Good Riddance! Soda Dethroned by Bottled Water

03-17-2017

Bottled water has now officially surpassed soda as the most-purchased beverage. This is good news!

Americans are finally getting it. Drinking soda is one of the worst things you can do to your body. That includes diet soda. That message, which has been touted by health experts for years, has at last been recieved by the public and has translated into positive change.

The truth is, the sales of bottled water versus soda is almost a tie, with bottled water just squeaking past soda for the first time ever in 2016. So as a nation, we still have a long way to go. There are still far too many people drinking soda. But look at how far we've progressed.

Last year Americans purchased 12.8 billion gallons of bottled water. That averages out to 39.3 gallons of bottled water per person. Compare that to the sales of carbonated soft drinks, which fell to an average of 38.5 gallons per person, according to Beverage Marketing Corporation. That's a far cry from back in the late 1990s when the average soda consumption was more than 50 gallons per year.

The consumption of bottled water has been steadily increasing over the last couple of decades. Last year's figure was up a whopping 9% over 2015, while at the same time people have been drinking less soda each year.

The biggest problem with soda is it has no nutritional value whatsoever, but is very high in sugar..."empty calories," as they say. 

Sugar is now public enemy number one, and rightly so. For one thing, it's really bad for your teeth. It's also a problem because in recent years scientists have discovered that consuming too much sugar is associated with deadly inflammation, which is responsible for almost every health problem from heart disease to cancer, even Alzheimer's Disease and of course, Type 2 Diabetes. 

Even the sugar-free sodas are bad. According to Dr. David Perlmutter, author of "Brain Maker," which discusses the importance of our gut biome, artificial sweeteners severely disrupt the levels and types of good bacteria we need for overall optimal health. 

Sodas often contain artificial colors, which have been linked to cancer. Drinking soda is also linked to osteoporosis, a bone disease that occurs when the body loses too much bone, making them fragile and weak and as a result can easily break or fracture. One reason could be that the phosphoric acid in cola leaches calcium out of the bone.

One last note: this article points out the fact that bottled water sales surpassed soda sales. What's missing is how many people are drinking more tap water (like me, out of a reusable glass bottle), a figure that may not be traceable. On the other hand, some people have switched from drinking tap water to bottled water because they have health concerns about the flouride and other things in our tap water, there are those of us who have health concerns about drinking from plastic bottles...not to mention the environmental concerns. 

 

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