Healthy Living Magazine Article-What’s in a drink?
Water
or Gatorade? Coffee or tea? Energy drink or vitamin water? Juice or milk? Which
beverages should we be reaching for to quench our thirst and which drinks offer
the most health benefits? Many of us don’t realize the number of hidden
calories, sugar, additives and chemicals that are in the liquid calories we are
consuming on a daily basis. What we choose to drink can have a profound impact
on our health and body weight, so it’s important to know “what’s in a drink?”!
A substantial proportion of
Canadians’ daily calories come not from what we eat, but from what we drink.
This is particularly true for children. According to results from the 2004
Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), beverages accounted for almost 20% of
the calories consumed by children and teens aged 4 to 18! This surprising
statistic reminds us just how important it is for us to make healthy choices
with every gulp. As a country, we now consume an enormous amount of liquid
sugar amounting to an average of 300 calories per day! Every time you reach for
a soda, sports drink, fruit juice or other popular beverage, you consume
calories derived entirely from sugar. Most of these sugary beverages contain
the equivalent of 11-12 teaspoons of sugar per bottle! Would you ever put 12
teaspoons of sugar in your coffee or on your cereal?! Of all the steps that you
can take to improve your health, dumping unhealthy sugary drinks from your diet
offers the single greatest return for your efforts.
Consumption of sweetened beverages
such as soda, sports drinks and energy drinks are on the rise and are sadly now
the number one source of calories in our diet. Sugary beverages have been
linked to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. In a
report from the well known Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, researchers tracked
the drinking habits of over 51,000 women from 1991-1995. Study subjects who
increased their intake of sugary beverages, such a pop, sports drinks or fruit
juice to one or more per day gained over 10 pounds during the four-year study!
Energy drinks are the fastest growing
U.S. beverage market with 30-50% of youth reporting that they regularly consume
these highly caffeinated, sugar-laden drinks! An average energy drink has
50-200mg of caffeine per can, which is up to 2 & ½ times the Health Canada
recommended daily maximum caffeine intake (of 85 mg) for youth aged 10-12.
Widely available in convenience stores, gas stations and grocery stores,
“energy drinks” are often seen a convenient thirst-quencher often substituting
sports drinks. Indeed, energy drinks should not be confused with sports drinks
such as Gatorade or Powerade. Sports drinks rehydrate the body and replenish
electrolytes. Energy drinks on the other hand, may mask signs of dehydration
because of their caffeine content and they also lack electrolytes. Notably, energy
drinks also carry considerable health risks, including irregular heartbeat,
nervousness, anxiety, agitation, irritability and insomnia. But before you reach for the sports drink as
an alternative everyday pick-me-up to energy drinks, think again. You should be saving the sports drinks for
athletes or for when you’ve had a hard-core workout! Sports beverages are
designed to give athletes carbohydrates, electrolytes, and fluid during
high-intensity workouts that last an hour or more.
Leslie Beck, registered dietician and
leading Canadian nutritionist, in her book Foods That Fight Disease makes a
case for how easily liquid calories can lead to weight gain. She says that
research suggests that we don’t register the calories we drink as well as we do
the calories we eat. Therefore, liquid calories add to rather than displace
food calories, resulting in an increase to our total daily caloric intake. To
prevent consuming too many calories from beverages, she recommends limiting
beverage calories to no more than 10% of daily caloric intake, which equates to
about 200 calories if you follow a 2,000 calorie diet.
There are many options for what to
drink, but without a doubt, you should make water your beverage of choice. It's
calorie-free, and it's as easy to find as the nearest tap. Water is the body’s
most important nutrient, second only to oxygen as a substance necessary to
sustain life. The body uses water for just about all of its functions since
every cell in the body relies on water to carry out its functions, including regulating
temperature, transporting oxygen and nutrients through the blood, as well as digestion
and absorption of food. Fluid lubricates joints and moistens tissue in the
eyes, mouth and nose. With such an important role in our body’s functions, you
want to be sure that you are consuming enough water for maximum health
benefits. Recommended intake of water is 9 cups per day for women and 13 for
men to replace what the body loses through breathing, sweating and excreting
wastes. Hot, humid weather and physical activity will increase your body’s
demands for water.
Find
regular, plain water unsatisfying? Before you gulp down a bottle of Vitamin
water or artificially flavored water as an alternative, think again. A 591 ml
bottle of Vitamin water contains about 33 grams of sugar almost as much as a
355 ml can of Coke, which contains 39 grams. The added vitamins
in Vitamin water don’t do any actual harm, but here’s the problem. It confuses consumers
into thinking that this beverage is a “healthy’ choice, when in fact it has
plenty of added sugar. As for low-calorie waters flavored with artificial
sweeteners, these may actually promote weight gain! Laboratory studies have
found that artificial sweeteners can interfere with the body’s natural ability
to use sensory cues to gauge caloric consumption. Translation-artificial
sweeteners can actually incite hunger! Instead, try flavouring your water by adding
a squeeze of lemon to your glass or a splash of cranberry or orange juice.
Television personality and author Jamie Oliver suggests mashing up a handful of
strawberries or raspberries with a fork and adding it to a jug of water.
Another suggestion he offers is adding slices of cucumber or orange segments to
your jug of water.
Even
though water is your best choice, you can also meet your body’s hydration
requirements by drinking milk, soy beverages, coffee, tea, vegetable juice or small
amounts of fruit juice. A smoothie can also go a long way towards satisfying
thirst as well as daily requirements for fruit and milk! See below for our list
of “Ten Healthy Drinks” and “Banana Berry Wake up Shake” smoothie recipe. In
summary, you are what you eat...and what you drink. Making healthy choices with
every sip can offer you the single most important step to improving your health
and wellness. Now that’s easy to swallow!
