by Rowann

Created on: February 02, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

Everyone wants to keep an eye on what they eat these days, and almost as important; what they drink. As a long-time dieter, battling PCOS which makes losing weight very difficult, questions of what diet foods to eat and drink are even more important.

I know one thing; drinking water is healthy. Everything I have read supports this, from Medical Journals*, to the parameters of weight loss groups, to just the great feeling I get when I drink my 6-8 glasses a day. Reading articles on water supports the notion that some people who take medication for headaches benefit more from the water they are drinking than from the actual medication itself. It is scary thinking that we have no notion how thirsty our bodies are, and how desperately we need good old, plain H2O!

What else competes for this life-sustaining beverage? Well, practically everything. If you offer a guest, acquaintance, teen or relative their choice of anything in your refrigerator, including water, I guarantee it'll be the last thing they reach for. Even during the hottest summer days, encouraging people to drink ice water, jazzed up with a squirt of lemon, took Herculean efforts. Why is this? Water just isn't that popular.

What's popular to drink? Soda and diet soda. Caffeinated, uncaffeinated, hints of lime, hints of vanilla, hints of cherry... Why can't we take the hint? A regular 12 oz. can of pop contains about 10 tsp. of sugar (that's 3.3 Tbsp. of the white stuff, almost 1/4 of a Cup!)* And who drinks a 12 oz. can of pop anyway? If you're at the movies, you've got your sack of buttery popcorn in one hand, and a drink in the other; probably the "Uber-Gulp", an astonishing 32 oz. of sugary doom (actually, that sounds pretty modest, when you consider that as of June 2006, Wendy's is offering a 42 oz. soft drink as its "Large".*) Wow, 42 oz.... That's about 11.6 Tablespoons of sugar; almost 3/4 of a Cup. You know, if you knock back another one of those "Larges", you'll have consumed enough sugar to bake 4 dozen cookies, or even a Devil's Food Cake!

So what's the answer? Sugar isn't great for you (high calories, zero nutritional value.) We still want our 42 oz. of pop right? So, diet soda is the way to go! Not necessarily... Think about what you're putting in your mouth. It was once pure, clean water, but no more. Now it has flavouring, colour, phosporic acid, caffeine, and an artificial sweetener (either Saccharin or Aspartame, or sometimes combinations of both, since the latter has a shorter shelf-life!)

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