Sugary drinks (also categorized as sugar-sweetened beverages or “soft” drinks) refers to any beverage with added sugar or other sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, fruit juice concentrates, and more). This includes soda, pop, cola, tonic, fruit punch, lemonade (and other “ades”), sweetened powdered drinks, as well as sports and energy drinks.These beverages are the single largest source of calories and added sugar in the diet. In developing countries, sugary drink consumption is rising dramatically due to widespread urbanization and beverage marketing.
Components Of Softdrink:
Certain ingredients may be hazardous to health if consumed in large quantities, and there is widespread concern generally with regard to preservatives and sweeteners. There are 4.2 grams of sugar in a single teaspoon. Now, imagine scooping up 7 to 10 teaspoons full of sugar and dumping it into your 12-ounce glass of water. This can be a useful tip to visualize just how much sugar is in your drink. Apart from soda, energy drinks have as much sugar as soft drinks, enough caffeine to raise your blood pressure, and additives whose long-term health effects are unknown. For these reasons, it’s best to skip energy drinks. Although designed to give athletes, carbohydrates, electrolytes, and fluid during high-intensity workouts that last one hour or more, for everyone else they’re just another source of calories and sugar
Sugary Drinks and Health:
When it comes to ranking beverages best for our health, sugary drinks fall at the bottom of the list because they provide so many calories and virtually no other nutrients. People who drink sugary beverages do not feel as full as if they had eaten the same calories from solid food, and research indicates they also don’t compensate for the high caloric content of these beverages by eating less food. The average can of sugar-sweetened soda or fruit punch provides about 150 calories, almost all of them from added sugar. If you were to drink just one of these sugary drinks every day, and not cut back on calories elsewhere, you could gain up to 5 pounds in a year. Beyond weight gain, routinely drinking these sugar-loaded beverages can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. Furthermore, higher consumption of sugary beverages has been linked with an increased risk of premature death.
Mortality:
The more sugary beverages people drink, the greater their risk of premature death, particularly from cardiovascular disease, and to a lesser extent from cancer.
Cutting back on sugary drinks:
When it comes to our health, it’s clear that sugary drinks should be avoided. There is a range of healthier beverages that can be consumed in their place, with water being the top option.
Alternatives to Soda:
Water will always top the list when it comes to the best beverages to drink. If you want to spice up your water, add some fresh fruit, vegetables, or herbs to it and let it sit in the refrigerator to create an infused drink. You can try cucumber and mint, watermelon and basil, or blueberry and orange.
Other low sugar, healthful beverage choices include herbal tea, green tea, coconut water, or sparkling water. When choosing a sparkling water, make sure to look at the ingredient list and opt for one without any artificial additives or sweeteners.