Healthify your supermarket choices.
9 Reasons to Quit Soft Drinks
- Image by Brent and MariLynn via Flickr
1. Obesity. Regular consumption of soft drinks make you fat. A 12 oz Coke a day for a year will add 18 pounds to your weight compared to water consumption!
2. Tooth decay. Slowly sipping on cola, iced tea, or a sports drink coats your teeth with sugar, phosphoric acid, malic acid and/or citric acid. These compounds directly damage tooth enamel.
3. Money. A family of 4 can save $150 by switching to tap water.
4. Taste. Soft drinks diminish the taste of food. Of course, if you define food as a quickie meal at Taco Bell, there’s not much to detract from, but eat a decently perepared meal at home or at a good sit down restaurant, and you will not want to spoil the taste with sugary water. Better have the sommelier pair a good wine with your steak.
5. Refined Sugars. High fructose corn syrup (or sugar) is the usually the #2 ingredient after water in soft drinks. For example, a standard single serve 12fl oz can of Coca Cola has the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar! If you drink one Coke a day for a year instead of water you’ll have had 32 pounds of sugar!
6. Artificial sweeteners. OK, the FDA has approved them all, but enough studies have suggested that some artificial sweeteners may cause cancer. Until the scientists sort this out, why take the risk? The UK isn’t taking any.
7. Artificial Colors. Yellow #5 (Tartrazine), present in Mountain Dew, has been linked to hyperactivity in children.
8. Ecology. Billions of empty plastic bottles and cans are contaminating the earth. Recycling barely touches the tip of the iceberg.
9. What’s your reason to quit?
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I haven’t intentionally had a soda in well over a decade, possibly longer. I gave them up because I didn’t want to consume what I consider a chemical cocktail. Once you give up soda for a while if you are brought one in a restaurant by mistake they taste toxic. At least that has been my experience.
I hate to be pedantic, but that’s not 9 reasons. It’s 8.
That having been said, I do agree with all 8 of those reasons, and really do prefer to drink water (usually from a reverse-osmosis or charcoal filter) in lieu of soft drinks. Now, I hate using this phrase, but “especially in this economy,” the savings alone is reason enough for rational people to re-evaluate their drinking habits.
All great reasons and I assume they are all true, but it’s always good to have references for something like this. (Sorry, I’m a librarian. lol)
Dehydration…seriously, who needs that?!
I would like to add the use of distilled water in soft drink production. Distilled water leeches nutrients from the body, which leads to deficiencies that can exacerbate illness and disease.
How about Diabetes?… or constant sugar crashes causing mental and emotional fatigue and reduced productivity.
Great article! I COMPLETELY agree. I can see where people might be addicted to the flavors but once you start drinking water, you really just can’t understand why you bother spending extra money on pop.
lol.. i been drinking coke in 10 years and im not fat..
and why stop? i have tasted water and it is shiet..
damn you all need to learn to drink coke all day long all your life okey?
I’ve also heard that phosphoric acid leaches calcium from our bones, so drinking sodas will accelerlate bone density loss. I believe that is what Melissa is referring to, not the distilled water.
Everything in moderation, including moderation. I drink about 2-3 sodas a week (some weeks none at all). I also drink about 80 ounces of water a day. Anytime you use soda or any other liquid as a substitute for water, you will run into health problems. But having a sugar and caffiene-laden drink when you know you have to go to the gym but just need a burst of energy is not necesarily a bad thing.
I LOVE MOUNTAIN DEW!
@Chipper: Yeah. me too
You can put love for your family on that list! You won’t believe the damage aspartame in sodas causes to unborn children!