Done with Coca Cola!

[jennielynn1970]

Hm... never heard of Stevia before. I don't use sugar substitutes, so maybe that's why I'm not familiar with it.

FRESCA... omg.... I was so addicted to that stuff when I was first living on my own. I loved it so much! I would drink 6-12 cans a day, and then wonder why I had these horrible migraines. I just can't do the diet drinks.

A friend of my mom's had had diet soda in the car when they went on a trip across country, and I remember she ended up in the hospital because the soda got warm(or hot), and some how changed the chemistry of the soda. She was deathly ill, and they had pictures of her when she basically was looking out over a gorgeous view of mountains and valleys and all that, and then collapsed and fell.

That just scared the bejesus out of me, and I never leave anything in my car anymore that I want to injest. Even if there is some folklore, I still remember what happened to my mom's friend, and just shudder.

[RICHARD]

Jazz,
Or anyone else with a few hours to spare.


Drink a Red Bull.

If you think that a Mountain Dew put you into space! When I hear that people mix that with vodka I get nervous. Wired drunks? Uh-huh, that's what we need.

I did try a Monster Energy Drink two months ago. A neighbor gave us a case.

That was remarkably mellow and I didn't feel like I was going into cardiac arrest!

[jennielynn1970]

Jazz,
Or anyone else with a few hours to spare.


Drink a Red Bull.

If you think that a Mountain Dew put you into space! When I hear that people mix that with vodka I get nervous. Wired drunks? Uh-huh, that's what we need.

I had a Red Bull ONCE. Only once. I think that it interacted with my antidepressant or something. I got all emotional, was just paranoid and freaked out. It was not pleasant, and it took a while for it to wear off.

I've heard of people doing some kind of shots with Red bull and vodka as well.

[RICHARD]

I had a Red Bull ONCE. Only once.

I had to sit at my desk and my fingers couldn't type fast enough. That sucked.
Now, if I had a job as a marathon runner.....

[Catty1]

Stevia is actually a 'sugar'.

Regular white sugar is made from sugar cane, or 'cane sugar'.

Stevia is derived from the Stevia plant. It is NOT calorie-free, but it takes a LOT less Stevia to sweeten the same as white sugar, so there are far fewer calories involved.

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/soft.html
Early warning in 1942:

Warnings about the dangers of soft drink consumption came to us as early as 1942 when the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Council on Food and Nutrition made the following noble statement: "From the health point of view it is desirable especially to have restriction of such use of sugar as is represented by consumption of sweetened carbonated beverages and forms of candy which are of low nutritional value. The Council believes it would be in the interest of the public health for all practical means to be taken to limit consumption of sugar in any form in which it fails to be combined with significant proportions of other foods of high nutritive quality."

Re: the fizzy stuff [read labels!]:

http://www.mindconnection.com/librar...softdrinks.htm

Reading the rest of this article may be the best use you've ever made of 5 minutes. Yeah, we know Pepsi will never sponsor an ad on this site. But your health is more important to us.

It's tragic that the "beverage" industry shoves this toxic brew at human beings. Let's take a closer look at what it does.

The carbonation in all soft drinks causes calcium loss in the bones through a three-stage process:

1. The carbonation irritates the stomach.
2. The stomach "cures" the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.
3. The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.

But, the story doesn't end there. Another problem with most soft drinks is they also contain phosphoric acid (not the same as the carbonation, which is carbon dioxide mixed with the water). This substance also causes a drawdown on the store of calcium.

So, soft drinks soften your bones (actually, they make them weak and brittle) in three ways:

1. Carbonation reduces the calcium in the bones.
2. Phosphoric acid reduces the calcium in the bones.
3. The beverage replaces a calcium-containing alternative, such as milk or water. Milk and water are not excellent calcium sources, but they are sources.

From the same page:

And now you know why bone damage formerly apparent only in the very old is now showing up in teenagers.

HELLO REGGIE!

One more from:

Soft Drinks:
America's Other Drinking Problem

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/soft.html

[long article but well worth the read!]

While our children are exposed to unremitting publicity for soft drinks, evidence of their dangers accumulates. The consumption of soft drinks, like land-mine terrain, is riddled with hazards. We as practitioners and advocates of a healthy life-style recognize that consuming even as little as one or two sodas per day is undeniably connected to a myriad of pathologies. The most commonly associated health risks are obesity, diabetes and other blood sugar disorders, tooth decay, osteoporosis and bone fractures, nutritional deficiencies, heart disease, food addictions and eating disorders, neurotransmitter dysfunction from chemical sweeteners, and neurological and adrenal disorders from excessive caffeine.

[jennielynn1970]

Candace, so even though I'm drinking seltzer water, thinking it is better for me than soda, it's actually just as bad in regards to calcium loss because it's fizzes? Darn!! I need the fizz. I gotta have fizz!! Flat stuff just doesn't cut it for me. Although I guess I'd rather have my bones and not have esophageal cancer than have fizzzzzz.

I swear everything is bad for you these days.

[Lady's Human]

Water isn't a source of calcium at all, and milk is an excellent source of calcium.

Throws a little doubt on the rest of the science involved in the article.

BTW, the ph of the soda (normally around 2.5-4.0) is actually higher than the ph of your stomach acid (1.0-2.0).