Dangers of Soda Pop

Posted on November 6th, 2009.

One of my clients sent me this article awhile ago, because she knows of my hatred toward soda pop! {YES! I absolutely DESPISE all forms of soda pop because there is not a single ounce of nutrients or goodness to it… and it does a world of hurt to our bodies!} Anyway, when I read through this article, it was as if someone had read my thoughts and put it into a really smart sounding essay and published it for all to read! I LOVED it! The only drawback is, I don’t have the original source. She got it from someone, who got it from someone, who got it from someone… you know how that goes… but I am certain that this stuff is true regarding soda pop. If you want to fight it and do the research to prove me wrong, PLEASE… BE MY GUEST! Until then, I would encourage everyone to read this article and to seriously consider the HARM you are doing to your bodies when you ingest that nasty stuff!

 

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“Some of you may not want to hear this, but…it is what it is! Soda pop is dangerous. Stop drinking Soda Pop (Carbonated Soft Drinks) now… and you will become healthier … help you lose weight and you can even expect to live longer. It’s also bad for your children and grandchildren—maybe worse!

 

Some people drink soda pop as if it is water, some even instead of water. Sure, the primary ingredient is water, but, with all the other “stuff” it contains it can have a…toxic…poisonous…lethal…venomous… seriously harmful effect on your entire body. Drinking soda pop is a sure-fire way to age faster. Here’s why:

 

Soda Pop (or carbonated soft drinks) has an alarming amount of sugar, calories and harmful additives in it that have absolutely no nutritional value. Studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease. Despite this, soda accounts for more than one-quarter of all drinks consumed in the United States….and we wonder why we can’t lose weight and why we have health problems. So very often our health problems do not BEGIN on their own. WE encourage illness and disease little-by-little every day by NOT preventing their cause. We know better, we try to fool ourselves, but our bodies’ cells can’t be fooled about what we put in our mouths. I hope the next time you look at a can of soda pop you take note of the ingredients and smarten up for the good of your own healthy lifespan and that of your children and grandchildren. …What you are about to read should turn you away from sodas altogether.

 

 

Here’s what’s in Soda Pop:

 

Phosphoric Acid: May interfere with the body’s ability to use calcium, which can lead to osteoporosis or softening of the teeth {Here’s my two cents on this: If you don’t want your kids to have lots of cavities… quit letting them drink soda pop!} and bones. Phosphoric acid also neutralizes the hydrochloric acid in your stomach, which can interfere with digestion, making it difficult to utilize nutrients.

 

Sugar: Soft drink manufacturers are the largest single user of refined sugar in the United States. It is a proven fact that sugar increases insulin levels, which can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, premature aging and many more negative side effects. Most sodas include over 100 percent of the RDA of sugar.

 

Aspartame: This chemical is used as a sugar substitute in diet soda. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilepsy/seizures. Further, when aspartame is stored for long periods of time or kept in warm areas it changes to methanol, an alcohol that converts to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are known carcinogens.

 

Caffeine: Caffeinated drinks can cause jitters, insomnia, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, elevated blood cholesterol levels, vitamin and mineral depletion, breast lumps, birth defects, and perhaps some forms of cancer.

 

Soda is one of the main reasons, nutritionally speaking, why many people suffer health problems. Aside from the negative effects of the soda itself, drinking a lot of soda is likely to leave you with little appetite for vegetables, protein and other food that your body needs. {HELLO???? NEED I SAY MORE?}

 

{This is the best right here… Brace yourself. This is where you need to be brutally honest!} How many sodas have you had today? How about your kids? The average American drinks an estimated 56 gallons of soft drinks each year, but before you grab that next can of soda, consider this: one can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and sulphites.

 

Teenagers and children, who many soft drinks are marketed toward, are among the largest consumers. In the past 10 years, soft drink consumption among children has almost doubled in the United States. Teenage boys now drink, on average, three or more cans of soda per day, and 10 percent drink seven or more cans a day. The average for teenage girls is more than two cans a day, and 10 percent drink more than five cans a day.

 

It also raises the question of how one determines a product’s caffeine content. Nutrition labels are not required to divulge that information. If a beverage contains caffeine, it must be included in the ingredient list, but there’s no way to tell how much a beverage has, and there’s little logic or predictability to the way caffeine is deployed throughout a product line.

 

Let’s take a look at some of the major components of a can of soda:

 

Okay, so most enlightened consumers already know that colas contain a fair amount of caffeine. It turns out to be 35 to 38 milligrams per 12-ounce can, or roughly 28 percent of the amount found in an 8-ounce cup of coffee. But few know that diet colas — usually chosen by those who are trying to dodge calories and/or sugar — often pack a lot more caffeine.

 

A 12-ounce can of Diet Coke, for example, has about 42 milligrams of caffeine — seven more than the same amount of Coke Classic. A can of Pepsi One has about 56 milligrams of caffeine — 18 milligrams more than both regular Pepsi and Diet Pepsi.

 

Even harder to figure out is the caffeine distribution in other flavors of soda pop. Many brands of root beer contain no caffeine. An exception is Barq’s, made by the Coca-Cola Co., which has 23 milligrams per 12-ounce can. Sprite, 7-Up and ginger ale are caffeine-free. But Mountain Dew, the curiously named Mello Yellow, Sun Drop Regular, Jolt and diet as well as regular Sunkist orange soda all pack caffeine.

 

Caffeine occurs naturally in kola nuts, an ingredient of cola soft drinks. But why is this drug, which is known to create physical dependence, added to other soft drinks?

 

The industry line is that small amounts are added for taste, not for the drug’s power to sustain demand for the products that contain it. Caffeine’s bitter taste, they say, enhances other flavors. “It has been a part of almost every cola — and pepper-type beverage — since they were first formulated more than 100 years ago,” according to the National Soft Drink Association.

 

But recent blind taste tests conducted by Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore found that only 8 percent of regular soft drink consumers could identify the difference between regular and caffeine-free soft drinks.

 

The study included only subjects who reported that they drank soft drinks mainly for their caffeine content. In other words, more than 90 percent of the self-diagnosed caffeine cravers in this small sample could not detect the presence of caffeine.

 

That’s why the great popularity of caffeinated soft drinks is driven not so much by subtle taste effects as by the mood-altering and physical dependence of caffeine that drives the daily self-administration.

 

And the unknown could be especially troublesome for the developing brains of children and adolescents. Logic dictates that when you are dependent on a drug, you are really upsetting the normal balances of neurochemistry in the brain. The fact that kids have withdrawal signs and symptoms when the caffeine is stopped is a good indication that something has been profoundly disturbed in the brain.

 

Exactly where that leads is anybody’s guess — which is to say there is little good research on the effects of caffeine on kids’ developing brains.”

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When it comes to soda pop, I’d say that one of the things that gripes me the most is when I see little tiny kids drinking it… especially the “hard” stuff… like Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper. Just like the article above states. They are developing troublesome dependencies on a drug that will upset the normal balances in their brain. Soda pop is a dangerous drink. There is absolutely nothing nutritious about it! NOTHING! It should not be invited into our bodies and if people would stop drinking it, my firm belief is that they would enjoy a life with more energy, less weight around their middle section, and have fewer long term health problems.

 

If you are a pop drinker – {you might want to smack me in the face right now} – but I’m also betting that you already knew all of this to be true. Sometimes it’s hard to face the truth and stop unhealthy habits, but there’s no better time than the present… so give yourself the gift of better health… help your family have better health. Decide now to quit being a pop drinker. Just stop buying it. Don’t have it around. Make the decision right now to stop… and leave a message telling me how you’re going to do it!

Good Luck!

 

 

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