Can the diet sodas!

It’s official - “zero-calorie”, “no-calorie”, “low-calorie”, “no-sugar”, “low-sugar”, in fact all those heavily-promoted products that make you believe you can have your sweet cake without worry about weight gain, create exactly the same metabolic effects as their sugar-laden counterparts! In fact, those individuals consuming “diet-sodas” experienced identical metabolic changes to those folk consuming the regular sugar-heavy variety of soda, exhibiting excessive weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke! How can that possibly be you ask?

Apparently it’s simple - consuming foods which are artificially sweetened perpetuates your craving for sweet things generally and your overall sugar intake is not reduced! What’s worse, the artificial sweetener sucralose (Splenda) is now tagged as requiring “caution” with its use, while the longest running study on another artificial sweetener, aspartame, links its use to development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia.

And sodas don’t even quench your thirst! While we're on the topic, fruit juices are now in the spot light,with Harvard researchers suggesting they are equally as problematic as sodas in their contribution to diabetes. No doubt about it, purified water is the best thirst-quenching drink, best cell-hydrater, best detoxification-support-act and the best water purifier is Wellness Filter! And while you're at it, those same Harvard researchers say that eating the whole fruit can reduce your diabetes risk!

Milk - is it really perfect food for all ages and life stages?

As if it weren’t enough that infants around the globe are now being fed on something infinitely less suitable than their mother’s breastmilk, the dairy attack on health and wellbeing continues.

Milky drinks are everywhere, and have enjoyed exponential growth in recent years, most notably in the developing world. There, a newly affluent middle class perceives them as Westernised, progressive, nutritious and of course, easy to prepare and always readily-available. In the West, they’re a big feature of subsidised lunches (USA), of weight management or meal replacement offerings and bone-building and regenerative options for the elderly. Then there’s the massive sports nutrition market. Trust marketers to find some more niche markets very soon - milk drinks for specific health outcomes are just around the corner!

Which brings me to the question of additives. In the US, there’s a strong likelihood that sugar as a sweetening agent will be replaced with the chemical sweetener “aspartame” with no listing on labels. Dr. Mercola suggests that aspartame is one of the most toxic chemical additives in the US food supply today - the differing metabolic pathway for aspartame in humans means that animal studies fail to demonstrate its toxicity. 

Which brings me to a simple conclusion - mother’s milk until your toddler weans himself, then purified water. Nothing more in the way of drinks is really ever required!