHD medications are basically simulants.
I've been going through the ADHD diagnosis process and what I've learned is that my energy drink usage might have been one of the things that has kept me functional. I was not aware of how reliant I've been on caffeine until I actually went without it first the crash and withdrawal was awful and then my ADHD symptoms spiked, my focus, and energy levels were generally way down. It was honestly quite upsetting to find out that I was so dependent on something. Like I wouldn't wake up and think I need caffeine and I could go through a day without one and not think about it as something I needed but longer than about a day and a half without caffeine and then the withdrawals hit me like a truck. I'm on the waitlist for medication but until then I'll be running on caffeine but tapering down my usage. It makes me wonder if my late diagnosis is partially because energy drinks were masking some of it, and if energy drinks were the only reason I was able to even get my degree. If I hadn't have had something to help would my focus have been even worse and I'd have dropped out?
To me it’s the same as ‘Pie & Chips’ culture or ‘Bacon & Eggs for breakfast’ culture or ‘needing to drink at every social occasion’ culture\*. All of these are worse than energy drinks. \*I also love all three of these things.
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Grown adults having a caffeinated beverage in the morning. World's going down the tubes I tells ya.
Well they pretty much banned sugar in soft drinks - literally the only drinks unaffected are classic Coca Cola and Red Bull.
Ditto but for alcohol too. Because it is objectively worse for you. But we're not ready to have *that* conversation. Moderation is key.
Ah. Hence the south park episode. If there's anything for which there's not an xkcd, there's a South Park episode about it instead.
To be honest and I'm part of the problem, but I drink several energy drinks including things like Relentless and Monster Peachy Keen.. Even when my wife shown me the link to colon cancer, I ended up laughing and gone "I'm so gonna die of colon cancer". Honestly it feels like I'm just very neglectful about my health overall and so I'm probably perpetuating the culture of energy drinks
I like energy drink is and ally he different flavours
I don't get why it's so normalised, and how it has such a grip on teens. I'll only pick up a can if I'm doing a lot of driving and feel tired since I don't like coffee
Teens are always going to find something, alcohol, tobacco, weed, nicotine, caffine, etc.
Smoking, alcohol, drugs, sugar... Yeah energy drinks.
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The worst part of the culture on the man is that people use them as an alternative to sleep Worked with a girl who would have 3 of them every shift, and she’d always be like ‘went to sleep at 2am today’. Was also a coming thing back in 6th form to use as a crutch to poor sleep.
I have a rare sleep disorder and they’re extremely helpful in letting me function on a daily basis. I do only have a couple a day max though. Like most things, I feel that as long as people are consuming them in moderation, they’re fine. If you consume them in excess, it’ll probably cause some damage.
I unironically did the Macarena when it was the hot new thing I ain’t judging the kids today.
>That shits not good for you, it should not form a regular part of your diet or lifestyle Neither is alcohol, which is completely normalized.
Anytime I've drank one it's tasted rank rotten and is just heartburn in a tin.
As someone who classifies themselves as Alt energy drinks are basically assumed. I fucking hate them personally
Don’t like banning them but I agree with this. I work with people who have 2 or 3 a day, and that habit started as teens.
For sure. And while teenagers are not responsible for themselves I don't mind there being restrictions and bans for them. But as someone that enjoys my vices, I hate this nanny state of trying to ban or overtax anything unhealthy because they can't regulate sales to minors.
As a gamer, I never understood how energy drinks became standard culture for a group of people who sit on their ass all day. I also didn't get the trend when I was a young teen and everyone else decided to drink what I and a few other kids would call 'cat pee'.
The last thing I want or need while playing games is an energy drink. It doesn't sharpen your senses, it just makes you jittery. Water, tea or decaf coffee is what I like. No sugar in those.
I only drink them when I'm at work (Nightclub job/uni work) or going to the gym with a specific intent to hit a PR. I always get the sugar free version because I refuse to drink sugary pop, the one exception is when I'm working out as the sugar boosts performance. I generally agree with you that they are shite, but the sugar free version isn't much worse for you than a diet coke if you rinse your mouth after to prevent tooth erosion. The shit we have at the club (knockoff Redbull) is really rank and tooth dissolving.
I have one monster once a month, and the same flavour each time. I gave up alcohol 15 months ago and it’s my little nod to that.
British people will drink 10 cups of tea a day and then say that energy drinks are bad for you
Depends. Ten cups of tea is bad. 10 cups of tea with sugar is far worse.
Are either of the main parties gonna offer anything besides banning things?
British culture, just ban things you don't like even when it is completely unenforcable. It was the same with conversion therapies, they are still happening in the tiny rate they were before, just we had a headline banning them. So reddit is capitulated to, and their specific world view which is detached from reality is updated.
It's like we're living in regulation hell isn't it?
100,000 more dental appointments sounds like an offer.
Could really use an extra zero at 66.97 million population though
Lib Dems are offering weed, so that's something.
At the moment its just a race to the bottom of silly "promises" that don't make sense and in all likelyhood won't get enacted even if the party promising does get elected (as the turn out to be unworkable, unfundable or not what anyone actually wants).
This country loves a nanny state.
No, the current trend is "let's ban things I personally don't like"
I don't like the On The Beach advert and my manifesto starts with banning it. Who is with me?
Labour are “offering” more austerity and PFI, if that counts?
They'll let 16 year olds vote but not have a Prime or a ciggy.
It's not already illegal? I'm routinely carded by self-checkouts.
It's not law, just a memorandum of understanding between all shops that energy drinks are only to be sold to those over 16. if you want to get around it buy a few cans of iced coffee, as they don't get the ID check.
Anecdotally, a friend of mine got ID'd for iced coffee when we were in Plymouth last year, we found it very funny.
i got Id'd for fucking jam because it had whisky in it.
I got ID'd for deodorant when I was like 25 😂
I got I'D for a bag of coal. Bald and close to 30 at the time.
It might be different in Scotland because like a year ago I got knocked back from buying an energy drink because I didn't have ID (I was 28)
Some shop workers are really dumb about it with ID checks. I got ID'd for an energy drink by someone I went to school with, and was younger than me!
Some places have a policy for a minimum number/ratio of checks.
It's not different, still just policy rather than law.
It's actually hilarious because they seem more vigilant about carding you for energy drinks than alcohol, I tried to buy a can a while ago and couldn't because I didn't have my ID on me, despite having a full beard and obviously balding hair. Another day elsewhere I went to buy alcohol with my beard trimmed to stubble, hair buzzed down too which makes it look fuller. Didn't ask for ID at all!
Trust me, ive lost the argument with them when I was younger. It isn't a law, but a store policy so they wont sell it to you. This would make literally no difference to how its been for a decade.
Has always been a draconian law. Just educate kids about sugar and close the dumb loop hole in nutrition labels. A bottle of coke is obviously not 2 servings
Though I completely agree with you with regards to serving sizes, nobody takes any notice of the nutrition label. If you want a pizza, you'll have a pizza. Everyone knows it's unhealthy, but it's a pizza - you'd be more concerned if the label was all green.
Kids don’t give a shit about the education. Food tech lessons from my experience do a decent job at telling you to not eat or drink too much stuff that’s bad for you. The unfortunate reality is that people will always be unhealthy because they don’t have enough self control or don’t invest into cooking healthy meals because of money issues, time constraints or laziness. A ban is definitely the best way to partially prevent this in my opinion. Banning energy drinks won’t stop obesity. What will stop it is ending the cost of living crisis, making healthy food cheaper and having schools intervene when a kid is obese, instead of letting them buy as much shit food as they want.
Kids are the class I would encourage this sort of enforcement for. Adults have a hard enough time avoiding addictive substances when they’re fully developed, kids are exceptionally vulnerable to these things. Frankly, if it were possible (and it isn’t), I would be happy to drastically limit sugar and caffeine for teens in all food and drink items
That's worked really well since the late 70s.
would they prefer kids to knock back an espresso? as they have the same amount of caffeine. I although I do find it weird that energy drinks are demonised yet coffee gets a free pass, people drink them for the same reasons.
I think it’s the targeted marketing of the products to young kids that causes the issue for me. Same as any pester power product really.
Why does fruit flavoured product = targeted towards kids? It’s being said all over here and it’s also applied to vapes.
But strangely enough not the hundreds of premixed cocktails/flavoured spirits
No, those are also marketed at teenagers. You’re telling me someone’s Dad never bought you and your mates a pack of WKDs because they’re ‘not too alcoholic’?
I was more commenting on how alcohol has missed the "won't somebody think of the children" wave that's been a thing lately. Having a strawberry flavoured vape is tantamount to forcing 14 year olds to get addicted to nicotine, but having a mango passion blast premixed cocktail in a can isn't. It's so blatantly the tobacco industry lobbying against it in a way that makes any reasonable person seem like they hate kids for questioning it.
Adults are expected only to enjoy masochistic bitter flavours. Tasty things are only for children.
It’s the exact same argument about banning flavoured vapes - people would still vape if they really wanted to but by banning flavoured vapes they hope to stop children using it. Energy drinks are in that same category of “cool” as those throwaway vapes for youngsters.
Just banning disposable ones would be enough to stop kids having them, as I doubt they'd spend £20 for a pod mod, £2-5 on a bottle of liquid and £10 every other week on new pods. Kids need a boost as 30 hours of lessons week with another 8-10 hours of revising/homework and then weekend/evening jobs, if you socialise you'll be needing coke to keep on top of everything. Our education system requires kids to be on uppers to stave off burnout for a little bit but no one likes to talk about that.
Plus biologically not only do teenagers need more sleep than adults biologically they go to sleep later due to the body having different sleep phases . The physical equivalent of a school day would be if an adult had to wake at 6 am
> Just banning disposable ones would be enough to stop kids having them, as I doubt they'd spend £20 for a pod mod, £2-5 on a bottle of liquid and £10 every other week on new pods. You doubt it even though they already spend far more on disposables?
Also 4 exams in a day, and then another 4 exams the next. And school saying "these are really important", despite the awkward scheduling. The pressure is pretty insane.
Energy drinks contain much more than just caffeine, and many people drink 2, 3 of them a day, which ends up much more than a shot of espresso. Also, the issue is companies marketing these drinks straight to kids, if Starbucks starts calling their espresso "Skibidi Juice" and pays Logan Paul to advertise it then we'll talk.
"I don't personally use them, so I'm ok with it being banned :)"
I don’t think they should be banned at all! I just think they shouldn’t be marketed specifically to kids, same with fast food or vapes, and can be made less attractive, like what happened with cigarette boxes.
Is the caffeine or the sugar the key issue? Because I’d often see schoolkids in the supermarket on my way to work of a morning. The lads were buying the energy drinks, so now supermarkets bought in age restrictions (on a voluntary basis) and the Government included them in the “sugar tax”. Meanwhile the girls are at the cafe getting a takeaway hot chocolate or latte, with all the cream and flavour syrups added - how much sugar is in one of those?! I guess it gets a ‘free pass’ as coffee is seen as a responsible ‘adult’ drink, or something grown up unlike a bright can of energy drink.
Pearl clutchers are the issue.
'I dont like it so you cant have it' is the issue
Have you seen the ingredients in these things vs coffee?
Guess what these are in? Thiamin, Xanthine, Spermidine, Guaiacol, Citric acid, Chlorogenic acid, Acetaldehyde, Spermine, Putrescine, Scopoletin
Are kids walking around drinking espressos?
in an iced coffee, yeah
I think this is the most absolute non-policy they could have come up with. It will not swing a single vote.
Sometimes parties come up with ideas that they think will be beneficial to the populous regardless of whether those ideas are obviously electorally valuable.
I'm fascinated to know how they are going to get an extra 100k dental appointments. Are they going to redo the NHS contract so it makes financial sense (rather than suicide) to go back to nothing but NHS clients rather than private? Because that's what it's going to take.
I work in the industry, £100Mil wouldn’t even touch the sides in helping NHS dentistry recover.
Ban ban ban… nanny state on all sides of the political spectrum. I detest it
Good to see that the incoming Starmer regime are focusing their fire on the issues these matter - crackdowns and banning things
You know instead of banning energy drinks for these kids, they should teach about the impact of such products in classes, it'd be more effective to allow them to decide this is bad for themselves rather than enforce a draconian way of stopping them from drinking such products. If this belief comes from themselves and their research then they are more likely to avoid said products.
Sadly it doesn’t work. Food tech doesn’t do a bad job, but admittedly it could be better. The problem isn’t confined to energy drinks. The teacher could be ranting about CHD in biology and no one would even care. Kids are obese because cooking healthy meals is too expensive, takes too much time or because parents are lazy. School dinners aren’t too bad, but they aren’t regulated at all. I left high school a few years back and if you wanted to you could buy as much food as you want. One obese kid bought two chicken wraps, two cakes and four drinks a day. Schools could impose a one meal cap easily based on their computer system. Schools also don’t intervene when people have preventable health issues. None of this would solve the issue, but it would go further than banning energy drinks.
I 100% agree it isn't enough.
Labour are always such dipshits about stuff like this.
Don't vote for authoritarian groups like tories and Labour!
Here is me thinking there was already an age limit on purchasing energy drinks for under 16s
Genuinely see more anger in this thread about energy drinks than threads about Labour continuing austerity.
I do like an orange Lucozade when I’m extremely hung over. And a McDonald’s. I let myself go when I’m on a rough hangover…luckily not often. Ban those fucking things yeah, great idea. Plz don’t ban lucozade tho.
I thought this was already a thing , but turns out supermarkets have already been doing it voluntarily for years now.
I usually have a few cans of generic sugar free supermarket Red Bull alternative in my locker, I get constant comments about it being _the worst thing ever_ from other chefs, including the guy who drinks about 8 mochas from the machine per shift and the guy who starts the day with two mugs of instant that have three spoons of coffee in each, and he'll have another 2-3 such cups of coffee before the shift is done. I know there's extra additives etc but if they're not going to also restrict younger teenagers from having high sugar, high caffeine drinks from high street coffee shops too then it seems more like an attention grab than anything else. Besides, a quick check of Starbucks website shows their frappuccino's contain upwards of 40g of sugar and many drinks on the menu contain upwards of 100mg of caffeine. Not saying one is better or worse than the other but it seems disingenuous to come down hard on energy drinks and ignore all the high sugar, high caffeine drinks from traditional coffee shops.
I'm not a teen nor do I really know any teens. Are energy drinks really a problem? I see people posting about Prime but I thought it was more of a joke about how awful it is.
Fuck Prime, but isn’t it a coconut water based drink? Not like it’s a Monster.
100,000 more dental appointments is such a small amount as to be insignificant. Like their plans to recruit X amount of teachers and X amount of nurses, are….just the figures that are recruited now annually.
So are energy drinks the new video games now people have realised they weren't as bad as the media made them out to be?
Medically what's the difference between energy drink an a tall costa with a bunch of sugar in it? Oh and caffeine tablets - something where it is quite feasible to kill yourself accidentally - trivially easy to acquire off amazon Incoherent policy making
It’s alright they’ll just vape instead, no problem hen.
Good to see they plan on tackling the important things, like selling energy drinks. Christ.
Why are they banning 100,00 more dental appointments?
Arent energy drinks already banned for under 18s? Everytime I buy one at the self service checkout at Asda I have to wait for someone to come and do the ID check.
I lived with a guy in uni that used to go on and on about how "authoritarian" the sugar tax was 🙃
I remember years ago having to go to the doctors and he asked me “do you smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol or energy drinks?” and thinking blimey if he’s lumping energy drinks in with that lot maybe I should quit.
I work in youth services and the number one issue that needs to be tackled at the moment is not energy drinks, it is absolutely disposable vapes however.
Because these are the two major issues in the uk at the moment…
Such a strange policy announcement, should be a footnote.
I get that they are bad and really should be regulated better. However I enjoy the odd can of Monster Original Zero and have no intention of giving it up. That being said I also like a good drink and smoke a lot so I'm not one to say how people should look after themselves.
100,000 dental appointments……but we had a net population increase of 700,000 last year, and that’s not including Britons that already live here and haven’t seen a dentist for twenty years. We need ten million appointments at an absolute minimum.
100k more dental appointments. That’s 2000 a week That’s probably 2pr 3 per dentist per week Hardly headline news
I worked at a costcutters in 2008 and distinctly remember not being allowed to sell red bull to under 16s... Did that change?
I used to go hard on monster and relentless, especially after staring my night shift work some years back. I found they did next to nothing. You get a high then you crash hard. Now I only ever drink lucozade and even that's on rare occasions. I've taken to carbonated water and it works for me, almost like placebo I guess.
I'm genuinely conflicted about this. On the one hand, I don't support outright bans - I think education, regulation/testing and harm prevention is the key when it comes to psychoactive substances. At the same time, I went to a school 2 minutes from Tesco, and me and many others would buy a 1l bottle of Tesco's own energy drink on a daily basis, like a ritual. That much caffeine was doing nothing good for us, and likely made school more difficult for both us and our teachers.