Girls tend to choose diet soft drinks over regular ones in a bid to prevent weight gain and because it’s suppose to be the healthier option. But new research shows that diet soft drink can make you fat and rot your teeth.
Artificially sweetened soft drinks can stimulate appetite and trigger cravings for sweet foods. Ironically, this can lead to the very weight gain that you were trying to prevent by choosing diet drinks in the first place. What's more, this weight gain is found to be more than if you had had a regular soft drink in the first place. Also, despite having no sugar, diet drinks contain phosphoric acid and/or citric acid which erode your tooth enamel and ruin your pearly whites.
Let’s compare the contents of Coke and Diet Coke:
Let’s compare the contents of Coke and Diet Coke:
- Coca Cola: Contains the food acid, phosphoric acid, and caffeine. Per 100ml Coca Cola provides 180kJ, 10.6g of sugar and 10mg of sodium. Remember that a can is 375ml which means for every can you consume 675kJ, 40g of sugar (8 teaspoons of sugar) and 38mg of sodium).
- Diet Coke: Contains the phosphoric acid and citric acid (food acids), artificial sweeteners (aspartame, acesulphame potassium), the preservative sodium benzoate and caffeine. For every 100ml of Diet Coke you consume 1.5kJ, no sugar and 15g of sodium. (Per can this equals 5.6kJ, no sugar and 56mg of sodium).
Instead of heading for the soft drink when you need a bit of a pick me up, the best choice is avoid these drinks altogether and either opt for water or even a coffee if you need a caffeine fix.
2 comments:
Hi Catey, what about Coke Zero? I have a colleague at work that has a can every day. Does Coke Zero have the same effect as Diet Coke? Also if we should opt for a coffee instead how many should we allow ourselves per day? Rgds Nat (future sister in law :)
Hey Nat,
Yep you’re right. Coke Zero has the same effect as Diet Coke. Coke Zero was developed to target males, as health conscious guys don’t want to drink a girlie “diet” drink.
Coke Zero contains phosphoric acid & sodium citrates (food acids), aspartame & acesulphame potassium (sweeteners), sodium benzoate (preservative) and caffeine. Each 100ml of Coke Zero provides you with 1.4kJ, no sugar and 11mg of sodium. So other than a name change, there isn’t much difference from Diet Coke.
For coffee, it best to limit intake to 2 or 3 coffees per day. In fact, your total caffeine intake per day should be limited to 2 or 3 caffeine containing drinks (i.e. coffee, tea).
Chat soon. x
Post a Comment