Sodapop with Dinner?

Do you routinely drink soda/pop/coke with dinner?
There is a thread on another interweb site on this subject. It would never occur to me to have a soda/pop/coke with dinner. My beverages of choice are pretty much limited to wine, beer and water with an occasional lemonade.
Just curious.
'Winger

[Jenise]

NEVER. Not with any meal. I recall a Woody Allen movie where a family of means is seen sitting in their dining room at dinner and there are several large soda bottles on the table so that each could help themselves to their choice, and honest to god until I saw that I had no idea that anybody, ever, anywhere, would consider that standard practice. If no wine, then water at dinner. At lunch, sometimes iced tea.

Do it with lunch, and sometimes dinner.

Len drinks diet coke with dinner a lot. He gets a lot of headaches from wine or any alcohol. If I'm feeling a bit headachy, I will have a diet ginger ale with dinner.

[Robin Garr]

It would never occur to me to have a soda/pop/coke with dinner. My beverages of choice are pretty much limited to wine, beer and water with an occasional lemonade.

What you do is what we do. We don't even have soft drinks in the house. Mary will often get a diet cola when we eat lunch out at a downscale place where she's suspicious of the quality of the iced tea. I'll go with water even then.

Like Carl, sometimes with lunch or a simple dinner, such as hot dogs or hamburgs. My preference is a local brand that sells for $.99 per 2 liter bottle in local stores. http://johnnieryan.com/history.htm. My favorites are Birch Beer and "Old Falls Street" Ginger Ale (similar to Vernor's). The business is now owned by a friend's son-in-law.

[Jenise]

Len drinks diet coke with dinner a lot. He gets a lot of headaches from wine or any alcohol. If I'm feeling a bit headachy, I will have a diet ginger ale with dinner.

How do you feel about soft drinks going with your food? I mean, would you serve diet coke with lasagna or, say, veal scallopini? I would think the sweet drink would take away from the food.

Len drinks diet coke with dinner a lot. He gets a lot of headaches from wine or any alcohol. If I'm feeling a bit headachy, I will have a diet ginger ale with dinner.

How do you feel about soft drinks going with your food? I mean, would you serve diet coke with lasagna?

Answer to first question is that I really don't like the idea of it at all. I always cringe a bit when Len pours himself one and I always make him have a few sips of my wine to check the food match since I always have wine with dinner (unless I'm headachy as I mentioned before.) He would much prefer to have wine too, but on a daily basis doesn't want to chance the headache thing.

To answer the second question, I would not serve diet coke with lasagna, but would serve diet root beer. Actually I'd never serve it to company, that's my favorite drink to go with pizza. (Of the traditional variety.) Crazy, I know, but seems to work for me.

As a youth I drank soda with food all the time. I shook the habit in my mid-20s with the "assistance" of the side-effect of a medicine.

I only very rarely drink soda at all nowadays. I'll still have ginger ale with a hot pastrami sandwich but, otherwise, have the soda by itself.

I agree that soda is so sweet that it overwhelms food. Of course, occasionally, that is a plus.

...Actually I'd never serve it to company, that's my favorite drink to go with pizza. (Of the traditional variety.) Crazy, I know, but seems to work for me.

There's a great local sub shop that makes a great steak & cheese sub. I don't know why, but I have to have Mountain Dew with those subs.

[Jenise]

To answer the second question, I would not serve diet coke with lasagna, but would serve diet root beer. Actually I'd never serve it to company, that's my favorite drink to go with pizza. (Of the traditional variety.) Crazy, I know, but seems to work for me.

Oh, not crazy. We pretty much all grew up having sodas with take-out food. Which is why a soda really only sounds good to me with a burger and frieds or pastrami sandwich--out, the cheap drive-in kind. But we don't have soda at home at all. Took me 20 years to wean Bob off of Diet Coke, and I only succeeded for good when I gave him an article in the NYT to read about aspartame studies.

If Gene buys henry weinhard's root beer and makes root beer floats, I'm in heaven. Other than that, I never drink soda of any type. Gene keeps pepsi in his workshop fridge, and has one with lunch now and then. This time of year, we both drink a lot of water, and occasional iced tea. I don't know if drinking pop is more of a regional thing or not, but our daughter who moved to Ohio farm country after marraige, gave it to her babies in their bottle at times....told me everyone did it. On the other hand, CA grandkids don't drink it at all and don't want to.
Is it true that diet sodas pull calcium from your bones?

[Robin Garr]

Is it true that diet sodas pull calcium from your bones?

I hadn't heard that before, but this article from the generally reliable WebMD somewhat confirms it without sounding too worried about it. This snippet is from a longer article at http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/featu ... teoporosis .

Soda and Osteoporosis: The Cola Connection

New research indicates that there may be more to the soda and osteoporosis connection than simply replacing the good stuff with the useless stuff.

Researchers at Tufts University, studying several thousand men and women, found that women who regularly drank cola-based sodas -- three or more a day -- had almost 4% lower bone mineral density in the hip, even though researchers controlled for calcium and vitamin D intake. But women who drank non-cola soft drinks, like Sprite or Mountain Dew, didn't appear to have lower bone density.

Soda and Osteoporosis: Possible Culprits

Phosphoric acid, a major component in most sodas, may be to blame, according to lead study author Katherine Tucker, PhD.

Phosphorus itself is an important bone mineral. But if you're getting a disproportionate amount of phosphorus compared to the amount of calcium you're getting, that could lead to bone loss.

Another possible culprit is caffeine, which experts have long known can interfere with calcium absorption. In the Tufts study, both caffeinated and non-caffeinated colas were associated with lower bone density. But the caffeinated drinks appeared to do more damage.

This study isn't the last word on the subject. Some experts point out that the amount of phosphoric acid in soda is minimal compared to that found in chicken or cheese. And no one's telling women to stop eating chicken.

I'll sometimes have soda with lunch but rarely for supper. I do have wonderful memories of pairing Royal Crown Cola with meatball sandwiches when I was a kid, though.

Dr. Brown's Celray Tonic at Jewish Delis in New York
Coca Cola when I have an upset stomach
Perrier or Badoit on the table during most meals but that as an accompaniment to wine
And of course, egg creams when visiting Brooklyn

Other than those..no time, no place, no way and no reason. And never, never diet Sprite which I consider one of the great abominations and an offense to whatever God or gods one worships.

Best
Rogov

Even as a vintage coca cola collector/consumer, I don't generally think to associate soda directly with dinner.

The exception for me would be pizza. In that case, soda is not just "acceptable" but ideal!

I've never found any wine, beverage etc to be better than soda as a pizza companion. I'm sure it has to do with the cutting power of the carbonation against all that cheese and bread. It's similar reasoning to why I enjoy champagne with, say, a grilled cheese sandwhich or soft breads. The reason I'd never carry the cleansing power of champagne over to pizza is simply the sauce - champagne gets overpowered and sour-ized against pizza (or any sweet items). But soda (coca cola) is the perfect magical companion with pizza, in my eyes!

It also probably depends on what is meant by "dinner" though. For instance, I find BOTTLES of ice-chilled coke to be wonderful with picnic dinners! If we aren't sharing a half bottle of champagne out of the picnic cooler on a romantic picnic excursion, then we're likely just taking some bottles of coke and spring water. In fact, I have a vintage red enamel 1940's era coca cola picnic cooler than has been along with us!

But, in the traditional sense, I really don't think to match soda with a dinner.

Jeff

For me, never, save at the rare times I eat at a fast food restaurant, or at some picnics where there's nothing else available. The only soda I ever keep around is tonic water for gin and tonics, or ginger beer for Dark & Stormies. I'd never consider either with dinner.

-Paul W.

Don't keep it in the house. Never have it. Not even at a fast food place. Would rather not drink anything than water with chemicals.
I do keep tonic water for mixed drinks. Otherwise mineral water, milk, OJ, occasional buttermilk, keffir, and wine are the options at our house.

in the east, i think it is called 'soda' and in the south 'pop'; but where is it called 'sodapop'?

[Robin Garr]

in the east, i think it is called 'soda' and in the south 'pop'; but where is it called 'sodapop'?

Some places in the in-betweens - like right here - call it "soft drink," neither "soda" nor "pop" being common. I've heard that some parts of rural Appalachia call it "dope," which may go back to the alleged secret recipe of the early COCA-Cola ...

Took me 20 years to wean Bob off of Diet Coke, and I only succeeded for good when I gave him an article in the NYT to read about aspartame studies.

You saved me the trouble of bringing this up. I wouldn't touch a "diet " soft drink.

We drink water for dinner at our house.


Though I will say that we do have a glass of naturally sparkling water every once in a while.

Sparkling mineral water, sometimes with half a lemon squeezed into it, often appears on the lunch table.