What soda should i drink

Depending on where you are, finding a bottle of soda may even be easier than finding a bottle of water. The fact is, your body changes for the better when you stop drinking soda — Dr. Rodriguez-Lopez reveals the remarkable health benefits. This can strain your body to find sources of water — which puts a good deal of stress on your kidneys.

If you need something to quench your thirst and rehydrate, water is always the best choice. This Dew flavor is said to be "charged with raspberry citrus flavor and ginseng. Those 46 grams of sugar aren't doing your waistline any favors. But their cream soda is a mix of HFCS and artificial colors and flavors.

This is not your grandparents' soda, in the worst way possible. You gotta love that label: This American classic claims it's "Made with Aged Vanilla" but we see no mention of "Vanilla Extract" in the ingredients list. Throw in two scoops of vanilla ice cream to make a Root Beer float, and you have more than two day's worth of sugar in one chilled mug. Oh, caramel color. It's a very common additive you'll find in many sodas, coffee drinks, salad dressings, and soup, but it's also a potential carcinogen.

There seems to be no mention of any actual strawberries in this ingredient list, with "natural" flavors coming in last behind HFCS, caramel color, and Red You'll notice that it, along with many other sodas, contains the thickener gum acacia.

It not only has been said to cause flatulence and stomach discomfort in some people when ingested in high quantities but according to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives , it can also cause allergic reactions such as a skin rash or an asthmatic attack.

This soda—like many others on this list—is sweetened with HFCS, which makes for a shocking sugar count. It's also colored with that pesky food dye, Yellow 5, a food dye that studies have linked to hyperactivity in children. If you're looking for a refreshing summer treat with this classic flavor combo, you're better off eating the classic Creamsicle ice cream bar that's only calories and 12 grams of sugar.

This soda sure won't taste like actual grapes and it contains Blue 1, a food dye that the Center for Science in the Public Interest recommended consumers be wary of. This soda has more calories than a Mountain Dew though with less artificial colors, thus the better ranking.

A berry lemonade flavored soda might sound refreshing. But coming in with more sugar than you would get from 14 Oreo Thin cookies, you're just looking at a sugar overload. This is another example of don't let the colorful packaging fool you.

This oh-so-sweet soda is chock-full of sugar and toxic ingredients. You know when you add some Mentos to a two-liter Diet Coke and the whole thing explodes? Don't try that at home. That's thanks to the Gum Acacia in the candy, which is listed in A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives as a natural emulsifier and is in the soda, too. Despite its weird name, it's probably the most natural ingredient in this sugar juice. This raspberry-flavored drink has more sugar than three Dunkin Donuts glazed donuts.

If that isn't a red flag, we don't know what is. Its name refers to "royal crown cola" and it was developed by a pharmacist. With HFCS, caramel color, and 42 grams of sugar in one can, there are much better soda options out there for you. That Yellow 6 and Red 40 seems to be a repeat combo offender. And for 45 grams of sugar, ditch the fizzy stuff and go for a fresh mandarin orange instead. With this list of ingredients, you're much better off making a key lime pie and eating that instead!

The caffeine-free version of this citrus pop was created because of consumers' requests for one in , but it comes in with more calories than the original flavor. Despite its name and flavor, this soda isn't an orange hue like you would expect. Still, it contains Yellow 5, which gives it that distinct color. The cherry lemon flavor is really packing when it comes to the ingredients—caramel color, Red 40, and Yellow 5. No thanks. This soda takes classic Mountain Dew and ramps it up with a twist of citrus and dark fruit flavors, but we're not seeing any actual fruit listed here!

If you just ate some actual blueberries, you wouldn't consume any Blue 1, like you get from this soda. Brown's Black Cherry would horrify most doctors—and not just because of the sweet stuff.

Like Stewart's cherry flavor—and many of the colored sodas here—this one has the artificial color Red Sipping on a watermelon soda can't be all that bad, right? Sorry to disappoint, but you're much better off simply eating watermelon or adding the fruit to some water than sipping on this sugar-filled soda.

Barq's creme soda fairs slighting better than its root beer, thanks to being 5 milligrams less in sodium. Liquefy a bag of Skittles to equal the sweetness of this can of corn syrup, citric acid, and artificial colors. In fact, that bag of Skittles has similar ingredients, including Red After a long day of hard work and play, do you like to sit back and relax and crack open a can of Glycerol Ester Of Rosin?

The wood resin is added to fruit sodas to help the fruit-flavored oils mix better with the water. While it's not necessarily harmful, let us repeat: you're drinking oil and water. The latest addition to the Dew line-up is eye-catching and welcomes customers to "experience the never-ending funhouse at Major Melon land through a burst of watermelon flavor.

And, like many of the soda found here, it also contains the additive caramel coloring. This childhood favorite is even cuter in a bottle, and although it is high in calories and sugar, it scores lower on the list for fewer ingredients and its use of fruit and veggie juice for coloring rather than artificial dyes. This childhood favorite can stay on the shelf. Orange is the original flavor of Crush sodas, but the amount of sugar, the Yellow 6, and Red 40?

All just, well, crushing stuff. With HFCS, Red 40, and Blue 1 in this soda, we think you'd be better off getting real grape flavor from, well, grapes. At calories, these RC drinks weigh in on the more calorie-heavy side of the regular soda options. In fact, for only 30 calories more you could have an entire Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut, and save yourself 33 grams of sugar in the process. By now, you might start to see some of the most popular sodas for what they really are: carbonated water, HFCS, some acids, and little else.

This classic—once made with real cherry juice—is, unfortunately, a variation on a common blend. What do you get when you combine carbonated water with High Fructose Corn Syrup and a host of hard-to-pronounce chemicals? This citrus-inspired sip.

It gets its alluring orange color from Yellow 5 and Red Quillaia extract? The best and worst part of researching these sodas is coming across the many ingredients soda manufacturers add to their concoctions.

Quillaia is another tree bark, and it helps your root beer foam up, as A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives points out. Be more scared of the sugar here—you're basically drinking five root beer-flavored Dum Dums mixed with additives.

Nothing wild here—just the same ingredients as most sodas, and as much sugar as more than three cups of cherries without containing any cherries. All-natural bourbon vanilla is said on the soda's site to be the secret to this cream soda's distinct flavor.

The website claims, "Only the finest Spanish oranges make a sweet enough juice with just the right citrus zest to flavor this creamy, bold classic," and with minimum ingredients, we just might believe it.

Malic acid is found in here, and according to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, it's used as a way to compensate for the lack of fruit in artificially sweetened fruit, so there really isn't much actual cherry in this drink. Our childhood nostalgia is crushed: This kid-favorite brand has no actual grapefruit. On the bright side, it has no BVO. Although this ingredients list isn't as long as others, it still contains caramel color and a high amount of sugar.

The perennial 2 in the cola wars carries 5 grams more sugar than a 3 Musketeers bar. Let that sink in: One of America's most popular sodas has that much sugar.

Mix one part juice with three parts seltzer to create this light and bubbly concoction. Pomegranate juice and grape juice are sources of antioxidants that may help protect your brain and blood vessels. Also, this study included only 32 people and lasted four weeks long, so more research is needed.

Grape juice, meanwhile, may help protect the heart, according to an article published in December in Nutrients. After all, whole fruit trumps juice when it comes to health benefits. While it does have nutritional benefits that soda lacks, it can also be high in sugar and calories. Plus, fruit juice lacks the filling fiber that fruit offers, notes the Harvard T.

Chan School of Public Health. Can't give up your favorite citrus-flavored soda? Indulge in an occasional treat with a healthier version made with lemon or lime and a small amount of sweetener.

Start with a glass of sparkling or seltzer water and add a few slices of lemon or lime or both and a dash of stevia -based sweetener, which is calorie-free and low in carbohydrates. A little goes a long way, so use it sparingly. If your drink of choice is a spirit mixed with cola, you may be better off ordering a glass of wine, specifically the red variety. There is also research investigating resveratrol , an antioxidant compound in red wine, and the protective effect it may have against Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

Research published in the August issue of The Lancet reveals that alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability globally it was the seventh leading risk factor for death in Study authors also warn that alcohol is a leading risk factor for global disease and causes significant health loss. If you do enjoy the occasional glass of red wine, watch your consumption. The National Institutes of Health recommends that women limit alcohol consumption to one drink 4 ounces of wine per day and men to two drinks per day.

Vegetable juice offers a quick, low-calorie way to get many of the benefits of veggies, without fiber. It also contains much less natural sugar than fruit juices, according to chapter 8 of Culinary Nutrition. In fact, drinking as little as one can of sugary soda per day has been consistently linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes 24 , 25 , 26 , A recent study, which looked at sugar consumption and diabetes in countries, showed that for every calories of sugar per day — about 1 can of soda — the risk of type 2 diabetes increased by 1.

To put that in perspective, if the entire population of the United States added one can of soda to their daily diet, 3. Sugary soda contains virtually no essential nutrients — no vitamins, no minerals, and no fiber. It adds nothing to your diet except excessive amounts of added sugar and unnecessary calories. It regulates the number of calories you eat and burn 29 , 30 , In one study, rats became leptin resistant after being fed large amounts of fructose.

Strikingly, when they reverted back to a sugar-free diet , leptin resistance disappeared 34 , Eliminating fructose may reverse the problem. In rats, sugar binging may cause dopamine release in the brain, giving a feeling of pleasure Binging on sugar may have similar effects in certain people, as your brain is hardwired to seek out activities that release dopamine. In fact, numerous studies suggest that sugar — and processed junk foods in general — affect your brain like hard drugs For individuals predisposed toward addiction, sugar may cause reward-seeking behavior known as food addiction.

Studies in rats demonstrate that sugar can be physically addictive 38 , 39 , While addiction is harder to prove in humans, many people consume sugary drinks in a pattern typical for addictive, abusive substances. Sugar intake has long been linked to heart disease risk 41 , It is well established that sugar-sweetened drinks increase risk factors for heart disease, including high blood sugar, blood triglycerides, and small, dense LDL particles 16 , Recent human studies note a strong association between sugar intake and heart disease risk in all populations 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , Cancer tends to go hand-in-hand with other chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

For this reason, it is unsurprising to see that sugary drinks are frequently associated with an increased risk of cancer. Another study on pancreatic cancer found a strong link in women — but not men Postmenopausal women who drink a lot of sugary soda may also be at greater risk for endometrial cancer, or cancer of the inner lining of the uterus