Soda

Pepsi recently announced a plan to remove sugery drinks from schools. This follows the 2006 adoption of guidelines for the same purpose, that have so far seen little progress from my understanding. Of course, this is only one element of the problem as intense marketing to children is a huge factor in addition to access at school. It will be interesting to see where this goes, if anywhere but in the PR mill.

Everyone knows soda is bad for them. It's no secret. But just how bad for you is it? A can or regular soda has approx. 9 teaspoons of sugar -- so that 24 ouncer from the drive-thru has a full 18 teaspoons. This isn't natural sugar but usually high fructose corn syrup -- a byproduct of corn. Of course, regular soda can also make a big impact in your daily calories. Diet soda has neither of these vices -- its sugar is artificial and it contains very few calories. This leads many people to believe that diet soda isn't really bad for you. I used to have a boss that drank about 9 cans a day. Coke has started to advertise this way -- two cans of Diet Coke = a two hour meeting. (This phenomenon is seen everywhere with "diet" foods -- people eat substantially more of them when they believe they are lower in fat, calories, etc.)

It is hard to take a strong stance against artificial sweetners. Americans consume more than people in any other country (we're also the fattest and have the highest levels of degenerative diseases). And scientific research is unclear. What worries me first off are the historical problems with artificial sweetners. We keep realizing that certain ones aren't so good for you, come out with new ones, and then trust that they are safe when the message comes from the exact same people who said it before. (Food companies' influence has dramatically increased over the decades -- not the other way around.) Aspartame alone is considered safe, but it is 180x sweeter than sugar, and high consumption of sweeteners have been linked to brain tumors and other cancer in rodents. Certain side effects of aspartame are well documented: dizziness, headaches, diarrhea, memory loss, and mood swings.

But let's look at some of the studies that suggest artificial sweetners aren't so harmless. Studies of people drinking regular and diet soda have shown that risk of obesity increases with diet soda. One study of 1500 people, for instance, found that the risk of obesity increased 41% for every can of diet soda consumed in a day. It is unclear exactly why this happens, but likely that artificial sugars confuse the brain and alter the body's normal satiety triggers, causing people to then eat more. So much more, apparently, to make up for all the calories and sugar in regular soda and then some. (This alone says a lot as your average regular soda drinker would lose a pound a week on average if he gave it up.)

Both diet and regular soda have ingredients that deprive the body of nutrients such as high sodium levels and phsophoric acid -- which leaches calcium from the body and can alter pH balances to an unhealthy level. I have never tried this but apparently soda will eat away at metal in a surprisingly short period of time. Pretty scary thought. Some holistic practitioners believe that diet soda has a corrosive impact on the GI tract when consumed in excess. Like almost everything unhealthy I have ever mentioned on this site, the same applies here -- it is particularly damaging to growing children. Another problem is what we're really getting from soda. Does it really quench your thirst? Soda contains high levels of sodium which makes us thirsty and caffeine that acts as a diuretic.

So where do you go? Well natural alternatives are there and more are coming our or becoming more widely available all the time. Some contain xylitol, others stevia, etc. (xylitol comes from trees and stevia from plants). Tea contains caffeine that may otherwise be missed, and also contains antioxidants and a variety of other benefits (depending on green or black).

Soda companies also recently experimented with their "throw back" products that contained all natural sugar -- a decent step forward. But these were mostly temporary promotional products. I'll be very interested to see how much soda actually leaves schools.