Say no to these summer drinks
Nothing beats an ice-cold drink on a hot summer day. On a hot, summer day the first thing that likely comes to mind is a tall, cold beverage in your hand. Unfortunately, a majority of the most popular summer beverage come at a cost to your health. Chances are some of your favourite summer beverages are packed with an exorbitant amount of sugar. While the beverage may go down easily and help keep you cool in the hot summer sun, enjoying your favourite summer beverage may mean sipping on hundreds of grams of excessive sugar. Now, imagine drinking more than one of these beverages per day. There are plenty of summer beverages you should be avoiding to save your waistline and your overall health.
Sugary summer beverages you should be avoiding: food colourings, including the caramel colouring that is found in most sodas, is a known carcinogen. The artificial caramel colouring is created by reacting corn sugar with sulphites and ammonia under high pressures at high temperatures.
Sodium Benzoate: Sodium benzoate is a common preservative found in a majority of soft drinks. This preservative can lead to DNA damage, which can eventually lead to Parkinson’s disease or cirrhosis of the liver. fact, some wine coolers are not even made from wine, but a malt instead. Wine coolers are packed full of artificial food colourings, artificial flavourings and artificial sweeteners. Of course, these drinks contain alcohol - which have addictive properties and overtime can be very damaging to your health. For many bottled lemonade and fruit juices are a summer staple. However, these drinks are packed with full of sugar and fall under the category of summer beverages that you should be avoiding this summer. Lemonade and fruit juice contain plenty of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. In terms of the effects on your health, these drinks are very similar to sodas. Too much lemonade and fruit juice can increase your risk of weight gain as well as chronic degenerative diseases.
If you are craving lemonade, try making fresh lemonade. This will be lowest in fructose. If you need to add a sweetener, stick with stevia and avoid sugar as well as artificial sweeteners.