I'm sure it does. The thing is I mostly hear about the things Poland does wrong. That's what trends to break into international news. That's why I worded my comment the way I did.
To be fair, it's the same amount of sugar as most other sodas and had less caffeine than a typical coffee. The real issue is that a lot of their marketing targets a younger audience who probably shouldn't be drinking caffeinated drinks yet.
I say this as a long term caffeine for the rest of my life addict. Coffee + sugar is a wildly different effect than just coffee. I avoid sugar completely during my coffee hours.
Coffein simply blocks the receptors in your body that send the signals to your brain that you are tired, while sugar is essentially pure energy. I'm no expert on this subject, but afaik both coffein and sugar increases blood pressure, which is probably not an ideal thing.
A tall coffee at Starbucks has about 230mg of caffeine and that's fairly typical. A large coffee at 90mg would either be 2/3rds decaf or incredibly watery.
I dont think Starbucks is considered a cofee in europe. More like an american desert cofee honestly.
And how large even is that? Half a liter?
Typical cofee in europe is at max half of that.
There are huge variations between chains in a single country, let alone between countries. And 'large' in the US likely means something very different to what 'large' means in different parts of Europe.
But your point stands up, in general. Starbucks is noticeably low in caffeine (in the UK) and 90mg would be low in a medium (chain) coffee here:
A medium cappuccino at Costa Coffee contains a “massive” 325mg of caffeine, almost five times the strength of the Starbucks version with a modest 66mg.
By contrast, Greggs and Pret A Manger also use significantly less caffeine in a cappuccino of the same size, at 197mg and 180mg respectively. Caffè Nero had the second lowest levels of caffeine after Starbucks in this drink specifically, containing between 110mg and 115mg.
The study also found that one single espresso from Pret A Manger contains 180mg of caffeine, or six times as much as its Starbucks counterpart. Pret’s filter coffee also contained the highest caffeine levels at 271mg, compared to 225mg at Greggs and 102mg at Starbucks.
Energy drinks often contain a bunch of other stuff - e.g. Taurine, which isn't necessarily bad per se, as it eliminates some of the caffeine side effects (jitteriness), but that may arguably make it more addictive.
Then what would you call Bang with 0 calories & sugars and 300mg of caffeine? I drink that (half a can each time) when I want to stay up a little later that night, like on weekends and new game releases.
eh, fair enough. teenage energy drink addiction has caused me years of insomnia. we already have an age restriction on energy drinks in the UK, though it's 16 not 18
I don't think that's true anymore. The ban wasn't formally finalised and was quietly dropped during the pandemic. The store I work at still sells energy drinks to under 16s. We used to have to check, but they changed it and took the warning off our tills.
ETA: stores can implement their own policies though, if they do wish to age check people buying energy drinks.
Reading those comments drops your IQ by 5 points. Now calculate the economic impact that will have... You can't because reading this comment drops your IQ by another 5 points :(
the whole point of banning energy drink sales to minors is that minors are at a higher increase of heart issues because their body can't handle caffeine like adults. but sure, everyone else is the idiot on this one and "the economy" is definitely more important than kids' health
The thing is that they taste good.
But there is no justification for their price tag( coca cola and pepsi sodas actually fall in the same bucket,quite good but why would you buy them for that price,especialy since it costs them next to nothing to make ).
As far as I can tell, the difference between the brand colas and the non-brand ones, is that the brand ones don't destroy my guts. 2 cups of the cheaper colas and I'm shitting liquid for a week.
Sadly, large amounts of caffeine were a way to control my ADHD when I couldn't afford medication. I still usually have an energy drink daily, even though I'm medicated now. At least that's less that what I used to do.
It’s not only much cheaper to not have a caffeine addiction, but it also I think makes me much more present as I don’t need caffeine in the mornings to function, and I get enough sleep. Just seems better to me.
imagine if this whole thing was about cigarettes. id imagine people would be questioning why it wasnt age restricted sooner. caffeine and nicotine are practically the same type of addiction, but one of them is legal for almost anybody to get and the other is getting banned more and more
When I was a teenager, we were shotgunning beers and smoking hash. A lot worse than a few energy drinks a month.
When I was a teenager, I started drinking coffee before I went to school. Everyone was still half asleep and I couldn't sit still as coffee was my energy drink. I regret it now because I need more caffeine to wake up.
not having caffeine for a few days gives withdrawal effects same as nicotine withdrawal effects (not exactly the same, but same idea if you get what im trying to convey)
Yeah but there aren't severe short term or long term effects from drinking caffeine, as there are with cigarettes. Insomnia and increased blood pressure but that's about it, isn't it? Smoking causes immediate infections and many long terms issues including lots of different types of cancer.
short term effects trouble sleeping, irregular heartbeat, restlessness etc. etc. can trigger panic attacks to people who are prone to them and potentially can kill children
long term are insomnia, constant anxiety (i have witnessed first hand caffeines effects on anxiety. it sucks to see), depression, stomach problems, high blood pressure, and it also has problems when used during pregnancy and breast feeding
so yeah to me its a little weird how normal caffeine is in life to where it is almost unrestricted where i live while nicotine has flavor bans
It's harder to quit than you think for some people. Any addiction can be hard to give up. And you do feel like shit if you stop using caffeine cold turkey after drinking 12 cups of coffee a day.
Maybe. I don't know. I think it depends on the person. I quit cigarettes cold turkey and have never touched another one since. My wife had to quit over months. We both smoked for the same amount of time and smoked about the same number a day.
Now I don't feel I need to quit caffeine. I have a big mug of tea in the morning and that's it. But I can see someone who drinks coffee constantly, and I've known people like that, having a much harder time quitting that than I did quitting smoking.
OP referenced nicotine not cigarettes specifically. Things like vaping and chew fall into this category too and both have been restricted in many parts of the world over the last few years "for the children."
Shit's addictive. As a long time smoker who tried energy drinks during crunch time, I can assure you the withdrawal symptoms and sharp decline in effectiveness is exactly like smoking.
"excluding products where those substances occur naturally."
That seems like a dumb exception. It's not like naturally occurring caffeine is somehow better for you. If it's above that limit, then the law should apply to that as well.
Coffee has its beans dried and roasted, then ground and seeped in water. If you're going to call that artificial, then you are claiming that literally any cooked food is also artificial.
Coffee beans are dried. Then beans then ungo a Maillard reaction, caramelisation, pyrolysis and decarboxilation to form new organic componds
then ground and seeped in water
Then ground to maximize the surface area. The prouder is then extracted using unpure H2O as solvent. A higher temperature is needed to raise the solubility of the compounds.
I'm gonna go with the step you didn't list which is soaking them in dichloromethane or ethyl acetate for several hours, or submersing them in high pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide, to extract the pure caffeine. Then adding that pure caffeine into a mixture of artificial sugars, preservatives, and food dyes.
But sure, that's totally the same as something that's essentially a type of tea.
I would argue that naturally occurring caffeine is much worse than synthetic caffeine because it also contains rest of plant's toxins and other not so good stuff.
On the other hand not that anyone uses sunthetic caffeine in their drinks. It is expensive as hell.
No? I mean it's a decent source of B vitamins and taurine, but cmon.
But I don't think chocolate is healthy and I let my kids have chocolate sundaes sometimes too.
I don't see why teaching my children moderation could ever be seen as bad.
FWIW I don't normally allow my 8 year old to drink pop (friends birthdays are about it) but my 17 year old having a large Starbucks coffee once or twice a week was not a big deal to me.
That all seems reasonable, but none of this was alluded to in your previous comment and it gave the implication that you were suspicious of energy drinks being labeled "unhealthy."
Also I think there are benefits with chocolate. It's the sugary Hersheys type chocolate that is nothing but empty calories.
Yeah I wouldn't recommend people drink 3 of these controversial energy drinks per day, both for health and financial reasons.
From your link:
Up to 400 milligrams (mg) of caffeine a day appears to be safe for most healthy adults. That's roughly the amount of caffeine in four cups of brewed coffee, 10 cans of cola or two "energy shot" drinks.
1/3rd of that consumed by a teenager really doesn't seem that scary, and the page you linked agrees.
Energy drinks (EDs) are sweetened beverages that contain multiple stimulants such as caffeine, guarana, or taurine.
…
The results of this study reveal that the consumption of a single, bodyweight-adjusted ED dosage is linked with a significantly higher median 24-h SBP (+5.26 mmHg) and DBP (+3.45 mmHg), compared to a placebo beverage, in healthy children and adolescents. A meta-analysis by Conen et al. suggests that an increase of 10 mmHg in 24-h SBP is connected with a 27% higher risk for cardiovascular events.38 In addition, a population-based study by Hansen et al. indicates that an increase of 5 mmHg in 24-h DBP is associated with a 27% higher risk for cardiovascular disease.39 Therefore, the ED-induced alterations in the pediatric 24-h blood pressure profile displayed in this study can be considered alarming.
Moreover, chronic ED consumption could result in arterial hypertension and hence increased left ventricular afterload, ultimately leading to left ventricular dysfunction and hypertrophy.16 A previous publication conducted by our department reported a significantly lower cardiac efficiency after acute ED consumption in healthy children and adolescents.16 Furthermore, many EDs contain high amounts of sugar and thus “empty” calories. Chronic ED consumption could therefore lead to the onset of glucose metabolism disorders and aggravate weight gain. As ED consumption is associated with a shorter sleep duration,32 it might additionally increase cardiovascular risk.35 In summary, children and adolescents, particularly those with elevated cardiovascular morbidity (e.g., arterial hypertension, diabetes, excess weight), should be discouraged from consuming EDs. Moreover, minors should be made aware of the potential health risks of excessive ED intake as well as responsible ED consumption behaviors.
The administered ED dosage was bodyweight-adjusted (3 mg caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight) and reflected the maximum daily caffeine intake for healthy children and adolescents as proposed by the EFSA
Yeah I wouldn't let my kid have that much caffeine for sure.
For my waifish daughter, that's around 200mg of caffeine which seems really high, outside of what the average person consumes.
By comparison, I'm cool with my kid having about half that, or approximately 1 Monster/Large coffee, once she's a late teen.
One argument I could see is that energy drinks are super sweet and sugary (not to mention cheeper) and on top of that they have bunch of cool flavors. While coffee is more off-putting
I work in a grocery store in Europe and now that Prime is produced in Poland and it doesnt cost absurdly, I can say that mostly, if not only, kids are the ones drinking it.
Edit: I just got back to work and checked that my country's biggest chains only sell Prime Hydration, which is caffeine free.
Are you fucking kidding me? Christ. "not marketed for people under 18" my ass, they fucking know Logan's main audience are kids (idk about ksi but I suspect his is similar) and that kids are absolutely gonna drink their fucking caffeine nuke.
This was also implemented in Lithuania around maybe 5 years ago. Some kids would still get it by asking their parents or strangers to buy them, but they definitely got more rare, to the point where at least where I am, you'd more often see a teen with a ciggie rather than a teen with an energy drink.
In Latvia this started on 2016, June 1st. Not sure if it ever was a big problem, I think this law came because there was an incident when some kid died.
Energy drinks have so much shit in it to help give you energy/keep you awake. Coke and other sodas have sugar and caffeine. And I never said that the others got a pass, they're both bad for you, just one is way fucking worse.
What is it that makes coffee better for you than an energy drink? I know they usually have an obscene amount of sugar and caffeine, but you can get that in coffee too. I make a drink fairly often with 4 shots of espresso, around 250mg of caffeine. It doesn't have that much sugar but I could easily add as much as I wanted. A normal cup of coffee would of course be much better than an energy drink, but if energy drinks should have restrictions then why shouldn't coffee too?
That's what I don't understand too. They can just buy a doubletripple espresso and add a lot of sugar to ease the taste. Maybe a bit of cinnamon hint too. What's the real difference here?
The difference is popular conception. Laws aren't set based on science. They're set based on what enough people believe. People believe energy drinks are worse and thus they get regulated whether or not it's true.
Advertising, audience, and stereotypes play a part in this too. Coffee is stereotypically consumed by older people, whereas energy drinks are often younger people (who older people find annoying). Coffee also has a much greater social acceptance that would make it controversial to regulate. End result is that it's popular to limit energy drinks but unpopular to point out that coffee has far more caffeine.
It's a weird trend. Products that are popular with youth and "seem" un-healthy get banned by populistic laws, despite limited evidence proving them actually being un-healthy.
The other prominent example I can think is vaping. I don't even vape, but it's weird to see it demonized as much as cigarettes, when the evidence for it being as harmful is very limited.
It's the convenience I think. You can carry an energy drink in your backpack all day and consume it whenever. A coffee is more motivated so you order it when you want to drink it. But of course there are exceptions. It seems the goal of this is just to cut down the caffeine by making large doses less convenient, not to remove caffeine completely.
did you just make an assumption about what I consume? Damn, that makes you look pretty dumb. I don't drink coffee, btw. I love the smell, never had it or tasted it. The only way caffeine gets into my body is through pop (Dr Pepper, preferably) and I guess chocolate since chocolate has caffeine. But definitely not the absurd levels of caffeine that energy drinks have
Well according to you, being natural and having a long history means its safe. Are you now saying that maybe a substance's origin has nothing to so with how dangerous it is?
Probably more that the long term use of coffee is very well understood and researched. And while excessive use of anything is bad, coffee have not displayed issues bad enouhf that it needed regulation.
A "coffee" at starbucks, or an energy drink Have more in common with a dessert, then water filtered thru ground up beans.
And 3 desserts a day have quickly shown health issues.
A "coffee" at starbucks, or an energy drink Have more in common with a dessert, then water filtered thru ground up beans.
Is your only problem the sugar? If so, don't you think some coffee drinks should be regulated as well as energy drinks? That's essentially my point, I don't think it makes sense to enforce age restrictions on energy drinks but not on similar products too.
If its the caffeine, then regular coffee isn't necessarily better than an energy drink anyway. Caffeine content in coffee varies wildly based on numerous different factors. You can make a cup of black coffee with 265mg of caffeine in it, and it would even be cheaper than one with 100mg.
I agree. When I was young, an energy drink almost gave me a heart attack because my heart was beating too fast. In my opinion, these drinks are dangerous.
Only time I hit 180 was sober, no caffeine, the first time I won a 1v99 round of PUBG. This was a few months after 1.0. I had to lay down in bed and vibrate for a while. I have never felt like that before/since.
I remember being so confused when I was shopping there and I was asked for my ID. I did a double and triple take over what I had purchased to see if I accidentally bought alcohol.
It’s unlikely to cause any kind of large black market. In the UK, energy drinks have been restricted to 16+ for a few years now. People don’t mind off brand vapes or cigarettes (for some reason), but people absolutely care about the brand of energy drink they are buying. Kids especially, I imagine most only buy them to look cool, and if no one knows you are drinking a “cool” energy drink then why bother?
No energy drink is as cool as the one with the skulls on the can that glows in the dark and is laced with Chinese research chemicals you can only get one the dark web or from your older brothers friend that believes there's a Nazi base on the moon.
That's a good thing, that's less total caffeine they ingest. Which is the entire point. To reduce easy access to high dose caffeine. The kids could just huff coffee if they really wanted, no solution needs to be perfect to have an effect.
I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm just saying that Poland will need to do more than just restrict sales to minors if they want to have long term success with this.
Well it does to some extent, because maybe they're just the tip of a wider problem, an easy target that lets conveniently 90+% of the hyper-sugar products, super-highly addictive and harmful, available to children...?
It's a spectrum. They might not blow up buildings but might start hanging out in those forums. Shit like this is very unpopular with folks in the center of either side.
Utter bullshit. The world does need more ways to restrict, exclude, and infantilize young people. This should be subverted by every possible means.
I imagine this cuts off right at the voting age? So it only affects people who never had a say in who passed it and can't effectively hold them to account for it?
Well my problem with vapes aren't the vapes itself but the single use one's. They even have a recharable battery just for it to be used once. It's extremely wasteful
Nice hearing about something Poland is doing right!
Poland does many things right
I'm sure it does. The thing is I mostly hear about the things Poland does wrong. That's what trends to break into international news. That's why I worded my comment the way I did.
...as long as it doesn't offend the church.
Is that unusual for Poland? I have no idea, myself.
Poland is doing a lot of things wrong on the judicial side.
By "judicial side" you mean "Poland is going Hungary/Israel judicial style"?
Agree 100%. It's just an unhealthy dose of sugar and caffeine, which is hardly regulated.
To be fair, it's the same amount of sugar as most other sodas and had less caffeine than a typical coffee. The real issue is that a lot of their marketing targets a younger audience who probably shouldn't be drinking caffeinated drinks yet.
I say this as a long term caffeine for the rest of my life addict. Coffee + sugar is a wildly different effect than just coffee. I avoid sugar completely during my coffee hours.
Hi. What's the different effect? I've never considered that before.
Coffein simply blocks the receptors in your body that send the signals to your brain that you are tired, while sugar is essentially pure energy. I'm no expert on this subject, but afaik both coffein and sugar increases blood pressure, which is probably not an ideal thing.
The most popular energy drinks in Sweden are sugar free but contain 180mg of caffeine, that's two large cups of coffee.
A tall coffee at Starbucks has about 230mg of caffeine and that's fairly typical. A large coffee at 90mg would either be 2/3rds decaf or incredibly watery.
I dont think Starbucks is considered a cofee in europe. More like an american desert cofee honestly. And how large even is that? Half a liter? Typical cofee in europe is at max half of that.
There are huge variations between chains in a single country, let alone between countries. And 'large' in the US likely means something very different to what 'large' means in different parts of Europe.
But your point stands up, in general. Starbucks is noticeably low in caffeine (in the UK) and 90mg would be low in a medium (chain) coffee here:
Energy drinks often contain a bunch of other stuff - e.g. Taurine, which isn't necessarily bad per se, as it eliminates some of the caffeine side effects (jitteriness), but that may arguably make it more addictive.
Then the real solution would be regulating their marketing.
That's not a bad idea.
Now let's stop calling them 'energy' drinks.
Curious what you’d call them.
Ah gotcha. Wasn’t sure if it was a pedantic thing or an ideological thing. Totally agree with you that ‘energy’ is a misnomer.
Then what would you call Bang with 0 calories & sugars and 300mg of caffeine? I drink that (half a can each time) when I want to stay up a little later that night, like on weekends and new game releases.
I'd call it a stimulant.
"Can't believe it's not energy! drink"
Caffeine soda.
"Chemical Caffeine"?
"Bull Jizz n Juice"?
Uhh...
These would be great names for mixed drinks.
eh, fair enough. teenage energy drink addiction has caused me years of insomnia. we already have an age restriction on energy drinks in the UK, though it's 16 not 18
I don't think that's true anymore. The ban wasn't formally finalised and was quietly dropped during the pandemic. The store I work at still sells energy drinks to under 16s. We used to have to check, but they changed it and took the warning off our tills.
ETA: stores can implement their own policies though, if they do wish to age check people buying energy drinks.
I have no idea what's going on then lol. pretty much every shop I've been to has asked for ID when buying energy drinks
It is essentially a popular voluntary movement by stores.
Reading those comments drops your IQ by 5 points. Now calculate the economic impact that will have... You can't because reading this comment drops your IQ by another 5 points :(
the whole point of banning energy drink sales to minors is that minors are at a higher increase of heart issues because their body can't handle caffeine like adults. but sure, everyone else is the idiot on this one and "the economy" is definitely more important than kids' health
That's the most reasonable thing i've read today.
Yeah. Energy drinks are fucking scams.
No wonder people who actually need energy don't use them while those who sit on their ass all day do.
The thing is that they taste good. But there is no justification for their price tag( coca cola and pepsi sodas actually fall in the same bucket,quite good but why would you buy them for that price,especialy since it costs them next to nothing to make ).
As far as I can tell, the difference between the brand colas and the non-brand ones, is that the brand ones don't destroy my guts. 2 cups of the cheaper colas and I'm shitting liquid for a week.
I take it you've never been anywhere near a military base or construction site
The best workers are hydrating with good ol' water.
The kids are drinking 'energy' drinks.
Absolutely a good thing. As someone who drank a lot of energy drinks in high school, it was not worth it.
Sadly, large amounts of caffeine were a way to control my ADHD when I couldn't afford medication. I still usually have an energy drink daily, even though I'm medicated now. At least that's less that what I used to do.
Why? I've consumed caffeine for a long time without any problems...genuinely asking
It’s not only much cheaper to not have a caffeine addiction, but it also I think makes me much more present as I don’t need caffeine in the mornings to function, and I get enough sleep. Just seems better to me.
No time for sleep when you either
Or
I just love super strong flavors. I drink ice water throughout the day after my breakfast, though.
imagine if this whole thing was about cigarettes. id imagine people would be questioning why it wasnt age restricted sooner. caffeine and nicotine are practically the same type of addiction, but one of them is legal for almost anybody to get and the other is getting banned more and more
What's the harm from caffeine though?
I grind beans for coffee in the morning, then move onto tea. It's got L-theanine in as well as caffeine.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31758301/
When I was a teenager, we were shotgunning beers and smoking hash. A lot worse than a few energy drinks a month.
Only those energy drinks that have artificially added caffeine or taurine are going to have their sales restricted to those over 18.
When I was a teenager, I started drinking coffee before I went to school. Everyone was still half asleep and I couldn't sit still as coffee was my energy drink. I regret it now because I need more caffeine to wake up.
not having caffeine for a few days gives withdrawal effects same as nicotine withdrawal effects (not exactly the same, but same idea if you get what im trying to convey)
Yeah but there aren't severe short term or long term effects from drinking caffeine, as there are with cigarettes. Insomnia and increased blood pressure but that's about it, isn't it? Smoking causes immediate infections and many long terms issues including lots of different types of cancer.
short term effects trouble sleeping, irregular heartbeat, restlessness etc. etc. can trigger panic attacks to people who are prone to them and potentially can kill children
long term are insomnia, constant anxiety (i have witnessed first hand caffeines effects on anxiety. it sucks to see), depression, stomach problems, high blood pressure, and it also has problems when used during pregnancy and breast feeding
so yeah to me its a little weird how normal caffeine is in life to where it is almost unrestricted where i live while nicotine has flavor bans
These symptoms will stop though if you stop drinking caffeine - not necessarily the case with cigarettes.
Caffeine is pretty easy to quit though. Cigarettes aren't.
Also caffeine isn't as harmful as cigarettes.
It's harder to quit than you think for some people. Any addiction can be hard to give up. And you do feel like shit if you stop using caffeine cold turkey after drinking 12 cups of coffee a day.
Sure, but easier than cigarettes
Maybe. I don't know. I think it depends on the person. I quit cigarettes cold turkey and have never touched another one since. My wife had to quit over months. We both smoked for the same amount of time and smoked about the same number a day.
Now I don't feel I need to quit caffeine. I have a big mug of tea in the morning and that's it. But I can see someone who drinks coffee constantly, and I've known people like that, having a much harder time quitting that than I did quitting smoking.
OP referenced nicotine not cigarettes specifically. Things like vaping and chew fall into this category too and both have been restricted in many parts of the world over the last few years "for the children."
And they do it anyway
Red bull profits go brrrr.
Curious why people drink energy drinks when they sit on their ass all day. Like, athletes don't drink this shit lol; gamers do.
Shit's addictive. As a long time smoker who tried energy drinks during crunch time, I can assure you the withdrawal symptoms and sharp decline in effectiveness is exactly like smoking.
Don't smoke nor drink energy drinks, kids.
I mean, when I stopped nicotine that just caused me to "replace" it with caffeine instead. Not sure which is worse tbh
Kitchens love the shit. Seems popular in manufacturing, too.
Easier on the stomach than coffee, and free manufacturing break room coffee can be one of the harshest chemicals in industry.
Under 18s?
That's not a very long wait from birth to Monster. Just 18 seconds?
18s is all this monster needs.
The OP meant "under 18-year-olds".
Good reddit joke.
You're so funny.
It costs $0 to not be an asshole
I hope this would also include products like "5 hour energy", which are energy drinks, but in a smaller and even easier to shot down package.
"excluding products where those substances occur naturally."
That seems like a dumb exception. It's not like naturally occurring caffeine is somehow better for you. If it's above that limit, then the law should apply to that as well.
It's a lot easier to pass a law banning the sale of artificial drinks to minors than it is to ban coffee sales to minors.
Artificial drinks, not caffeine? Coffee is artificial drink too because it is human-made.
It nearly impossible to define energy-drinks in a way that does not include coffee, but include off-the-shelf drinks.
Coffee has its beans dried and roasted, then ground and seeped in water. If you're going to call that artificial, then you are claiming that literally any cooked food is also artificial.
Coffee beans are dried. Then beans then ungo a Maillard reaction, caramelisation, pyrolysis and decarboxilation to form new organic componds
Then ground to maximize the surface area. The prouder is then extracted using unpure H2O as solvent. A higher temperature is needed to raise the solubility of the compounds.
You can describe anything that's consumed by people with chemical terms and it's gonna sound unnatural.
You remind me of that old joke site warning people of the dangers of the chemical compound DHMO (dihydrogen monoxide)
And you are correct.
For those who think energy drinks are not the same, please point out at which stage coffee is no longer coffee and why:
I'm gonna go with the step you didn't list which is soaking them in dichloromethane or ethyl acetate for several hours, or submersing them in high pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide, to extract the pure caffeine. Then adding that pure caffeine into a mixture of artificial sugars, preservatives, and food dyes.
But sure, that's totally the same as something that's essentially a type of tea.
I would argue that naturally occurring caffeine is much worse than synthetic caffeine because it also contains rest of plant's toxins and other not so good stuff.
On the other hand not that anyone uses sunthetic caffeine in their drinks. It is expensive as hell.
Those kind of things aren't really popular outside of America. I only ever see them in America
Seen them in Thailand. Red Bull was originally in small shot format.cam from there, and it was adapted for other markets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krating_Daeng
The Thai family of the pharmacist who came up with the formula still owns 50% of Red Bull.
Rare Poland W
Finaly. This should be done in every country, since they are so unhealthy.
So you have a source on why you believe these are unhealthy?
They're pure sugar water and caffeine. I drink them but do you honestly think there is a chance they are healthy in any possible way?
Is any canned drink "healthy"?
Liquid Death
Ensure/Slim Fast? Probably not a majority of them.
No? I mean it's a decent source of B vitamins and taurine, but cmon.
But I don't think chocolate is healthy and I let my kids have chocolate sundaes sometimes too.
I don't see why teaching my children moderation could ever be seen as bad.
FWIW I don't normally allow my 8 year old to drink pop (friends birthdays are about it) but my 17 year old having a large Starbucks coffee once or twice a week was not a big deal to me.
That all seems reasonable, but none of this was alluded to in your previous comment and it gave the implication that you were suspicious of energy drinks being labeled "unhealthy."
Also I think there are benefits with chocolate. It's the sugary Hersheys type chocolate that is nothing but empty calories.
Yeah I wouldn't recommend people drink 3 of these controversial energy drinks per day, both for health and financial reasons.
From your link:
1/3rd of that consumed by a teenager really doesn't seem that scary, and the page you linked agrees.
Energy drinks (EDs) are sweetened beverages that contain multiple stimulants such as caffeine, guarana, or taurine.
…
The results of this study reveal that the consumption of a single, bodyweight-adjusted ED dosage is linked with a significantly higher median 24-h SBP (+5.26 mmHg) and DBP (+3.45 mmHg), compared to a placebo beverage, in healthy children and adolescents. A meta-analysis by Conen et al. suggests that an increase of 10 mmHg in 24-h SBP is connected with a 27% higher risk for cardiovascular events.38 In addition, a population-based study by Hansen et al. indicates that an increase of 5 mmHg in 24-h DBP is associated with a 27% higher risk for cardiovascular disease.39 Therefore, the ED-induced alterations in the pediatric 24-h blood pressure profile displayed in this study can be considered alarming.
Moreover, chronic ED consumption could result in arterial hypertension and hence increased left ventricular afterload, ultimately leading to left ventricular dysfunction and hypertrophy.16 A previous publication conducted by our department reported a significantly lower cardiac efficiency after acute ED consumption in healthy children and adolescents.16 Furthermore, many EDs contain high amounts of sugar and thus “empty” calories. Chronic ED consumption could therefore lead to the onset of glucose metabolism disorders and aggravate weight gain. As ED consumption is associated with a shorter sleep duration,32 it might additionally increase cardiovascular risk.35 In summary, children and adolescents, particularly those with elevated cardiovascular morbidity (e.g., arterial hypertension, diabetes, excess weight), should be discouraged from consuming EDs. Moreover, minors should be made aware of the potential health risks of excessive ED intake as well as responsible ED consumption behaviors.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02598-y
Yeah I wouldn't let my kid have that much caffeine for sure.
For my waifish daughter, that's around 200mg of caffeine which seems really high, outside of what the average person consumes.
By comparison, I'm cool with my kid having about half that, or approximately 1 Monster/Large coffee, once she's a late teen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Energy#Ingredients caffeine, a lot of it.
That's 1/3 less caffeine than in a 16oz iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and a large is 32oz.
I'm not arguing to give large coffees to 8 year olds but rather that this isn't as much caffeine as people think it is
One argument I could see is that energy drinks are super sweet and sugary (not to mention cheeper) and on top of that they have bunch of cool flavors. While coffee is more off-putting
It straight up offends me to concede this point lol
Coffee is ilegal for children in most countries, so thease should be as well, but you have a point.
Where is this true? I've never heard of this and Google fed me nothin
I just assumed it is. Maybe it isn't. Idk sorry.
Probably not a bad idea in light of the Logan Paul situation
EDIT: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fda-asked-investigate-logan-pauls-energy-drink-prime-caffeine-6-coke-c-rcna93297
I was about to ask if he did something new, but then I realized that it wouldn't matter. That whole man is a "situation".
Excuse me, but this is "the situation".
Oh my god you're right, I vaguely remember that guy exists.
What did he do this time?
I just looked it up and dear god... Kids will drink it too.
I work in a grocery store in Europe and now that Prime is produced in Poland and it doesnt cost absurdly, I can say that mostly, if not only, kids are the ones drinking it.
Edit: I just got back to work and checked that my country's biggest chains only sell Prime Hydration, which is caffeine free.
I can definitely see the reason for the ban based on that alone.
Are you fucking kidding me? Christ. "not marketed for people under 18" my ass, they fucking know Logan's main audience are kids (idk about ksi but I suspect his is similar) and that kids are absolutely gonna drink their fucking caffeine nuke.
That's as much caffeine as 3 8oz cups of coffee, which doesn't seem that extreme to me.
Any large iced coffee from Dunkin has more caffeine.
Not extreme for a child?
Define "child." A 6 year old? I don't let my 6 year old drink pop at all. A 16 year old? Not a concern for me.
You would let your 16 year old chug 3 cups of coffee in one sitting?
People don't generally chug an iced coffee. I'd have many, many questions if she did.
Why is it not a concern for you? Where did you get your medical degree from?
Because I can do math? I don't need a medical degree if I just read studies from people who have medical degrees.
As a layperson, I make decisions based on what scientists tell me, rather than thinking I know more than scientists.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6296805/
You don't need a medical degree to have an opinion. Caffeine is a mostly harmless drug.
The answer to this question is always: 'who cares?'
In this instance, parents and pediatricians ^^'
What, never heard of morbid curiosity?
This was also implemented in Lithuania around maybe 5 years ago. Some kids would still get it by asking their parents or strangers to buy them, but they definitely got more rare, to the point where at least where I am, you'd more often see a teen with a ciggie rather than a teen with an energy drink.
In Latvia this started on 2016, June 1st. Not sure if it ever was a big problem, I think this law came because there was an incident when some kid died.
Similar thing happened in the US with Four Lokos after a bunch of college kids died but we only banned Four Lokos due to the alcohol and caffeine mix.
So are they going to ban coffee too for under 18's as well or pretend that doesn't contain the same/more caffeine than an energy drink?
If it's not the caffiene content thats the issue are they going to ban all soft drinks if you are under 18?
The EU is a regulatory hellscape and it's one of the biggest problems the EU has.
Probably not
You know, that wouldn't bother me, and I'm a big advocate for personal choice and freedom.
It's not caffeine, it's sugar
Okay then why does Coca Cola get a pass or chocolate or any kind of confectionery or soft drink?
Coca cola? probably because they are Coca Cola. Also it's like 10% sugar. Maybe energy drinks are higher in sugar?
Solid things? That involves some effort - chewing - and you are less likely to eat that much sugar as opposed to chugging it down from energy drinks.
Energy drinks have so much shit in it to help give you energy/keep you awake. Coke and other sodas have sugar and caffeine. And I never said that the others got a pass, they're both bad for you, just one is way fucking worse.
Sweden also has an age limit on energy drinks, though I’m not sure if it’s 18 or something else.
In Finland its not a legal limit but many stores won't sell them to under 15's
Not since "the incident"
15, not sure if that's a legal requirement or something stores chose to do
It's only something stores have chosen to do. There are no laws in place.
good for poland. I have a nickname for "Energy drinks": Heart attacks in a can. If you want/need caffeine get a coffee or a pop like a normal person.
What is it that makes coffee better for you than an energy drink? I know they usually have an obscene amount of sugar and caffeine, but you can get that in coffee too. I make a drink fairly often with 4 shots of espresso, around 250mg of caffeine. It doesn't have that much sugar but I could easily add as much as I wanted. A normal cup of coffee would of course be much better than an energy drink, but if energy drinks should have restrictions then why shouldn't coffee too?
That's what I don't understand too. They can just buy a doubletripple espresso and add a lot of sugar to ease the taste. Maybe a bit of cinnamon hint too. What's the real difference here?
The difference is popular conception. Laws aren't set based on science. They're set based on what enough people believe. People believe energy drinks are worse and thus they get regulated whether or not it's true.
Advertising, audience, and stereotypes play a part in this too. Coffee is stereotypically consumed by older people, whereas energy drinks are often younger people (who older people find annoying). Coffee also has a much greater social acceptance that would make it controversial to regulate. End result is that it's popular to limit energy drinks but unpopular to point out that coffee has far more caffeine.
That is big problem in our societies.
It's a weird trend. Products that are popular with youth and "seem" un-healthy get banned by populistic laws, despite limited evidence proving them actually being un-healthy.
The other prominent example I can think is vaping. I don't even vape, but it's weird to see it demonized as much as cigarettes, when the evidence for it being as harmful is very limited.
It's the convenience I think. You can carry an energy drink in your backpack all day and consume it whenever. A coffee is more motivated so you order it when you want to drink it. But of course there are exceptions. It seems the goal of this is just to cut down the caffeine by making large doses less convenient, not to remove caffeine completely.
You can literally buy a coffee in the super market and it isn't really better than an energy drink health wise.
He drinks coffee instead of energy drinks, therefore coffee is better.
Same thing with drugs. All the drugs I do are okay, all the drugs everyone else does isn't.
It's a childish mentality that we've yet to get over as a species, even in adulthood.
did you just make an assumption about what I consume? Damn, that makes you look pretty dumb. I don't drink coffee, btw. I love the smell, never had it or tasted it. The only way caffeine gets into my body is through pop (Dr Pepper, preferably) and I guess chocolate since chocolate has caffeine. But definitely not the absurd levels of caffeine that energy drinks have
Everything makes coffee better. Energy drink is ultra processed crap, coffee is natural and has been used for centuries.
So is cocaine and opium. Are you joking? I honestly can't tell.
You are comparing coffee to cocaine and I am the one joking ?
Well according to you, being natural and having a long history means its safe. Are you now saying that maybe a substance's origin has nothing to so with how dangerous it is?
Probably more that the long term use of coffee is very well understood and researched. And while excessive use of anything is bad, coffee have not displayed issues bad enouhf that it needed regulation.
A "coffee" at starbucks, or an energy drink Have more in common with a dessert, then water filtered thru ground up beans.
And 3 desserts a day have quickly shown health issues.
Is your only problem the sugar? If so, don't you think some coffee drinks should be regulated as well as energy drinks? That's essentially my point, I don't think it makes sense to enforce age restrictions on energy drinks but not on similar products too.
If its the caffeine, then regular coffee isn't necessarily better than an energy drink anyway. Caffeine content in coffee varies wildly based on numerous different factors. You can make a cup of black coffee with 265mg of caffeine in it, and it would even be cheaper than one with 100mg.
I agree. When I was young, an energy drink almost gave me a heart attack because my heart was beating too fast. In my opinion, these drinks are dangerous.
How fast was it?
I was measured at 180bpm after a night of Red Bull and Vodka.
Killswitch.
Zombie mode, engage.
Only time I hit 180 was sober, no caffeine, the first time I won a 1v99 round of PUBG. This was a few months after 1.0. I had to lay down in bed and vibrate for a while. I have never felt like that before/since.
Yowsers. Glad you're doing alright
I stay away fro the energy drinks now. A little coffee in morning is all I need.
180bpm is fine. That's basically my heartbeat when I need to catch the bus. So I sprint 500m uphill.
Funny nickname, but have you got any evidence for your claims?
in Estonia it is 17+ from the last time i heard
I remember being so confused when I was shopping there and I was asked for my ID. I did a double and triple take over what I had purchased to see if I accidentally bought alcohol.
So when they ban sugar and junk foods? I think they cause more problems than soft drinks :D
Cue the black market for buying energy drinks for minors.
¿Que?
Whoops lol, fixed.
Fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa
Imagine all the new super strong energy drinks created by a black market demand. This is awesome!
It’s unlikely to cause any kind of large black market. In the UK, energy drinks have been restricted to 16+ for a few years now. People don’t mind off brand vapes or cigarettes (for some reason), but people absolutely care about the brand of energy drink they are buying. Kids especially, I imagine most only buy them to look cool, and if no one knows you are drinking a “cool” energy drink then why bother?
No energy drink is as cool as the one with the skulls on the can that glows in the dark and is laced with Chinese research chemicals you can only get one the dark web or from your older brothers friend that believes there's a Nazi base on the moon.
Underage kids will still drink them, they will just pay inflated prices for them from 3rd parties.
People that are old enough to buy them legally will buy up packs of them and then sell them to kids who cannot legally buy them.
Same thing happens here in the US with alcohol and cigs.
That's a good thing, that's less total caffeine they ingest. Which is the entire point. To reduce easy access to high dose caffeine. The kids could just huff coffee if they really wanted, no solution needs to be perfect to have an effect.
I'm not saying it's bad or good, I'm just saying that Poland will need to do more than just restrict sales to minors if they want to have long term success with this.
Yeah... no. Energy drinks are already horrendously overpriced.
Only the wealthiest children will be able to buy them at black market prices.
wonder how much of this "energy" comes from cafeine and such compared to how much actually comes from plain'ol deadly addictive sugar...
Does it even matter? It's clear they are shitty especially for kids.
Well it does to some extent, because maybe they're just the tip of a wider problem, an easy target that lets conveniently 90+% of the hyper-sugar products, super-highly addictive and harmful, available to children...?
Nanny state shit.
It's like you want to push people away from the center towards extremism .
If not being able to buy energy drinks as a kid pushes you to extremism, you were already destined for that to begin with.
It's a spectrum. They might not blow up buildings but might start hanging out in those forums. Shit like this is very unpopular with folks in the center of either side.
I totally agree.
Utter bullshit. The world does need more ways to restrict, exclude, and infantilize young people. This should be subverted by every possible means.
I imagine this cuts off right at the voting age? So it only affects people who never had a say in who passed it and can't effectively hold them to account for it?
Yeah well, I don't like energy drinks and neither should anyone else.
Same goes for vaping.
Well my problem with vapes aren't the vapes itself but the single use one's. They even have a recharable battery just for it to be used once. It's extremely wasteful
Pretty sure California banned all vapes, though.
That's pretty stupid
Gosh, and I hate sunlight, and I think we should ban it. No one should like sunlight! /s
No more caffeine for you!
Next step: Poland bans tap-water to under-18s
Just because you have a debilitating caffeine addiction, doesn't mean that everyone else does