How bad soda is for you?

Having an occasional soda isn’t a problem but if you drink a lot of of soda or drink it every day it is really bad for you.

Soda contains phosphoric acid; in fact the pH of most soda is around 2.8 which is quite acidic. Your body neutralizes this acid by leaching calcium from your bones. Drinking a lot of soda will lead to osteoporosis.

Regular sodas have a lot of sugar which in addition to its own health problems tends to crowd more nutritious foods and drinks out of your diet. The more empty calories you consume the fewer nutritious foods you will eat. Regular soda is basically liquid candy. In the US most sodas no longer use cane sugar but have switched to high fructose corn syrup that many researchers think is even worse for us than cane sugar.

Diet sodas use artificial sweeteners which have no calories but are not without their risks. Some people are sensitive to certain sweeteners and some people are worried about the long-term consequences of consuming some of these newly developed chemicals. Most artificial sweeteners cause a spike in insulin just like sugar does.

Decades ago the usual serving of CocaCola was 6 oz. To us these bottles look miniature. Also, soda was an occasional treat rather that something served every day. Pepsi started selling 12 oz bottles for the same price as Coke in 6 oz bottles forcing Coke to move to 12 oz bottles. Since the ingredients for soda only cost pennies it was easy for chains with soda fountains to increase the serving size and tout the greater value for their larger drinks. At McDonalds 12 oz of soda which is twice as much as Coke used to sell in bottles is the “child” size. A small is 16 oz, medium 21 oz. and a large is 32 oz! Over 5 times as much as came in the original Coke bottles! If you want even more “value” you can get even bigger drinks at Seven-11 where the Super Big Gulp is 44 oz. They used to sell a Double Gulp with a half gallon of soda!