If you are watching your weight or are a health buff, it can be handy to know about some of the most dangerous drinks for your body weight and health-wise.
We often conveniently forget the fact that we are what we drink too, and not just what we eat. Actually, water is a drink that’s essential to life everywhere, not just on planet Earth.
This fact should awake you to possible dangers and benefits of certain drinks that are available now and that you’re probably consuming on a daily basis.
The problem is most of these drinks are consumed regularly and their bad effects are not well known.
1. Vitamin Water
They may taste great, but it’s tainting the most beneficial drink you can ever offer your body – water. Again we urge you to think and get informed before making decisions that will later become shopping habits and those habits will shape your health. Wonder if it’s natural and logical that Vitamins now come in a shiny bottle with such a perfect formula and expiration date that you actually have no other choice but to buy it.
How come Vitamin Water tastes so good when there is no juice in it? Why is it the color it is and how come different brands and different vitamins get different colors, when in fact vitamins are colorless? Vitamin water does contain vitamins as stated but it also contains a hefty amount of sugar and artificial flavoring.
It would be a smarter option to go for plain water or fresh fruit juices. They are sometimes called a gateway drink towards the more dangerous stuff like energy drinks and Coca-Cola. Nothing beats plain old tap water. If you really cannot do without juice, then make your own. It doesn’t take much time, and it’s much healthier. It might be a little more expensive to buy fresh fruits and squeeze them, but would do rather be healthy or save money?
Make your own fresh juice and drink that instead of going for the store-bought varieties that have an excess amount of sugar, no matter what you buy. And when you are juicing by yourself, you can come up with fruit and veggie mixes that don’t even exist on the market!
2. Lemonade
Processed lemonade, as refreshing and healthy seeming as it is; is no better than soda or other processed drinks. This is the trick that has been used for so many centuries in human history, you take something that has some merit to it and then twist and pervert it to make a profit. Anything that can be marketed as a product sold on the shelves of the supermarkets has potential to be hazardous to your health.
The reason for this is the twisted capitalist logic that big corporations are applying to their business models without any regard to health of their consumers. The only thing that matters are the profit margins, so be very careful when it comes to processed lemonade and other processed drinks as well. It’s packed with artificial flavoring, a crazy amount of sugar and preservatives.
This toxic bomb is actually more dangerous than the other unhealthy drinks on this list, because it’s being marketed as healthy and thus attracting more attention. So better go homemade and natural on this one, that’s the only way you will be certain that the lemonade you’re drinking is actually healthy and good for you.
On the other side of the coin, fresh lemonade is very healthy. However, even if you are squeezing fresh lemons to make your own lemonade, you should definitely go easy on the sugar. If you really can’t do without the sweetness, then a good idea is to try and add some honey to the mix instead of sugar. In fact, drinking lemonade with honey is a great way to lose weight as well. Many people recommend this drink for starting off your day if you are looking to cut pounds.
3. Energy Drinks
They may give you the promised energy boost but only for a short time and at a huge cost to your health. Let us be clear on that huge cost part, you can die after consuming enough energy drinks. Yes, they are that strong and the laboratories are constantly racing each other in an effort to make the most energetic drink there is.
The race is actually about something else, about a drink that can kill you in the shortest period of time, because each time they “tweak” the formula, they add a little bit higher concentrations of caffeine, taurin, ginseng and who knows what other chemical. All those chemicals are supposed to shock your body into staying awake, although its natural instinct is to sleep or at least rest and that’s not all…
Energy drinks are loaded with caffeine and sugar that is beyond the healthy limit.There are low-Cal or low-sugar alternatives in the market too but they are not necessarily any healthier. The next time you go for an energy drinks, try not to, but instead, check how many hours of sleep you had, so you don’t need to intake drugs to stimulate you. Sleep more, take less drugs.
Another trend that is dangerous and that you should avoid is mixing energy drinks with alcohol. Many people like to do this because the energy drink counters the effects of alcohol. Alcohol often makes you tired and sleepy when consumed in large amounts, but if you are drinking the alcohol with an energy drink, you can last all night. This combination is not only high in calories, but it can be problematic for the heart as well. Avoid energy drinks in general – that’s the best advice you can get.
4. Diet soda
Diet soda, another product of the twisted corporate mind, determined to sell its product no matter what. Just consider the fallacy in the very name of the drink, suggesting that somehow you will lose weight, refresh yourself and drink something healthy. Out of those three promises, they didn’t manage to deliver not even a single one! You will actually gain weight, drink something that tastes rather awful and poison your body with all the additives and artificial sweeteners.
Diet sodas claim to be calorie-free and yes they may very well be calorie free, but they also carry zero nutritional value! Not to mention the fact that after drinking it, you will be thirsty again in a matter of minutes. Hopefully, you bought two diet sodas, so now you can drink another one and make a little more profit for the corporation that made it in a way that stimulates thirst. One can a day can be considered fine but there are better options to quench thirst than a can of nutritionally empty fizzy drink.
Diet sodas are filled with artificial flavors and sweeteners making them not so damaging but just pointless. Take the term “not so damaging” lightly, because it’s closely connected with the amount of diet drinks you are drinking per day. If you are drinking more than two cans a day, you’ve got a problem and that one single problem can cause ten new problems that will then in turn make ten new and so on. First problem is the kidney failure risk that increases twofold with increased consumption of diet drinks and the second one is even more serious: Obesity.
By consuming drinks that are altering your body’s natural functions, you are creating a chaos that will most definitely result in obesity and all the joys it brings. If you’re thirsty, just take some fresh fruit and make yourself a health bomb instead of chugging down the empty calories and a ton of strange compounds found in diet drinks. Unfortunately, many people are fooled by all of the marketing that is being done by soda companies to make diet sodas seem like they are better than real sodas.
If you really want to live a healthy life, not just cut down on the pounds, you should be excluding these types of beverages from your diet entirely, both the diet and regular varieties. Soda also makes you thirstier than you were before consuming it. If you want to stop thirst, drink a tall glass of water instead.
5. Alcohol
Alcohol in moderation can actually be healthy. According to research, a glass of wine or a pint of beer a day can increase your sugar metabolism and can also be healthy for your heart. However, go way past that limit and you are risking extra calories that can lead to obesity, an overworked liver, cancer and heart ailments.
A person consuming a dangerous amount of alcohol persistently can develop memory blackouts and idiosyncratic intoxication or pathological drunkenness symptoms. Alcohol leads to bad decisions and consuming too much alcohol is generally a bad life decision, not just for health reasons. Alcohol related deaths are always on the rise, especially related to diseases of the liver and the heart.
If you are going to choose to live a healthy life in general, avoiding alcohol consumption completely would be a good idea. Certainly, most professional athletes and other people who depend on their bodies and health for a living stay clear of any type of alcoholic beverage.
6. Flavored Milk
Because milk is one of the healthiest drinks there is, corporations capitalized on that to make more money and sell your kids their version of milk that contains a lot of additives. With a high calorie count and loads of sugar, flavored milk should be avoided. We know that chocolate or whatever else they may be putting inside, tastes great, but that should be a warning sign and not a positive trait.
Think of it as a tradeoff, you cannot have a drink that tastes great and is healthy. Actually, there’s one essential and crucial exception to that rule: Water. Yes, the source of all life on earth tastes great and is extremely healthy. This sentence is true, but we also know that the water is tasteless and odorless without color and additional chemicals to make it “taste better” or “pack a punch.”
Think of our ancestors and the things that they drank. Yes, exactly that. Through the history, people always tried to make things that taste good and are actually beneficial for its consumers, but rarely this was the case. It was usually some scheme to make more money or a misguided effort to help that’s as bad as it’s the guided one because the result is the same.
If you are going to drink milk, then drink the regular variety. Parents who want to get their kids to drink milk should get them started at an early age and refrain from trying to get them to like it by buying flavored milk. If you are doing that, then your kids are actually drinking something that is not milk at all. If you grew up drinking milk, then you should have no problem with its taste by the time you get to school.
7. Beer
Yes, we know we mentioned alcohol already, but it’s good to know just why beer is so bad. Mostly because it is the most consumed alcoholic drink in the world. Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the sacharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar.
Sugar levels are actually a cause for concern because beer can lower blood sugar levels leading to all kinds of consequences. The first and most logical one is the increased appetite that will in turn result in a larger consumption of beer and eventually food.
With lowered inhibitions and reasoning we are more likely to unhealthy and greasy food that our body demands then something healthier. Try to remember last time you had a healthy meal after or during drinking beer…
Packing a whopping 200 calories per bottle this liquid fattening agent is something that should be consumed in moderation. Perhaps a better choice would be to drink a little wine. However, if you are unable to steer clear of beer, try and drink it in moderation.
8. Flavored Water
What does water taste like? Like water, I guess, tasteless. Have you ever wondered why water is tasteless; perhaps this is the way things should be? In our constant struggle to understand the way the world around us works and what should we eat and drink. We often make mistakes and translate concepts from mostly business laws into something that should work with every area of human existence.
We are always looking for that extra punch – for that something little on the side, something that makes this life a little more bearable. If you know something about human nature, that instantly gives you an edge over other companies in your industry because then you can use and exploit your knowledge in order to make money. As soon as bottled water appeared on the counters of the supermarkets people started thinking about all the “features” they can add.
Artificial flavoring, acids and many more features were added indeed, making the product tastier but definitely not healthier. We’ll stick to plain old tap water, thank you. Don’t let the beautiful colours and delicious flavours fool you, flavoured water contains a lot of calories and sugar. Because of this, you might gain weight without knowing why. Namely, you’ll enjoy your drink, but it won’t make you feel full.
The problem with flavoured water that has no calories is that it’s packed with artificial sweeteners and other unhealthy ingredients. Plain water is the best way to go, but if you still want to add some extra flavour to it, add a little lemon – in fact, you can add any fresh fruit!
9. Hot Chocolate
We are continually hearing things about chocolate and how it’s really healthy for you. It releases hormones of happiness, cures all known illnesses and basically everything else that marketing experts can come up with. As always, there is some truth in these claims, but by the time the actual product reaches you, that truth becomes a huge lie.
There’s a difference between hot chocolate served in your local coffee shop and the one you make at home. That difference is what makes that chocolate you have to buy so tasty and this is how they get you. Filled with whipped cream and a lot of sugar it contains a really high amount of calories.
Incidentally that same whipped cream and sugar are the things that make it so tasty, take away those two ingredients and you are left with a liquid chocolate and if it’s dark chocolate then you’ve got yourself a healthy drink, but no profit for the corporations. If you like it so much, at least use smaller portions. By consuming smaller portions, you’ll surely remain healthier.
If you drink too much hot chocolate, you could gain weight. Besides, it could cause tooth decay and gum disease. Also, too much chocolate can raise your blood sugar levels which could eventually lead to diabetes. If you can’t live without hot chocolate, try making it at home – it will be healthier, and besides, you’ll save some money.
10. Sports Drinks
Another advertising concoction, brewed deep within the mines of marketing gurus, these drinks are doing more harm than good. They actually do contain the things that are on the label, but the question remains: why? Do you really need that extra edge to push you during training? Is that the way that nature intended human beings to live? Ask yourself these questions next time you are about to drink something “magical.”
There are a lot facts that you should take into consideration here, first one being the way our body regulates sugar levels after intense exercises. By disrupting the natural process and “energizing” our body we are most definitely increasing our energy levels but at what costs!? Your pancreas and other glands have to work extra hard, straining the entire body in an effort to balance out these sudden surges of energy.
This is why you will eventually become addicted and dependent on this drink and feel exhausted the rest of the day. Don’t confuse sports drinks with caffeine packed energy drinks such as Red Bull. If you’re keen on sports, but don’t intensively work out, you should most definitely avoid sports drinks because they will eventually lead to weight gain.
Also, drinks of this kind have no protein and don’t quench thirst! You’ll probably drink more in order to feel hydrated. They don’t prevent your body from dehydration and have high amounts of sodium – sodium raises blood pressure which can lead to heart disease. Additionally, sports drinks can cause tooth decay.
11. Juice
While you’re wondering just what might be wrong with plain ordinary juice, let me remind you that there are a lot of juices out there. In case this is the first time you have heard that processed juice might be bad for you, we urge you to read more about the research of Naveed Sattar and Dr. Jason Gill, both of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Both of them are fighting the uphill battle to protect our youngest members of society from things that might harm them and among those things is our main culprit, processed juice. These are some serious accusations that include both increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
Processed juice contains a lot of sugar and artificial sweeteners, but, what about homemade juices? They all are fruit, but they also have another negative trait. They are sometimes called a gateway drink towards the more dangerous stuff like energy drinks and Coca-Cola. Nothing beats plain old tap water. However, it is advisable to add some lemon or basically any fresh fruit in plain water to enhance the taste!
12. Frozen Mixed Drinks
Now who can resist a good frozen cocktail when on a hot sunny beach? But did you know that these drinks contain not only calories but great doses of sugar too? It’s bad enough to hear that something contains calories, but both calories and sugar spell disaster, especially when it comes to the health of a working man.
Notice that we intentionally left out alcohol that’s so dangerous that it was the first drink on this list. Overworked and overstressed, the common working man seeks refuge in anything nature can throw at it and when nature fails, corporations and inventive people step in. Say for example Piňa Colada, a big favorite, the rum in a glass of Pinna Colada is around 100 calories, plus all the other additives such as sugar sweeteners and mixers.
You end up chugging 800-900 calories in one glass alone. You do the math: two glasses of Piña colada cover your daily intake of calories. Now imagine everything you have eaten today and equate it with only two glasses filled to the top. Scary.
Besides being extremely caloric, these drinks are rarely made with real fruits – they are packed with artificial sweeteners that are not good for your health.
13. Tea
While drinking small to moderate amounts of tea can be very beneficial for you, if you drink a lot of it, especially black tea, there are serious side effects. More than four cups of tea a day can lead to bowel problems, high blood pressure, insomnia and kidney stones.
Any of these problems alone is cause for alarm but all of them together make a red light for tea. Moderation is the key word here. As with anything in life, one or two cups of tea can be beneficial, but there is that magic elixir that we can drink and solve all our health problems. Another thing that’s quite dangerous is the self-medication. People often read on the Internet that a particular kind of tea could lower blood pressure so to combat that problem they start drinking it.
Without prior consultation with a physician or medical expert, they are at risk of unbalancing that very fragile immune system that they are trying to fix on their own. Before making any decisions related to your eating and drinking habits, you should consult your physician. No excuses! Just like with many of the other beverages that are listed here, most of them are good in moderation.
Drinking a glass of wine a day is good for you, and drinking a beer every now and then won’t do you any harm. The same goes with tea. It’s a great idea to switch out your coffee for tea because it is healthier, but if you are drinking ten cups a day, you are not doing yourself or your body any favors. Just like with anything else, it’s all about moderation.
14. Hangover drinks
No, these are not drinks that give you hangovers, these are the drinks that are supposed to help you with them. Advertised as miracle drinks that will immediately help you after a night of hard drinking, they are dangerous concoctions that you should not drink, period. Filled with loads of sugar, caffeine and taurin they represent everything that’s wrong drinks manufacturing today.
Drank at worst possible time, a time when your body needs rest and water to try and make sense of the choices you made last night, hangover drinks are more likely to make you even sicker then you were before taking them. Presenting you with a quick fix that’s supposed to fix you instantly and make all your troubles go away. Just try to apply this logic to anything else in the world and ask yourself, shouldn’t I let my body combat this condition, whatever it is, alone?
If your body needs to rest for several hours, you should rest for several hours. If you’re supposed to drink large amounts of pure water, then you should drink large amounts of pure water and not one can of fizzy drink that’s colored red signifying that it will cure all your ailments.
Besides, probably the best way to cure a hangover is to drink plain water. For the best results, after every glass of alcohol, drink a glass of water and you’ll likely prevent a massive hangover.
15. Coffee
Believe it or not, 83 percent of adults in the United States can’t imagine life without their favorite cup of coffee. Because coffee is made from caffeine, it has a powerful stimulating effect on humans. Besides, coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world and most people can’t properly start the day without drinking at least one cup. While low to moderate amounts are safe, caffeine is addictive and users can become very dependent on it and find it extremely difficult to quit.
Steven Meredith, a researcher in behavioral pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine confirmed this and stressed that coffee is a drug. Although people enjoy their coffee, there are some potential negative effects of drinking it. A Mayo Clinic study discovered that drinking more than 4 cups of coffee a day is linked to early death.
Additionally, caffeine consumption may raise blood pressure in those already suffering from high blood pressure. Since people drink coffee to stay awake and alert, it is important to know that caffeine may cause insomnia. Even if you can’t cut down on coffee, make sure not to drink it before going to sleep. Although coffee can help you when you have a headache, be careful because the overuse of caffeine can cause headaches and lead to migraines.
Moreover, some people have a lower tolerance for caffeine than others and while overdose is rare, it is not impossible for a person to get caffeine poisoning. Overdose can lead to various health problems and conditions. Of course, moderation is the key, but it would be best if you could replace coffee with a healthier drink.
16. Cocktails
Cocktails come in all colors, shapes and sizes. Apart from the classic ones, there are numerous alcoholic mixed drinks. All you have to do is use your imagination and make yourself a pretty-looking and tasty cocktail. Although we might agree that cocktails are better than hard liquor, it still doesn’t mean they are good for your health.
Even if you just can’t live without cocktails, make sure to choose quality spirits, fresh fruit juices and lower kilojoules mixers. Avoid artificially flavored liquors, spirits made from corn syrup and synthetic products at all cost. Cocktails that contain these ingredients are full of unnecessary fats and if you opt for them you’ll just gain weight. Oh, and don’t forget the hangover.
Just because cocktails are mixed with fruits and other non-alcoholic beverages doesn’t mean you won’t get wasted. As a matter of fact, it is probably easier to get drunk while drinking cocktails because you won’t feel the nasty taste of alcohol down your throat and you might end up drinking more than you planned.
Excessive alcohol drinking isn’t good for you, no matter what drink you choose. Remember that nearly 80,000 people die from alcohol-related diseases every year just in the United States. Studies have also shown that the popularity of cocktails and pre-mixed drinks is rising among regular drinkers.
Although it is tempting to order a cocktail in the summer, if you want to stay healthy you should choose a non-alcoholic beverage. Most cocktails are calorie bombs and just because they look healthy doesn’t mean they are. As we’ve mentioned before, a 16-ounce piña colada can contain up to 880 calories. Think about that the next time you have the urge to drink a cocktail.