Eliminate Soda Pop for Good Health

I stopped drinking any kind of pop/soda about 10 years ago. That much caffeine usually makes me pass out literally ! (I have reactive hypoglycemia)

When my husband was training for his blackbelt, he gave up pop for a time and lost 15 lbs.! Now I'm trying to get him give up the stuff again, since about 30 more crept back on. (Ah, middle age! )

Honey, you're not supposed to be looking over my shoulder!

 

Hello. My name is Danette. (Hello, Danette.) I am a recovering Mountain Dew addict...

I really was a Mt. Dew addict. I drank 3-6 cans per day. But I went off them cold turkey in July 2000 because I was having heart problems, which were being significantly aggravated by the Mt. Dew. It took me about two weeks to detox -- I felt like I was fasting and had the flu. Very ugly.

After that I substituted Sprite. But even though I had gotten rid of the caffeine, I could still tell it was affecting me negatively with sugar highs and lows making me fuzzy headed and sleepy, stomach cramping, etc. So now I'm drinking water (and it's not too bad). I haven't given up altogether, but now it's just an occasional thing.

-- Danette

 

Hi Danette. Welcome to sodapop anonymous!

 

-- Danette

 

I WANT so badly to give up Pop that I'm near obsessed about it! I am "weight challenged" (LoL - politically correct eh?), so it would benefit me in that aspect. I gave it up TOTALLY for ONE week two weeks ago, and I lost 10 pounds! <jaw drop>

But, just like SMOKING I'll eventually kick the habit...but only when I turn it over to God! (Side Note: 7 1/2 months SMOKE FREE! - Victory in Jesus!)

Kathy
<><

~One by one, I'm handing over my worldly addictions to Christ, but not until I REALLY hand them over, am I able (or He that is in me) to finally win the battle! ~

 

Ick! Good topic Dr. Bob! We drink sodas/colas/pop mostly in the summer when we go to the race track on Thursday evenings from June - early August. Other than those 10 weeks, we don't buy sodas, though the children are allowed to order them when we go out to dinner. They also have them at their Mimi's house. They are pretty good about drinking water thruoghout the day. However, our drug of choice is sweet tea . . . remember, I am from the south! And my husband says he doesn't like caffeine free! LOL . . . I can't tell the difference.

Anyway, when I drink colas, I feel really gross! Especially if I happen to have more than one can/glass in a day's time.

I'm trying . . . er, I want to ween my family off of as much sugar as I possibly can. T'aint easy with a house full o'youngins though. And with the holidays upon us! I think if I kept and required the consumption of fresh, raw veggies and fruits I would feel better about their nutrition.

 

My husband makes his caffeinated tea by adding a whole cup of sugar to a gallon of hot tap water and throwing in a few teabags. Then it sits overnight in the frig. Gross! Probably not much better for you than pop.

 

I actually feel worse drinking sweet tea than sodas. For some reason tea gives me heart burn -- weird, I guess.

 

Joy,

This is off topic a little so feel free to answer me in private message or email. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I stopped drinking any kind of pop/soda about 10 years ago. That much caffeine usually makes me pass out literally ! (I have reactive hypoglycemia <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do you know where on the web I can find info on hypoglycemia? My wife was recently diagnosed with hypoglycemia, and it will be another week before her appoitment with the diabetic counsler.

Bill

 

I started a diet two weeks ago and the first thing to X off my daily habits was cola. I'm now two weeks cola free.

 

I know this cola thing is bad for me...and when I go a while without a Diet Coke, I start thinking I should take peoples little heads right off their little shoulders. This, I know, is not a good sign.
Sue

 

Diet sodas are positively scary. The nutrasweet causes depression and migraine headaches, that I know of personally. I've heard of other things too, but it gives me migraines, causes severe depression in my brother (it took him a couple months to figure it out) and causes both in my mother-in-law. Spooky that something like that can cause radical personality change.

-- Danette

 

Artificial sweeteners can the same symptoms as fibramyalgia (sp?).

 

About 5 years ago I decided to switch to diet sodas. I noticed I kept getting headaches for several days but thought nothing of it--just kept taking aspirin. One morning at work, I started drinking a diet coke after eating no breakfast. I got a severe headache. I made the connection between the nutrasweet and the headaches and have never had a diet soda since.

 

I gave up regular cola's, not of my own choice, but becuase I have no desire to be diabetic, and that was one of the first things to come off the list. (M&M'S were next ) I've switched to diet, but if they do the headache thing for me, I'll give them up too.

 

Dr. Bob Griffin's anti-soft-drink fearmongering tirade continues:

IS POP POISON?

No.

It only takes one good gulp to prevent the body from absorbing calcium for the next 24 hours!

False cause fallacy.

The best-known study of the relationship between drinking carbonated beverages and bone deficiencies is the 2000 study of Grace Wyshak, "Teenaged girls, carbonated beverage consumption, and bone fractures." It specifically avoids making a causal link between drinking soda and calcium deficiency, citing a number of study limitations, including:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>It does not distinguish between drinking beverages that are high in phosphorous (and may therefore lead to bone loss), and drinking beverages that displace the consumption of calcium-rich foods.
<LI>There is no objective measure of bone mineral density.
<LI>No survey of calcium intake in the subjects was taken.
<LI>The study data was self-reported (and therefore probably unreliable).
[/list]

In short, so far there is no reliable research supporting the notion that increased soft drink consumption weakens bones, except insofar as the more pop you drink, the less milk (which is a. self-evident, and b. an argument for a more balanced diet, but not an argument against consuming soft drinks per se).

Lest someone claim the culprit is the caffeine in cola, a similar study by Heaney and Rafferty published in th American Journal of Clinical Nutrition falls short of saying caffeine causes bone loss, saying (again) that the real cause could be a diet that displaces calcium-containing foods with soft drinks. (As an aside the same study, which does claim drinking carbonated beverages results in bone loss, also specifically disclaims a connection betwen calcium loss and phosphoric or citric acid intake.)

Twelve ounces of the most popular colas contain about 10 teaspoons of sugar. That's a rate of nearly one teaspoon of sugar per ounce! Non-cola carbonated drinks contain from 8 to 12 teaspoons of sugar, so they're no better.

And we can all use less sugar in our diet, but since sugar is not poison, this argument does not support the claim that soft drinks are poison. Non sequitur.

At canning time 50 PPM [parts per million] is all the aluminum that can be detected in canned pop. . . . After a few months in storage a testing laboratory is likely to find in excess of 6,000 PPM in canned products such as soda pop or thirst quencher, and people consuming that much of an aluminum fix are likely to suffer degenerative metabolic disease accordingly.

Aluminum cans are generally lined with plastic to prevent this sort of corrosion, but nonetheless it does happen. Again, this is not an argument in support of the claim that pop is poison. At best it argues that some containers are questionable, and that pop should be bought in bottles.

What makes colas worse is the amount of phosphoric acid in them, which can cause a whole lot of health problems now and in the future.

Then we should all stop drinking orange juice, then, because it has twice as much phosphoric acid in it as Coca-Cola (1.09% and 0.55%, respectively). Simply put, the level of phosphoric acid in cola is not dangerous.

Conclusion: Of course pop isn't good for you if you guzzle it to the excusion of other, more healthy foods. That goes without saying. But is there any need to add fuel to the fire with all sorts of half-baked factoids about "poisons" that are really beside the point?

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Danette:
Diet sodas are positively scary. The nutrasweet causes depression and migraine headaches, that I know of personally. I've heard of other things too, but it gives me migraines, causes severe depression in my brother (it took him a couple months to figure it out) and causes both in my mother-in-law. Spooky that something like that can cause radical personality change.

-- Danette<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Aaaahhhhh! Okay, this I've never heard of, and yes, it is scary. I switched to diet coke and equal sweetner in my coffee at the same time. This is was about 4 years ago. And yes, I do seem to have headaches on a somewhat regular basis, I just thought it was stress or a sinus headache. And DEPRESSION? I thought I was just getting old and cranky.
But the reason I switched to diet was because I drank so much of the stuff, I thought I could save a few calories this way. Maybe I should rethink this, huh?
Sue

[ November 06, 2001: Message edited by: SuekieLyn ]

 

ACK! No *wonder* I've been getting headaches!! My thoughtful husband has always suggested I stop drinking sodas,,, maybe I should listen! *slaps forehead*

Thanks for everyone posting the interesting information behind sodas!!