I picked up the book, DRINK THIS, NOT THAT (of the Eat this, Not that book series). We were absolutely floored by what we read!
It seems, over the past 50 years or so, we Americans have developed a severe drinking problem. That’s right. We stopped making our own iced teas and lemonades (recipe: water, lemon, sugar) and started buying them in bottles or mixes, with ingredients like “high-fructose corn syrup” and “ascorbic acid” on the labels.
We stopped thinking of a soda as a treat – akin to an ice cream or a candy bar – and started seeing it as the equivalent of a glass of water, drinking two, three, four, or more a day. Then we stopped drinking water out of the tap and started demanding that it be artificially flavored and put into bottled with the words “vitamin” or “energy” stamped on their labels.
And the result of all this beverage consumption is that, today, walking into a convenience store or a beverage distributorship has become dangerous to our health.
America’s supermarket aisles and drive-thru menus are now awash in empty liquid calories. And so today, you and I and the rest of America will drink about 21 percent of the total number of calories we’re supposed to eat in one day! Liquid calories now account for a whopping 400 calories per day! (This is more than twice as much as we drank 30 years ago.)
A recent study at John Hopkins University found that people who cut liquid calories from their diets lose more weight and keep it off longer than people who cut only food calories. Simply cutting your drink calories in half, (cutting back to what we used to drink 30 years ago), could mean shaving off more than 23 pounds in just one year!
Here are 5 of the top WORST drinks from DRINK THIS, NOT THAT top 20 Worst drinks…. And we’re not even talking about alcohol here folks! We’re talking about water!!!
Worst Water : Snapple Agave Melon Antioxidant Water (1 bottle, 20 fl oz)
150 calories 0 g fat 33 g sugars
Sugar Equivalent: 2 Good Humor Chocolate Éclair Bars
While “Worst Water” may sound like an oxymoron, the devious minds in the bottled beverage industry have even found a way to besmirch the sterling reputation of the world’s most essential compound.
Sure, you may get a few extra vitamins, but ultimately, you’re paying a premium price for gussied-up sugar water.
Next time you buy a bottle of water, check the recipe: You want two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, and very little else.
Worst Bottled Tea : SoBe Green Tea (1 bottle, 20 fl oz)
240 calories 0 g fat 61 g sugars
Sugar Equivalent: 4 slices Sara Lee Cherry Pie
Leave it to SoBe to take an otherwise healthy bottle of tea and inject it with enough sugar to turn it into dessert.
The Pepsi-owned company’s flagship line, composed of 11 flavors with names like “Nirvana” and “Cranberry Grapefruit Elixir,” is marketed to give consumers the impression that it can cleanse the body, mind, and spirit. Don’t be fooled.
Just like this bottle of green tea, all of these beverages are made with two primary ingredients: water and sugar.
Worst Energy Drink : Rockstar Energy Drink (1 can, 16 fl oz)
280 calories 0 g fat 62 g sugars
Sugar Equivalent: 6 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Doughnuts
None of the energy provided by these full-sugar drinks could ever justify the caloric load, but Rockstar’s take is especially frightening. One can provides nearly as much sugar as half a box of Nilla Wafers.
In fact, it has 60 more calories than the same amount of Red Bull and 80 more than a can of Monster.
If you’re going to guzzle, better choose one of the low-cal options.
Worst Soda : Sunkist (1 bottle, 20 fl oz)
320 calories 0 g fat 84 g sugars
Sugar Equivalent: 6 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches
Wait . . . but aren’t all sodas equally terrible? It’s true they all earn 100 percent of their calories from sugar, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still varying levels of atrocity.
Despite the perception of healthfulness, fruity sodas tend to carry more sugar than their cola counterparts, and none make that more apparent than the tooth-achingly sweet Sunkist.
But what seals the orange soda’s fate on our list of worsts is its reliance on the artificial colors yellow 6 and red 40—two chemicals that may be linked to behavioral and concentration problems in children.
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