Monday Mix-up - Why you shouldn't drink bottled, carbonated, drinks

A while back I posted a blog about Coca-Cola and why it's so bad for you. Because it was only focused on Coca Cola, I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on other drinks today. There are so many options when you walk into a shop and most of us simply go according to whatever flavour we are in the mood for at the time. What if you could make a more informed decision based on how a particular drink is going to benefit you, or not?

Unfortunately I can say, without a doubt, that pretty much ALL of the soft drinks you see on a shelf are going to be bad for you! How do I know this? Well, you only have to look as far as the ingredients to get an idea of just what kind of damage you are going to be inflicting on your body.

The basic ingredients in your average soft drink will be:

• High fructose corn syrup - I posted about this some time ago and you can follow the link to get all the info on it but, in a nutshell, it severely damages your liver, it lowers your IQ, it makes you gain body fat rapidly, it contains mercury which is highly toxic, it can cause diabetes and it fuels the growth of tumours.
• Artificial colours - Follow the link to get a more comprehensive breakdown of all the colours. They ALL contribute to the growth of tumours and most of them cause food allergies. That multi-coloured, pretty looking cake you had made for your child is, unfortunately, toxic beyond all measure. So are all the soft drinks and sweets they are eating.
• Phosphoric Acid - A highly corrosive acid that can form toxic fumes when it comes into contact with alcohols, ketones and other organic compounds. It’s used in fertilizers, livestock feed, soaps, polishes, dyes, polishing metals and in many other nonfood products. Manufacturers add it to soft drinks to give them that sharp, tangy taste and to help preserve their shelf life by slowing the growth of molds and bacteria in their drinks.
• Carbonated Water - A lot of people drink sparkling water thinking that it's a healthier choice and yes, in terms of sugar and other ingredients, yes it is. However, it has two rather awful side effects. The first is that it is very damaging to your teeth. Research conducted by Dr. David Bartlett, head of prosthodentics at the King's College in London, documented that tooth brushing with a mildly abrasive toothpaste would take 100 years to erode the top 1 mm of tooth enamel. However, a person who combines these normal tooth brushing habits with a daily habit of drinking carbonated beverages will produce the same degree of tooth erosion in just two years. The second side effect of carbonated water is that it leads to a deficiency is calcium and subsequent weakening of the bones.
• Artificial flavours - While these may make your juice taste delicious, they are terribly destructive from the moment they enter your body. They are cancer-causing, some lead to genetic defects and respiratory and cardiac failure.
• Caffeine - This has been linked to certain cancers, breast lumps, irregular heart beat and high blood pressure. You shouldn't drink more than 2 caffeine beverages a day but, first choice is, obviously, to avoid them completely.
• Preservatives - These are bad for all the same reasons that artificial colours and flavours are bad. 
• Aspartame and other sugar replacements - This is probably the worst thing you can put in your body. It causes everything from brain tumors to multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia and diabetes.

Aside from the toxic ingredients IN the actual soft drink, there is also the issue of the container that it is packaged in. Plastic soft drink, water bottles and cans contain a toxic chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) and this stuff leaches from the bottles into the soft drinks and, eventually, into you. There is plenty of research to link BPA to all sorts of maladies. It messes with your hormone levels, causes brain and behaviour problems, cancer and heart problems.

Those bottles and cans, while horribly bad for you, are just as bad for the environment. Most people don't recycle. They simply throw their cans and bottles in a bin (if we're lucky) or worse, on the ground. If they aren't being recycled, they are going to end up in a landfill eventually where they will leach toxins into the ground. Rubbish doesn't stop at a landfill. Everything works in a cycle on our planet. That means that, eventually, those toxins will end up in our rivers and oceans and come back to haunt us time and time again.

For the love of your body and your planet, next time you are thirsty, make sure you are carrying a glass water bottle filled with water, that you bought from home instead of stopping at a shop to buy something that is going to poison you AND the environment.