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.
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:
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 the real solution would be regulating their marketing.
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.
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.
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.
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
- Need to work till 17:00 and then also do need to do even more when you’re home
Or
- Party the whole night
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, 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)
Caffeine is pretty easy to quit though. Cigarettes aren’t.
Also caffeine isn’t as harmful as cigarettes.
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.
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.
That’s not a bad idea.
Now let’s stop calling them ‘energy’ drinks.
Curious what you’d call them.
Stimulants.
Caffeine doesn’t give you energy. Carbohydrates do. Caffeine blocks the chemical in your brain called “adenosine”, which makes you feel tired.
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.
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Idk what y’all think but honestly I’d say these little cans of poison need a warning lable like cigarettes as well
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.
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“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 has its beans dried and roasted
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.
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:
- Make coffee
- Filter it
- Evaporate more water
- Add sugar
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.
The Thai family of the pharmacist who came up with the formula still owns 50% of Red Bull.
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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
Rare Poland W
Probably not a bad idea in light of the Logan Paul situation
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?
The answer to this question is always: ‘who cares?’
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?
I can’t speak much about Europe, but when I was in the beverage industry about 10 years ago, energy drinks often had ADDITIONAL ingredients (supplements) far beyond caffeine.
If you look on the back of those energy drink cans in the US, they don’t say Nutrition Facts, they say Supplement Facts. That is important, it tells you how the item is classified and whether it has to follow FDA rules on Foods or FDA rules on Dietary Supplements (like vitamins do).
And if you look at the list of ingredients in many energy drinks (I have a tub of powdered GFuel before me so I’m refreshing my memory using that–it says “Supplement Facts”), you see a lot of ingredients like L-Tyrosine or L-Citrulline Malate which never appear in anything categorized as a food with the “Nutrition Facts” label on it. These fancy designer ingredients are basically newly-developed things that do not yet have a long-term proven track record of safety when eaten regularly on an everyday basis like a food.
A “food” is expected to be eaten regularly, so the standard of safety is higher for ingredients that go in a “food”. There’s a specific list the FDA has that lists ingredients considered GRAS (generally regarded as safe). New ingredients have to be evaluated by the FDA to determine whether they can be treated as GRAS, or if they have to have additional regulation if a corporation wants to put them in a food, drink, or supplement.
Corporations, unsurprisingly, LOVE to throw all sorts of newly created ingredients in things, for marketing purposes, so they do a lot of shady shit like labeling their product as a dietary supplement–but marketing it as a food so people think it’s a food.
Something classified as a “dietary supplement” (as many energy drinks are) is not meant to be eaten regularly as a food item. It’s meant to be consumed less frequently to SUPPLEMENT other things you consume or put in your body. However, people often treat energy drinks as a “food”, as if they’re the same thing as pop or juice, which could potentially be dangerous to your health because the ingredients in them have not yet proven they have a track record of safety when consumed frequently in food-like amounts. (I’m not really talking about caffeine here, I’m talking about all the OTHER stuff they throw in it.)
Whether a drink is classified as a “supplement” or a “food” is important. It is a big thing, because the regulations for what can be put into something that’s a “supplement” is looser than what can be labeled as a “food”.
I don’t know exactly how Europe draws the lines or what the regulatory landscape is there regarding energy drinks, but it sounds like this ban is possibly because Energy Drinks tend to have ingredients that push the boundary on what is safe eaten in large amounts like a food and what might be more harmful like a drug. Europe is generally stricter than America when it comes to food safety.
The EU is a regulatory hellscape and it’s one of the biggest problems the EU has.
So are they going to ban coffee too
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.
Laws aren’t set based on science.
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.
What is it that makes coffee better for you than an energy drink?
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.
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.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.
Good. 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.
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?
