Soda Alternatives

Soda is really one of the most harmful products that I can think of today, which is still legal and easily available on the market.

I used to be a soda addict. As a child, I would pour cups and cups of the fizzy liquid and sit on the couch, watching my afternoon cartoons. Soda is cheap, fun to drink, and addictive. Our bodies evolved to hold onto as many calories as possible, and to also consume foods that are high in fat and sugar. This is because during more primitive times, it was difficult to know when your next meal was going to be, or when you were going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

However, times have changed, and soda is extremely bad for your health.

Soda is full of empty calories. There are no nutrients in soda, nor are there vitamins or minerals. There is no reason why you should even drink soda, your body will be fine without it.

If you want something to drink, or if you want something sweet, here are the best alternatives:

1. Water. Water is easy. There are no calories in water, and you can drink as much as you want. Once you get yourself weaned off the over-sweetened soda and snacks, drinking water is actually quite painless. I used to dislike drinking water, but only because years of snacking on processed foods made my taste buds less sensitive towards the more nuanced flavors present in non-processed foods (e.g.: sushi)
2. Fruit. Fruit is nice and sweet and full of nutrients. You should eat more. The only people I have met who dislike eating fruit are the same people who snack on
   nothing but pizza, burgers, chips, and other unhealthy food. If you make your body more accustomed towards less salty or sweet foods, fruit will become a lot
   more appealing.

Also note, fruit juices, energy drinks, and those lattes you can get at any coffee shop are just as harmful as soda.

Fruit juices are often sweetened with ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup. Juices that say they are "100% juice" actually somewhat fool you. What lots of companies do is filter pear juice and distill out all the nutrients, leaving only sugar water behind. Then they add lots of it to sweeten fruit juice. This way, they can add a substantial amount of sugar, while still calling it "100% juice."

Energy drinks contain roughly the same amount of calories as soda. Some of them are also habit-forming, and contain stimulants. Another issue with energy drinks is that people like to drink them along with alcohol, hoping that the effects cancel out each other. This is very dangerous to your body and should be avoided.

Lastly, those triple-grande-café-cappuccino drinks should also be avoided. Some of them have as many calories (or more) as a meal at McDonalds. They also offer no nutrients, and are extremely expensive after a while.