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You may ask why… From several external sources, you have been made to believe fruit juice as healthy and soft drink is a harmless means of quenching thirst. Is it really true? Let us dive deeper…
Have you got teeth? Great, why not chew that food?
Let us think of an example. How many apples can you eat in one go? 2 or may be 3 before feeling full. But think of apple juice. You can easily drink one glass of glistening apple juice prepared from 3 to 5 apples.
This is the point I want to stress. An apple may contain around 100 kcal, (may be 90 to 110 kcal as per size). It also contains approx 20 grams of sugar. Now one apple with all its fibers can make you full. The sugar is not released in blood instantly. The fiber delays the absorption of the sugar. Thus the insulin spiking is not that heavy so as to cause fat gain. (Remember how insulin surge is a major factor in fat gain). Also you get all the micronutrients by eating the apple as a whole.
On the other hand think about the apple juice. For a glass of 250 to 300 ml volume, you need at least 3 to 5 apples. Calorie content is huge, maybe 400 to 500 kcal and a whopping 80 to 100 grams of sugar. Even if you dilute it 50:50 with water still the load is too much to handle. Your body simply can’t handle that much sugar! You get huge insulin spike, fat gain, lose the micronutrients but still can’t be full. You will definitely crave for more food or drink within an hour.
Not only apple, most of our juices are somewhat like this. To make things worse, sucrose and other additives are given.
As I walk down the streets and markets in summer, I am amazed to see such a huge gathering around the juice and cold drinks shop. Do you know that recent sale of soft drinks in US and other western countries are decreasing? They are getting health conscious whereas the third world population is going for it.
Do you know how much sugar is there in a bottle of Coke or Pepsi? It is around 33 grams, almost 7 tsp of sugar. That too without any other nutrient. Junk calories at its best. These do two immediate damages:
Thus the cold drinks makes you accumulate fat, makes you eat more unnecessarily and adds to the sugar addiction. This forces you in a vicious cycle of eat more, gain fat, crave for more, eat again, gain more fat… And the show goes on…
I even did not mention the artificial colors and chemicals used. These will add to your health woes. Also remember that soft drinks containing caffeine and sugar actually cause dehydration. Even too much cola can add to the side effects of caffeine. Thus you get more thirsty after some time. The worst thing you can do at that time is to catch another can of soda!
When you are very thirsty or dehydrated you have low levels of saliva. Saliva helps to neutralize acids, but soda is actually a very acidic beverage. Thus though you feel good while gulping in a chilled soda, you still remain thirsty.
So, never touch those soda or soft drinks. Actually those soft drinks are amongst the most deadly poison on earth that you can take to quench your thirst!
Let us learn the theory first. One alcoholic drink-equivalent is defined as containing 14 grams (0.6 fl oz) of pure alcohol. American dietary guideline of 2015-20 says that If alcohol is consumed, it should be consumed in moderation—up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men. [The following are reference beverages that are one alcoholic drink-equivalent: 12 fluid ounces of regular beer (5% alcohol), 5 fluid ounces of wine (12% alcohol), or 1.5 fluid ounces of 80 proof distilled spirits (40% alcohol)]. For further reading, plz read: https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/executive-summary/
Now let us be honest here. Can drinking be limited to such a moderation? If still yes, remember, 1 gm of alcohol provides 7 empty calories. Besides, alcohol has been recently connected with different cancers like breast, colon, mouth etc. Besides, alcohol can cause several problems like mental and intellectual deterioration, addictive behaviour, driving and orientation problem, psychiatric problems like aggression and depression, infertility, pregnancy related problems etc. For details on the bad effects of alcohol, read this:
https://talbottcampus.com/alcoholism-statistics/
Binge drinking is also a common problem in the alcoholics. If you binge frequently, it can add up to your injuries. Long term alcohol intake can be a major cause of your gut, liver and pancreas damage in future. The current dietary guideline recommends that if you are currently not alcoholic, there is no benefit of being alcoholic, rather you may have a host of problem in the future.
Thus alcohol will give you lots of empty calories, increase appetite and make you eat more, lowers your testosterone level, decrease your self control to drink more or even indulge in binging. All these will make you gain weight beside the host of ill effects on health discussed above. Even the age old heart health theory (augmented by intake of red wine or alcohol in moderation), is questionable in recent studies.
So the conclusion is that alcohol is a bad drink. If you want to live a healthy life, stop or at least decrease alcohol intake, period.
These are meant to replenish the fluid and electrolytes lost from your body during sport and exercises. But they contain lots of sugar, salt and caffeine. Sugar content may be up to 2/3rd of that of soda! These are not required, and may cause harm too.
Sugar is not required during exercise, a complex carb before and a simple carb after exercise will suffice. The excess sugar will blunt your insulin sensitivity and your human growth hormone production. They are sold as energy drinks. But actually the high sugar of those drinks, does just the opposite. After causing a quick explosion of energy, your energy goes down and sugar side effects unfolds. (as mentioned above).
Regarding others, caffeine content is also high. For example one can of Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine, more than that f a cup of coffee. This may be ok for some but you may face difficulty in tolerating that. Also the salt in these drinks are much better replaced by the natural salts that provide all other electrolytes.
So these costly ‘energy drinks’ are definitely not worth the bucks spent. You can definitely have better and cheaper options.
Let us make a simple point here. Coffee and tea (green tea, even better) are good for your health if you can moderate quantity. Too much of anything can be bad. But don’t make the mistake of adding sugar, cream etc.
It is true that, if you can moderate your coffee and green tea intake in correct amount, it is really good for your health. But never try to overdo them
For more on coffee, read my post on diet and coffee. But coffee containing caffeine will come with its side effects too like addiction and dependency, jitteriness, headache (in few), insomnia, dehydration, acidity, heart beat problems etc. Tea, even green tea, can cause similar problems besides nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea as well as interferes iron absorption causing anemia in long term excess tea drinkers. For more on side effects of the great green tea, read this: http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/side-effects-of-green-tea/#gref.
So the conclusion for these? Drink them chilled, without any sugar or other dressing. Keep an eye on amount and never go beyond the line. But these are never the best options to quench your thirst.
Are you thinking about what the hell to drink at all? Everything available to drink, is being demonized by easyfitness blog!
Plain H2O… Cool, plain and pure water is perhaps the best choice for you. You need not get obsessed about total amount limit, as long as you are not a psychotic water drinker! It can quench your thirst well, provide no unnecessary calorie, won’t interfere with your body’s homeostasis and keep you diet and health plan intake. Our body and our planet is more than 2/3rd water.
Let us end it with the recommendation of water intake around a workout:
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