Soft Drinks, Hard Facts

by Sally Painter on November 02, 2009

One of the biggest food culprits coming under scrutiny is what we call a soft drink, soda, pop, and many other names for those sugary carbonated drinks. America is addicted to soft drinks and we have the bulging waistlines to prove it.

Soft drinks may be cutting off years of your lifespan, and if that’s not enough to give you pause, soft drinks have been linked to speeding up the aging process, cancer, obesity, and heart disease. So what makes soft drinks so bad for you? Aside from not having any nutritional value at all? Soft drinks contain several unhealthy ingredients.

• Caffeine
• Sugar
• Artificial Colorings
• Artificial Flavorings
• Preservatives
• Carbonation
• Diet drinks contain harmful sugar substitutes

Other health problems linked to soft drink consumption:

• Excessive tooth decay, especially in children
• Calcium depletion and other vital nutrients from consumption of carbonated water
• Breast cancer risk due to high sugar content
• Obesity, often accompanied with Type-2 Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Breakdown of immune system

Diet sodas contain either aspartame (Nutrasweet), sucralose or saccharin. These are the artificial sweeteners used in diet drinks that can actually increase body weight up to 30% more than regular soda drinks. Saccharin is also a known carcinogen.

Studies conducted on the affects of aspartame consumption proved that the chemical relays to the brain that the drink is sweet and subsequently sets up a physical craving for more sweets. This in turns creates a carbohydrate craving that results in the over-consumption of foods high in carbohydrates. It creates a cycle of over-eating and the normal signal to your brain that you are full is bypassed and eventually stops working. Type 2 diabetes is often the result of this kind of metabolic havoc.

In your goal to go greener, eliminating sodas from your diet is one of the healthiest and greenest things you can do.

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