Kicking the Soda Habit: My Experience as a 28 Yr Old Male

[chroot]

I'm now "recovering" from what I recently realized was an incredibly bad soft drink (soda) habit, and I thought I'd share my experiences.

I'm a 28 year old white male, 175 lbs. I exercise plenty (50-100 miles on a road bike every week, and lift weights three times a week), but have always had to be fairly conscious of my diet. In fact, compared to most people, I ate very little -- I had a small breakfast and often skipped lunch. I've always been a night owl, and have been known to sleep 'til noon when I'd had the opportunity.

I consumed probably 6-7 cans of soda daily. Now, I know that anyone with four neurons can tell me that that's nearly 1,000 kcals a day, but, for some reason, this fact just never really had an impact on me until... I stopped.

I stopped drinking soda because I have actually grown to dislike it. Over the past year, I'd find myself craving a soda, but not really enjoying it. I'd often almost have to force myself to finish the can. I didn't like the bad taste it left in my mouth, or the digestive effects, or anything else.

A week later, without a drop of soda, I have a few experiences to share.

The truth is, the caffeine withdrawal was the easy part! I didn't have any headaches, but I experienced most of the other known symptoms, mostly sleepiness, irritability, and difficulty concentrating at work. Besides getting uncharacteristically pissed off a few times in traffic, and having a little trouble motivating myself at work, the caffeine withdrawal wasn't all that bad. In fact, I've discovered an amazing new ability to... sleep. I can go to bed before midnight, get a very good night's sleep, and wake up feeling rested before my alarm even goes off. I can barely remember the last time I went to bed before midnight.

The hard part, believe it or not, has been adjusting my diet to the sudden absence of 1,000 kcals per day. It takes a LOT of food to deliver 1,000 kcals. I could blame my addiction for blinding me to this obvious fact, but, truly, I had just never really thought about it.

The first few days were the worst. I continued to eat my normal diet -- minus the soda -- and do my normal exercises. I was promptly met with the symptoms of starvation -- cold hands, disorientation, a desire to eat in binges, constant, unrelenting hunger, etc. I quickly realized I needed to bring more calories into my diet.

I'm having to seek the advice of friends to figure out what to do! I'm adding things like peanut butter on whole-wheat bagels, protein shakes, and other forms of energy to my diet. I'm having to bring healthy snack foods with me to work; previously, the logistics of my caloric needs were as simple as having a ready supply of $1 bills. I'm literally have to rediscover how to shop and eat, something I never expected to happen simply by eliminating soda from my diet.

I feel great! I'm losing weight without even trying to. If anyone else is trying to kick the habit, just know that it's possible. It's easy, really. Just stick with it for a week, and you'll be surprised just how much your tastes and your behaviors will change. I really feel almost as if some kind of spell has been lifted from me.

- Warren

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I kicked the soda habit a few years ago and I feel great. It is a smart move. Once you stop drinking a lot of soda, most foods will taste sweeter and better. I now drink natural flavored sparkling water like La Croix. To anyone used to sweets, it tastes bad. However if you cut soda out and many sweets, La Croix starts to taste really really good and it's just water.

 

[chroot]

I've been just drinking water with lemon... I'm kind of afraid of getting addicted to yet another productized beverage!

- Warren

 

[Number2Pencil]

congrats on kicking the habit! Lemon water is my soda alternative too. I'd say just try to eat a healthy meal 3 times a day and you'll live forever.

 

[Cyrus]

YES MAN! I can down a 2 liter in a day. I love that liquid gold! MMMM pepsi and coke.

Im now drinking budweiser. It does not have the sugar in it like soda. I usually have one every day ~16-24 oz in size.

 

[K.J.Healey]

I try to only drink diet soda but I'm limited; Nutrasweet gives me, my brothers, and my parents all headaches if we have more than 8oz.
So now I will only drink occasionally Diet Rite, Pepsi One, and other sodas made with Splenda. I love Splenda, I just hope it doesn't cause cancer more rapidly that everything else.
Also Lemon Propel.

 

[hypatia]

I drink Pop only a few times a month. I really don't care for it much. I do know some real additcts, ones who carry emergency pop in there car, just in case. So good job on stopping.

 

[moose]

Soda habit is so much better than an energy drink habit though. I drink 2 16oz energy drinks every day. Then I also drink quite a bit of soda... About a year ago I was also drinking 2 energy drinks a day, on top of a lot of soda, and I decided to see if I could go a week without drinking anything but water. It was hard but I did it... The chain of only water ended when I accidentally ordered lemonade when I was eating somewhere. I am thinking of trying that again...

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

congrats on kicking the habit! Lemon water is my soda alternative too. I'd say just try to eat a healthy meal 3 times a day and you'll live forever.

I stopped eating natural foods when I learned that most people die of natural causes.

 

[Evo]

About the only soda I drink anymore (for at least the last 10 years) is Fresca, it's sugarless and caffeine free.

I like fruit juice, and tea.

 

[Oerg]

I don't even dare to have a can a day. I don't want to have diabetes when I turn 30

 

[turbo]

Good job, Warren. Years back when I was running a paper machine, the heat and fatigue would get to me, and I started drinking a few cans of Pepsi per shift. It was cold and it was a pick-me-up. I had to give it up pretty soon though - that sugar/caffeine roller-coaster started interfering with my ability to sleep, and when you're working rotating 12-hour shifts on a machine that can kill you in an instant, that last thing you want is to go to work sleep-deprived. I switched to water, with a small black coffee and a sandwich for lunch. Haven't touched a soft drink since (~25 years).

 

[Pyrrhus]

Weird, i never had the habit. I drink soda only when served in social situations, i do not buy it or drink it at home. I prefer good ol' regular water. As for the high calorie daily, i eat a lot, but hardly gain any pounds.

I am 22 yo, 175 lbs and 5'11".

 

[lisab]

This is timely. I just found out I have high blood pressure and one of my blood lipids is sky-high. Both my doctor and I were surprised -- I'm fairly fit and very healthy, no where near obese.

I started seeing a nutritionist. She said that high fructose corn syrup (the sweetener in soda) is wicked bad for human health, in ways that are only now becoming clear.

"Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia"

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-2-5.pdf

"Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome. There is an urgent need for increased public awareness of the risks associated with high fructose consumption and greater efforts should be made to curb the supplementation of packaged foods with high fructose additives."

High fructose corn syrup -- bad stuff, and it's everywhere, too.

 

[Moonbear]

Yep, high fructose corn syrup is awful for you, and so hard to avoid anymore. I ebb and flow when it comes to soda drinking. Over the past two weeks or so, I've only had at most a can of soda per day (if any). Then I'll go through periods of time when I just crave a ton of it. I have some birch beer from a brand that doesn't use corn syrup...they still use old-fashioned cane sugar...but you have to mail order that stuff unless you live near Kutztown, PA. It tastes so much better than the overly sweet corn syrup stuff though.

I've read about diet sodas being really bad if you're trying to diet too. A recent study confirmed what has been suspected for years...the sweet taste can trigger release of insulin in the absence of any sugar for the insulin to act on, which leaves you hypoglycemic and craving more sugar to make up for it.

Tonosaki K, Hori Y, Shimizu Y, Tonosaki K. Relationships between insulin release and taste. Biomed Res. 2007 Apr;28(2):79-83.

Tasting sweet food elicits insulin release prior to increasing plasma glucose levels, known as cephalic phase insulin release (CPIR). The characteristic of CPIR is that plasma insulin secretion occurs before the rise of the plasma glucose level. In this experiment, we examined whether taste stimuli placed on the tongue could induce CPIR. We used female Wistar rats and five basic taste stimuli: sucrose (sweet), sodium chloride (salty), HCl (sour), quinine (bitter) or monosodium glutamate (umami). Rats reliably exhibited CPIR to sucrose. Sodium chloride, HCl, quinine, or monosodium glutamate did not elicit CPIR. The non-nutritive sweetener saccharine elicited CPIR. However, starch, which is nutritive but non-sweet, did not elicit CPIR although rats showed a strong preference for starch which is a source of glucose. In addition, we studied whether CPIR was related to taste receptor cell activity. We carried out the experiment in rats with bilaterally cut chorda tympani nerves, one of the gustatory nerves. After sectioning, CPIR was not observed for sweet stimulation. From these results, we conclude that sweetness information conducted by thistaste nerve provides essential information for eliciting CPIR.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...ez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

So, if you're trying to lose weight, you might want to skip the diet soda too.

 

[scorpa]

Haha yeah that fructose corn syrup will get you for sure, it pretty much just converts pop into "diabetes in a can". I hardly ever drink pop myself, I don't even like it that much, but if I'm at a restaurant or a party or something I occassionaly drink it. I do however like Jones Soda and Stewarts, some of the varieties of Jones' are made with cane sugar, which is much better than fructose corn syrup.

 

[lisab]

If I have lunch at a restaurant, I order milk. Makes me feel eight years old again!

At dinner in a restaurant, it'll be a glass of wine, of course .

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Milk BTW has quite a lot of sugar in it too, just in the form of lactose instead of fructose.

A few years ago I had the sort of realization that Warren had about the carb / sugar problems of soda. I realized that most drinks are actually much sweeter than I want to drink anyways. So all I've done is thin them out.

I take Arizona iced tea, for example, and thin it out with home-made unsweetened bag-tea iced tea so that I'm only drinking about a third of the sugar, which I actually vastly prefer. My favorite is to do half orange juice, half seltzer water, á la Orangina. In restaurants I ask for half lemonade / half unsweetened tea or half sweet / half unsweetened tea.

Something I've also realized is that most restaurant food is much saltier and more seasoned than I prefer. It's seriously insane what a crust of salt and MSG some (most?) of these chain restaurants like Chili's or The Outback will slather on every piece of food.

⚛​

 

[Moonbear]

Milk BTW has quite a lot of sugar in it too, just in the form of lactose instead of fructose.

Milk has a lot of other nutrients that are good for you. It's not like soda where there's no nutritional value to go with all the calories.

My favorite is to do half orange juice, half seltzer water, á la Orangina. In restaurants I ask for half lemonade / half unsweetened tea or half sweet / half unsweetened tea.

Most fruit juices are too sweet for me, so I do similar things, either adding just a splash of the juice to a glass of water for a flavored water, or when I'm not worried about the calories as much, I mix it with tonic water for a nice tangy beverage. I don't buy iced tea though, I just make my own so I control the amount of sugar that goes in.

Something I've also realized is that most restaurant food is much saltier and more seasoned than I prefer. It's seriously insane what a crust of salt and MSG some (most?) of these chain restaurants like Chili's or The Outback will slather on every piece of food.

⚛​

Okay, I don't even consider those chains as "restaurant food"...I consider them in almost the same category as fast food, just served slower. I can't stand anything served at Chili's, and will eat at Outback about once a year (once in a while I do get a craving for greasy/salty food, though I don't notice too much on their steaks; that's more peppers than salts...the steaks just make 3 meals for me). I love salt on steak anyway, though. I enjoy a nice crust of sea salt when I make steak at home. Yum!

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Most fruit juices are too sweet for me, so I do similar things, either adding just a splash of the juice to a glass of water for a flavored water, or when I'm not worried about the calories as much, I mix it with tonic water for a nice tangy beverage. I don't buy iced tea though, I just make my own so I control the amount of sugar that goes in.

Yeah, I do a fair amount of that too. But there's some flavor in Arizona iced tea that all of my mad scientist concoctions with exotic fruit juices and kinds of sugar and other ingredients were unable to reproduce, so I just gave up. I even tried using high fructose corn syrup and that wasn't it.

An interesting endeavor is to replace the tangyness of lemon juice in conventional iced tea - which to my taste buds is what balances the sugar - with something else. I've found black cherry juice to be the most efficacious.

Okay, I don't even consider those chains as "restaurant food"...I consider them in almost the same category as fast food, just served slower. I can't stand anything served at Chili's, and will eat at Outback about once a year (once in a while I do get a craving for greasy/salty food, though I don't notice too much on their steaks; that's more peppers than salts...the steaks just make 3 meals for me). I love salt on steak anyway, though. I enjoy a nice crust of sea salt when I make steak at home. Yum!

Oh, yes, I include fast food in the category of restaurant food, but that's my personal categorizing. I probably end up eating it more often than many people because of business travel.

At least the Outback has good Aussie beer though, unlike McDonalds (at least in the U.S.… I've never had the pleasure of a Royale with cheese and a beer.)

⚛​

 

[gravenewworld]

Classic easy experiment that is shown to parents: Take a can of soda and put it into a bucket of water. What does it do? It sinks because the density of the soda is greater than the density of the water since there is sooooooooooo much sugar dissolved in the soda.A lot of fruit juices are usually worse than soda. A bottle of snapple has 28 g of sugar per serving, and in a bottle there are 2-2.5 servings!

 

[DaveC426913]

About the only soda I drink anymore (for at least the last 10 years) is Fresca, it's sugarless and caffeine free.

Fresca!


You know, I read an article somewhere that said Fresca and mangoes react together to produce an intolerable taste...

 

[Evo]

You know, I read an article somewhere that said Fresca and mangoes react together to produce an intolerable taste...

Totally untrue.

 

[lisab]

Totally untrue.

Aaaah, but diet Coke and Mentos...

 

[Huckleberry]

I probably have about 3 cans of soda a day, 2 or 3 glasses of water, a glass of milk with dinner, and maybe some kind of juice about once a day. On weekends any of those can be substituted with beer.

 

[Cyrus]

I had a beer with my dinner. Now I am drinking a mountain dew code red. AHHHHHHHHHH So damn good. Double indulgence.

 

[Moonbear]

A lot of fruit juices are usually worse than soda. A bottle of snapple has 28 g of sugar per serving, and in a bottle there are 2-2.5 servings!

Indeed, the juice in my fridge right now has 150 calories/8 oz serving, compared to the 100 calories in 8 oz of soda. Though, I'm still trying to figure out how something can be labeled "Pomegranate Juice" when the ingredients list shows there's more apple juice and grape juice than pomegranate. I thought I'd try it, but it's pretty awful. Tastes like fruit punch (as it probably should with that many different juices in it). Since I have a house guest arriving this weekend, I didn't toss it yet in case she likes these sorts of juices, but if she doesn't like it either, I'm dumping it. Why is it so hard to get juice of just one fruit without filler from grape or apple juice? I don't like either grape or apple juice, and don't want it mixed in every other juice.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Why is it so hard to get juice of just one fruit without filler from grape or apple juice? I don't like either grape or apple juice, and don't want it mixed in every other juice.

That might've been rhetorical, but I believe it's because those juices are the cheapest. By using them they can still label it “100% Real Fruit Juice” without the expense of actual 100% pomegranate juice.

I was just recently noticing that some jars of peanut butter labeled “All Natural” actually have added sugar and palm oil (?) full of trans-fat - which obviates the entire reason to not eat processed hydrogenated peanut butter in the first place!

⚛​

 

[DaveC426913]

I drink the equivalent of about 4-6 cans of sugar-free cola a day. About half that is caffeine-free.

 

[binzing]

Pepsi is better than coke!

 

[NeoDevin]

Indeed, the juice in my fridge right now has 150 calories/8 oz serving, compared to the 100 calories in 8 oz of soda.

While juice does (often) have more calories than pop, pop has almost no nutritional value whatsoever, where juice has many nutrients/vitamins.

 

[NeoDevin]

For anyone interested in counting calories, I just found this site
http://www.calorie-count.com/

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

For anyone interested in counting calories, I just found this site
http://www.calorie-count.com/

Wow! Fantastic site. In high school I used to use the fitday program, but that site looks great and free.

 

[Cyrus]

Fitday is great!
(Im drinking another code red mountain dew, arg. Oh well, it tastes great! )

 

[Oerg]

I must be dreaming, there is a Mac ad on the calorie page.

 

[Moonbear]

While juice does (often) have more calories than pop, pop has almost no nutritional value whatsoever, where juice has many nutrients/vitamins.

Read some of those juice labels. They have hardly any more nutritional value than soda. You could find a lot better sources of those vitamins than a juice overloaded with sugar.

 

[DaveC426913]

For anyone interested in counting calories, I just found this site
http://www.calorie-count.com/

This is my preferred site:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21Zd.html"
Oh fantastic! I see that they've added a glycemic load index.

 

[gravenewworld]

Even stuff like vitamin water is bad. A whole bottle of vitamin water has 125 calories and 32 g of sugar. Drink 3 of those in 1 day and you will have to run about 4 nine minute miles to burn that off.

 

[NeoDevin]

Read some of those juice labels. They have hardly any more nutritional value than soda. You could find a lot better sources of those vitamins than a juice overloaded with sugar.

They have infinitely more nutritional value than soda, considering that soda has pretty much 0 nutritional value. But yes, there are much better sources than juices.

 

[JasonRox]

I'm 24 years old at 5'10 and 156 pounds. I gained 2-3 pounds!

I think it's because I wasn't eating the best awhile ago. I was so darn busy it was crazy. I normally eat like a freak and my weight never shifts and then I started eating crappy food and not that often. Or maybe I always weight around 155 pounds and it's because I'm using a different scale. I have no clue.

Yeah, I eat and eat and eat. I eat good though. I don't eat beef or pork or dairy products (except cheese on pizza). I have at most one can of pop a day.

The craving for beef is growing though. It's tough. It's been well over a year now and it's tough. I used to eat bacon every single day, and it's tough not having any at all, especially since I'm french. I'm sure soda is even harder though. It took my brother months to quit. I quit before and I found it easy. (I quit for a year or so.) I just drink soda when I'm out (not at home).

Note: My whole family eats a lot and none of us are overweight. When I went to see my french family in Quebec, we ate monster amounts of food. It was insane.

 

[Moonbear]

They have infinitely more nutritional value than soda, considering that soda has pretty much 0 nutritional value. But yes, there are much better sources than juices.

8 oz Juicy Juice Apple Juice:
110 calories
0 g fat
20 mg sodium
260 mg potassium
28 g total carbohydrate
0 g dietary fiber
26 g sugar
120% Vit C
http://www.juicyjuice.com/Products/Details.aspx# (you have to click on the nutrition details...displays in a pop-up, so I can't give a direct link).

8 oz Pepsi cola:
100 calories
0 g fat
20 mg sodium
28 g total carbohydrate
0 g dietary fiber
28 g sugar
http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories/food/pepsi/pepsi

Okay, so in fruit juice, you can get vitamin C, which is actually added as a supplement (read the ingredients), and which you can also get really easily from any fresh fruits and vegetables.

Just for comparison, a veggie kids (and grown ups) will usually gladly munch on...
1 cup sweet red pepper:
46 calories
0.4 g fat
6 mg sodium
9 g total carbohydrate
3.1 g dietary fiber
6.3 g sugar
1.5 g protein
93% Vit A
317% Vit C
1% calcium
4% iron
http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item/11821.html

No need to fill them up with sugar and sodium to get some vitamin C, which after the first cup, they're just peeing out anyway.

 

[P4PPY]

Your body needs more water to break down carbs. People who drink a lot of soda are generally "puffy" people... due to the water retention used to break down the bad carbs.

I used to drink about 5 liters of Dr. Pepper a day (easily)... I quit and lost about 75 lbs in 3-4 months. I quit cold turkey, but I never thought of it like a drug... or something I would have to go through withdrawals from.

Unless of course the withdrawals symptoms included massive weight loss and a huge boost to my energy! :)

 

[Noone]

Soda and all forms of drinks are mainly time passers things that people feel the need to drink even if the body doesn't need it. So in a way if you have a soda problem then you know that you don't need to drink it, and I'm sure that if your on this sit and reading this then you know why most of all forms of soft drinks are not really needed by your body -.- here's a easy way to fix any habbit that takes time to do. just fill sub what ever is not needed with somthing that is. so in the case of soda buy vita-water and make sure its a flav that you like :) and try to better understand why its a false need that was created for people so that they would buy somthing new (aka a marketing ploy to make a new market) and make you think that you want it by getting you to think that you should just try it :P and normaly about 1million people think that they should just try it once. why do you think there rich? if they wernt pulling one over on you :D boycott un-needed forms of food and water people x.X there not needed for your bodies daily functions and you only like them because you think that you like them and if you don't have control over what you like and dis-like to eat and drink, then your addicted to what you eat and drink. (what pockets are you filling?)-(the one's filling you with waste?)

 

[Moonbear]

I used to drink about 5 liters of Dr. Pepper a day (easily)... I quit and lost about 75 lbs in 3-4 months. I quit cold turkey, but I never thought of it like a drug... or something I would have to go through withdrawals from.

I can't figure out how people can drink 5 liters of ANYTHING in a day! That much soda would have left you already exceeding a normal daily calorie intake without ever eating a bite of any other food (and of course with 0 nutrients to go with it). Did you live in the bathroom? How can you drink that much liquid and not need to pee every 5 min? Or, for that matter, how do you fit that much liquid into your stomach at all?

But, it used to absolutely shock me in the last neighborhood I lived into see kids walking home from school with a 2 liter bottle of soda that they were drinking from! I don't know if their parents knew about it, or if the kids were stopping at the convenience store without their parents' permission, but no wonder they have no attention span and are getting fat when they are consuming that much sugar and caffeine! I see those drinks they sell in the convenience stores too in cups bigger than my head. I just don't get it. I mean, if you're going to fill it up with water and head to work on a construction site, it makes some sense to drink that much in a day, but not soda, and when people drink those in a single sitting, not just sipping all day long, I don't know how they don't just vomit it all back up.

 

[P4PPY]

I can't figure out how people can drink 5 liters of ANYTHING in a day! That much soda would have left you already exceeding a normal daily calorie intake without ever eating a bite of any other food (and of course with 0 nutrients to go with it). Did you live in the bathroom? How can you drink that much liquid and not need to pee every 5 min? Or, for that matter, how do you fit that much liquid into your stomach at all?

I switched from drinking that much soda in a day to drinking absolutely nothing. I worked in 110 degree weather in Souther California at the time. I know Soda actually dehydrates you, but the feeling of cold liquid going down my throat gave me the 'cooling' off feeling.

I did exactly what a previous posted had suggested, I swapped out the soda for pure water. I now drink about 2 gallons of water a day. I'm not a big guy, 5'10" 200lbs.

I do go to the bathroom at least 10 times a day. And my urine is always clear... yah, I'd drink it again if I was brave enough, and if I was stranded in a desert, I wouldn't think twice. =)

I think after awhile your bladder just stretches to accommodate the increased amount of liquids you inhale (to a certain point).

I have a water cooler next to my office desk at home, and I refill that 5gallon jug about every 3 days. And that's not including the water I drink while I'm at work.

After all is said and done, I can honestly say that soda is bad... but that much water isn't all that great for you either. It's the lesser of two evils for me.

 

[Mk]

I only drink diet coke (caffeine free or not, I can't notice a difference). I probably drink a cups of water, a cup of juice, and a cup or two of coke per day. There's plenty of flavor and water in the food I eat anyway.

 

[NeoDevin]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21da.html"

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20TO.html"

Scroll down, the apple juice has small quantities of many different nutrients, and is an excellent source of Manganese (not that I have any clue why that might be good for you...).

Scroll down for the coca-cola and what do you find... ALL nutrients, zero. My point was not that a person should drink several liters of juice/day instead of pop, but that if you are craving a sweet drink, juice is infinitely better than pop.

 

[Moonbear]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21da.html"

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20TO.html"

Scroll down, the apple juice has small quantities of many different nutrients, and is an excellent source of Manganese (not that I have any clue why that might be good for you...).

Scroll down for the coca-cola and what do you find... ALL nutrients, zero. My point was not that a person should drink several liters of juice/day instead of pop, but that if you are craving a sweet drink, juice is infinitely better than pop.

I didn't say all juices were bad, but all juices are not created equal. I chose the brand I did because that's the one I see lots of little kids carrying around juice boxes of. Notice the vast difference between the nutrient content of the "generic" apple juice in your link, and the brand name in my link. A glass of orange juice is great, some apple cider great, etc., but there are a lot of bottled and boxed and canned juices that are truly horrendous, but people assume that it's juice so better for you than soda. Not all are. Read the labels carefully.

 

[JasonRox]

Haha yeah that fructose corn syrup will get you for sure, it pretty much just converts pop into "diabetes in a can".

This is a myth. High sugar diets do not cause diabetes.

http://www.healthcastle.com/sugar-diabetes.shtml

http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=120426

http://www.indiadiets.com/myths/Myth%20details/sugar_causes_diabetes.htm

Sugar is a secondary cause to diabetes, and NOT a direct cause. Sugar can cause obesity and THEN obesity causes diabetes. If you remain thin, sugar is not a risk factor for diabetes.

Too much sugar has many bad effects, but diabetes isn't one of them.

 

[gravenewworld]

Why bother with juices though? All you need is 1 cup of cantaloupe (probably the best food on the face of this Earth)

-60 calories
-120% DV vitamin A
-108% vitamin C

Then after you eat that all you have to do is just drink water.

Soft drinks and juices are disgustingly sweet. I hate how my mouth seems to instantly grow 100% more plaque all over after consuming one of them because of all the sugar. If you hate eating vegetables, EAT CANTALOUPE. You will get just as much vitamin A.