| DON'T
DRINK YOUR CALORIES |
 It
may well be that soda pop is mankind's worst discovery. If you drink soda
pop, especially the caffeinated kind, it could kill you, as shown recently
when a man's death seems to have been associated with his over consumption
of diet soda. But most importantly, it can threaten your kids' health. Pop
gives the average teenager approximately 12.5 teaspoons of refined sugar a
day. It works out to that much more than what the US government has determined
people require in unrefined sugar per day. Also, your child and you are using
soda pop, in all probability, as a food. In 1977-78, teenagers drank twice
as much milk as soft drinks, but by 1994-96, it had turned around; they were
drinking twice as much soda as they were drinking milk. And such consumption
is linked with lower intake of nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and fiber.
Meanwhile, empty calories are all those soda pops contain, aside from ulcer-causing
acids. The ingredients in both regular and diet pop can eat away the inner lining
of your stomach, eventually causing severe digestive problems. And the average
small bottle or can of soda contains over 200 calories, none of which harbor
any real nutrients for your health whatsoever. If you consume just one can of
pop per day, you will gain 12 pounds in only one year. Pop is contributing to
major health problems, particularly obesity. Such a condition has been proven
to injure your health by the USDA Economic Research Service. Several studies
by them have shown that weight gain is directly related to soft drink consumption.
Weight gain itself is the prime risk factor for Type Two Diabetes, which can
make you go blind, cause lifelong paralysis and finally death. It can be controlled
only through a daily regimen of diet or medication. Do you want that sort of
thing in your life? If not, cut back on your drinking of soda pop.
Also, fruit juices and drinks like iced tea, Gatorade, Snapple, and other such
common drinks which are promoted to be "healthier" than soda pop are
often no such thing. Check the label before you buy fruit juice. It may contain
only 10% real fruit juice. And the drinks that claim to contain 100% real fruit
juice have just as many calories as soft drinks, and are not that much more
nutritious. Many fruit juices are simply loaded with sugar, either refined or
unrefined. A glass of apple juice holds 10 teaspoons of sugar, as the juice
is concentrated from a much larger amount of apples. You're much better off
eating a single apple and getting the smaller amount of calories and the roughage
instead. The sugar in apple juice is concentrated, unlike when in the original
apple; and it will raise your insulin level, making your body burn excess blood
sugars rather than fat.
Our average alcohol intake is certainly not any better. Hard liquors contain
a high amount of calories, and even a light beer has about 100 calories--all
empty. Alcohol is quite dense in calories; one gram of alcohol is worth seven
calories. Although an occasional glass of fine vintage red wine is good for
your heart, it contains a high amount of alcohol, which is high in calories
and contains no nutrients. Moreover alcohol does not satisfy your body's hunger
cravings, as your body will burn alcohol for fuel before it begins to burn your
body fat. So you will continue to eat to commensurate to your hunger, thus piling
on the calories. This is not to mention the fact that alcohol also destroys
your brain cells and causes a remarkable amount of vehicular accidents and deaths.
It may well be that soda pop, alcohol and other empty calorie consumption is
a major problem in America, especially for teens and adults. That's why organizations
are attempting to remove soft drinks from schools. As you get older, being overweight
can give you coronary disease, strokes from blood clots building up in your
arteries, and cancer. Cancer is like being eaten away by your own body, literally
a piece at a time.
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