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Home--News
Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Soda
By Steve Edwards
food.gather.com
April 01, 2010
If you're looking for a scapegoat in the obesity epidemic, look no
further than soda. It's the single greatest caloric source in the
world, accounting for somewhere between 11 and 19 percent of all the
calories consumed worldwide. It's cheap, addictive, and readily available,
which generally means that it will take some willpower to avoid. But
don't despair, as we at Beachbody® are here to help. We present: our
top 10 reasons to give up soda. Drumroll please . . .
1. Soda may cause cancer. According to a report in Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers & Prevention, consuming two or more soft drinks per week
increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold
compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks. As reported,
the study "followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese
Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic
cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week
(averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared
with individuals who did not."
Then why, you're probably asking yourself, is this number ten on our
list and why is soda even still on the shelf? Not that I'd challenge
the ability of such large corporate power to hide such a thing but,
in this case, the study slit its own throat. As one of the researchers
noted, "soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several
other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake,
which we can't accurately control for," meaning that we have no way
of knowing, for sure, if soda was the culprit. Still, it doesn't hurt
to know that when you drink soda it lumps you into a fairly unhealthy
user group.1
2. It's not just about calories. Calories grab headlines, but recent
science is showing that diet soda users are still in the crosshairs.
A 2005 study by the University of Texas Health Science Center showed
that there's a 41 percent increased risk of being obese—and a 65 percent
increased risk of becoming overweight during the next 7 or 8 years—for
every can of diet soda a person consumes in a day. Admittedly, this
one should be higher on the list, but I wanted to make sure the article-skimming
crowd knew the score up front: that diet sodas are very much a part
of the problem.
3. It's the water . . . and a lot more. Okay, so that was a beer slogan,
but soda is also made up mainly of water, and when you're slinging
as much of it as they are, and you need to sling it cheap, sometimes
you can't help but run into problems with your supply chain. In India,
Coca-Cola® has found itself in hot water, and not the kind they thought
they were purchasing rights to. Two of their factories have been closed,
but one continues to run amok. According to a report in The Ecologist,
"They accuse the company of over-extracting groundwater, lowering
the water tables and leaving farmers and the local community unable
to dig deep enough to get to vital water supplies."
"Since the bottling plant was opened in 2000, water levels in the
area have dropped six metres, and when a severe drought hit the region
earlier this year the crops failed and livelihoods were destroyed."2
4. BPA: not just for water bottles anymore. Nalgene® and other water
bottle companies took the heat when the dangers of bisphenol A (BPA)
were made public a couple years back. While these companies went to
great lengths to save their businesses, the soda companies somehow
flew under the radar and continue to use it in their products. A recent
Canadian study has found that BPA exists "in the vast majority" of
the soft drinks tested. Most of these were under the national limits
set for toxicity, but some were not. And remember how much soda the
average person consumes, meaning odds are most soda consumers are
at some risk.
"Out of 72 drinks tested, 69 were found to contain BPA at levels below
what Health Canada says is the safe upper limit. However, studies
in peer-reviewed science journals have indicated that even at very
low doses, BPA can increase breast and ovarian cancer cell growth
and the growth of some prostate cancer cells in animals."3
5. Can convenience. As in the 1950s colloquial: can it. Speaking of
the 1950s, those were the happy days when most of our soda was consumed
at soda fountains, obesity was a term hardly anyone had heard of,
and the most feared epidemic was one of atomically mutated insects
taking over the world. Now instead of hoofing it down to the corner
confectionery for one soda, we fill out trucks with pallets of shrink-wrapped
cans or bottles and quaff the stuff by the six-pack. Not to mention
how out of balance this ensures our diets will become, it wreaks havoc
on the world around us. The bottled-water industry (which is mostly
owned by the soda industry) famously uses 17 million barrels of oil
a year, and the aluminum industry uses as much electricity as the
entire continent of Africa. Not only that, aluminum mining accounts
for a ton of toxic chemicals that is left behind for every ton of
the metal produced.4
6. The Frankenfood factor. Whether you consume diet or regular soda,
you're getting all of the genetically modified food you need and more,
via high fructose corn syrup or aspartame. Both of these are under
plenty of scientific as well as anecdotal scrutiny. Findings aren't
pretty but, so far, this multibillion-dollar industry has kept these
sweeteners on the shelves while alternative sweeteners meeting cost
requirements are explored. Since it's almost impossible to read health
headlines without finding one of these ingredients in some type of
controversy, I'll just use one example:
"The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food
safety advocacy group, called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to review the claims, which stem from research conducted by the European
Ramazzini Foundation in Italy.
The foundation reported that rats who consumed aspartame in exceedingly
large quantities were more likely to develop cancer. CSPI executive
director Michael Jacobson considers this an important finding that
should not be overlooked." 5
I know, there I go again with the cancer. But some people need to
be shocked in order to take action. For me, seeing the Diet Coke®
and Mentos® experiment was all I needed to swear off the stuff.
7. Foreign news cares how much soda we sell in our schools. How bad
is your country's problem when the whole world is watching its daily
actions? "Nearly one in three children and teenagers in the U.S. are
overweight or obese and health experts say sugary drinks are part
of the problem." Yep, bad. The world is well aware of the problems
soda is causing and is looking to us to lead. And we certainly are
trying. Are you with the program?
"Under the voluntary guidelines, in place since 2006, full-calorie
soft drinks were removed from school canteens and vending machines.
Lighter drinks, including low-fat milk, diet sodas, juices, flavoured
waters and teas, were promoted in their place."6
And, while great and all, it appears that no one got the memo about
diet sodas.
8. Diet? Um, that's just like your opinion, man. When it comes to
soda, treat the word "diet" as a slogan. A study at Boston University's
School of Medicine linked diet soda with increased risk factors for
heart disease and diabetes. To be more specific, the study "found
adults who drink one or more sodas a day had about a 50 percent higher
risk of metabolic syndrome," which is a cluster of risk factors such
as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of "good" cholesterol,
high blood pressure, and other symptoms that lead to heart disease
and/or diabetes. And, for those of you only concerned about how you
look in the mirror, "Those who drank one or more soft drinks a day
had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese."
9. Soda outkills terrorists. A study out of the University of
California, San Francisco, shows that soda has killed at least 6,000
Americans in the last decade.
From ABC News: "The new analysis, presented Friday at the American
Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease
Epidemiology and Prevention, offers a picture of just how horrifying
the damage done by excess consumption of sugary drinks can be.
Using a computer model and data from the Framingham Heart Study, the
Nurses Health Study and the National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey, researchers estimated that the escalating consumption between
1990 and 2000 of soda and sugar-sweetened beverages, which they abbreviated
as 'SSBs,' led to 75,000 new cases of diabetes and 14,000 new cases
of coronary heart disease.
What's more, the burden of the diseases translated into a $300 million
to $550 million increase in health care costs between 2000 and 2010."7
10. It's the "real thing" . . . not exactly. Should having the number
one caloric source in the world come from something that's entirely
manmade be a metaphor for a dying world? It doesn't have to be this
way. After all, there's nothing in soda that we need. In fact, there's
nothing in soda that even comes from the earth except caffeine, and
that's optional. It's a mixture of altered water (injected with carbon
dioxide gas), artificial flavors (yes, "natural flavor" is artificial),
artificial color, and phosphoric acid, along with its sole caloric
source that is a by-product of genetically modified corn production
and offers virtually no nutritional value. It's about as real as The
Thing.
Sources:
1 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/aafc-sdc020310.php
2 http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/373906/cocacola_just_part_of_indias_water_freeforall.html
3 http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/03/05/popcans.html
4 http://www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html,
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/eco/eech6_ss3
5 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3317079&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
6 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8557195.stm
7 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/study-sugary-drinks-lead-early-grave/story?id=10019518
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