*Quick note: I am currently working on giving my blog a makeover for Spring/Summer, so don't mind me if it gets a little schizophrenic around here while I try out new looks.
Today, I was innocently checking out one of my Favorite blogs, Not Martha, and came across a link to
this article:
After reading the whole thing, I feel like my innocence is lost, a part of my soul gone... forever...I have been critical of bottled beverages for a very long time, but I don't think I ever really knew the depths of their wickedness until now.
This article reviews several of our nation's worst beverages, and gives the "sugar equivalent" in junk food. The sugar content is not the only shocking thing about the drinks, MANY of them reach 1000 calories or higher. Here's the thing about liquid calories, they don't really make you feel any more full than before you drank them, but your body processes those calories just the same as the calories from solids. This means you are taking in a crap load of empty, potentially harmful (don't even get me started on the evils of high fructose corn syrup, I will save that for another post) calories on top of your daily food intake. This leads to fat storage, weight gain, and all that goes with it.
Now, I could certainly go off on a tangent about food companies and their questionable ethics in making these beverages (especially the ones marketed to children!), I could go off on the FDA for allowing them to sell us this junk, but I won't. One of the nice things about living in a capitalistic society is that we have the choice to NOT PURCHASE these items, and drink water instead (or at least go for a lower calorie option...c'mon). We are fortunate enough to live in a time where nutritional information is widely available on the Internet, and in most establishments where food and drinks are sold. All you have to do is ask, it's easy, I do it all.the.time. It's not embarrassing, and the person behind the counter doesn't mind, as long as you smile and ask politely.
In this day and age, we finally have the opportunity to empower ourselves, and make to good choices that lead to a happy, healthy diet.
When consumers show whats most important to them by buying the healthier (the real thing, not just something claiming to be healthy on the label) options at restaurants and grocery stores, the people making this crap will listen, and supply us with more of what we want. I am an optimist, and I believe that the movement that some call a "trend" or a "fad" to buy whole (not processed), local, and organic foods is going to change the way our nation relates to what we eat.
OK, I will get off my soap box now. I guess that all there is left to say is "power to the people!"
2 comments:
This is an extreme example, but I was looking at the can of Monster Energy Drink a friend of mine was drinking the other day and noticed that it had something like 32g of sugar per serving. And that's shocking enough as it is. Then I realized that the bottle itself had 3 servings in it.
No wonder we're all going diabetic.
Ugh, Liam that's insane. I wonder why they need to put so much sugar in the drinks, even just 2 teaspoons of sugar makes a 12oz drink made at home (like coffee, tea, lemonade etc.) taste plenty sweet. I don't get it at all.
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