Drinking Empty Calories

With health deteriorating and waistlines ballooning, realize that soft drinks are yet another big problem.

According to a study in Public Health Reports, the consumption of sugar sweetened sodas from 1970 to 1997 increased by 22 gallons per person per year - to an astonishing 41 gallons. Each 12-ounce can of soda supplies about 160 calories. Many adolescents easily rack up 600 calories per day drinking these toxic and nutritionally worthless products.

Since most of us eat an average 2000 calorie per day diet, if more than a quarter of these calories come from empty-calorie sodas, it becomes difficult to obtain the nutrients we need within the remaining calories consumed.

Cutting soda out is a good place to start for improving your diet, not only from a nutritional standpoint, but also from a toxicological one. The average cola drink contains 45 milligrams of caffeine, and some contain as much as 100 milligrams. Caffeine is addictive, toxic, and it is being marketed to our children as young as age nine. (Not to mention that the massive amounts of sugar in these products will cause blood sugar swings, along with behavior and energy problems.)

While everyone is aware that smoking cigarettes is toxic and has a negative effect on health, parents see little harm in a few sodas per day. Exactly the opposite is true; sodas are more dangerous than cigarettes. While cigarette smoke is a low-level toxin, sugar throws the entire body into biochemical chaos, and a few sodas per day will keep it in chaos all day, every day. Health is impossible under these circumstances. Avoid drinking soda!