It’s more than just the food you eat that puts on weight and ruins your health, what you drink also affects good health. Here in Stamford, there’s a renewed interest in eating a healthy diet. I’m always happy to see that. However, when I’m in a restaurant, I often see people with a plateful of salad and other healthy foods and a carbonated drink. I don’t care if it’s diet or regular, that can throw off the entire meal, no matter how carefully the food is selected. There are other drink choices that also are just as unhealthy, but manage to find themselves at the table of people who otherwise have the perfect diet.
Soft drinks contain tons of sugar.
Healthy drinks are definitely not carbonated drinks like soda. In fact, when you drink a twelve ounce glass of soda, you’re consuming 10 teaspoons of sugar. That’s huge, especially since sugar can have such a detrimental effect on the body. People trying to lose weight intake 150 calories for every 12 oz serving. The sugar it contains is high fructose corn syrup that not only adds calories, but also affects the hormones that tell your body you’re full. It contains phosphoric acid that can affect mineral absorption and lead to osteoporosis. Besides raising the risk of obesity, it raises the risk of diabetes, heart disease, tooth erosion, kidney disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Diet soda is almost as bad, worse in some cases.
While diet soda doesn’t have the sugar, it can make your waistline grow. In fact, one study showed that people who drank put on weight around their middle. The subjects were over 65 and followed approximately 11 years. Those who drank diet soda frequently increased their waistline by three inches more than those who didn’t. It can reduce kidney function, increase the risk for metabolic syndrome and diabetes, heart attack and stroke, tooth erosion, COPD and asthma.
Fruit juice is better, but not good.
While you do get the advantage of the nutrients in real freshly squeezed fruit juice, there’s still a lot of fructose in the drink and none of the filling fiber. In fact, it contains about eight teaspoons full of sugar, half of which is fructose. The real fox in the hen house is the “fruit drink.” Some of these are just 5 percent real fruit juice and the rest sugary water with artificial flavoring. They harm the liver, lead to diabetes and are a leading cause of obesity.
- People who consume soft drinks on a regular basis have a 20% higher potential for heart disease.
- Drinking diet soda on a daily basis increases your risk of type 2 diabetes by 67%.
- Sugary drinks, whether soda, fruit drinks or fruit juice, may be one reason there’s a huge increase in obesity in the United States. In an effort to boost nutrition, parents unwittingly get fruit drinks for their children, thinking they’re healthier.
- The best type of drink is always water. If you want more flavor, squeeze a quarter of lemon in it.