Ever wonder if what you’re drinking is good for you? I know sodas are packed high in calories
and they’re very bad for the teeth too. What about coffees? Caffeine can make you be a nervous wreck all day when consumed too much. Juice drinks – are they natural or artificial?
Based from a research by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, they listed down the 20 Unhealthiest Drinks in America (http://www.menshealth.com). You’ll be surprised to find out some of your fave drinks are in there.
124 calories
10 g carbohydrates
Not a bad beer, but don’t think you can sit around sipping these for four quarters without eventually paying the price in belly fat. With tasty beers like Beck’s 64-calorie Premier Light readily available, why throw away 60 calories every time you twist the top?
130 calories
33 g sugar
Vitamins and water might sound like the ultimate nutritional tag team, but what the label doesn’t say is that a bottle of this stuff carries nearly as much sugar and calories as a can of Coke. Makes sense, though, since this so-called functional beverage is produced by our often-sugar-crazy friends at The Coca-Cola Company.
190 calories
52 g sugar
Sweetened soft drinks account for about 10 percent of the average American’s calorie consumption-about 200 completely unnecessary calories a day. For someone looking to lose 10 pounds fast, there is no simpler, quicker way to do it than by canning the soda.
210 calories
20 g carbohydrates
A full-flavored beer, no doubt, but one that packs a hefty caloric wallop. Switching out a sixer a week for a lighter beer would save you 9 pounds of extra flab this year. Cheers to that!
250 calories
68 g sugar
This is little more than glorified sugar water, with only a trace amount of real juice. Lemonade in general is a dubious drink, but if you can’t stand the thought of summer without it, try Santa Cruz-brand lemonade. When you bring the bottle home, dump it into a pitcher and add 4 ounces of water for every 8 ounces of lemonade. Otherwise, you may as well drink a Coke with a squeeze of lemon.
275 calories
70 g sugar
Though the name might scream “healthy” to the unsuspecting drinker, there is little to celebrate about this beverage. SoBe can cram their drinks full of healthy-sounding extracts and vitamin supplements, but they can’t escape the fact that high-fructose corn syrup outranks tea on the ingredients list.
280 calories
62 g sugar
Energy drink makers might feign a level of health by fortifying their products with a cocktail of vitamins and minerals, but don’t be fooled: Any minimal benefit they might provide is snuffed out by the blanket of sugar and calories each can contains. Want energy? Try a cup of homebrewed black tea. It nearly zero calories and contains a deluge of disease-fighting antioxidants.
325 calories
81 g sugar
Iced tea is loaded with metabolism-boosting, cancer-fighting compounds called polyphenols, but Lipton does its best to undo any potential healthy benefit you might derive from the tea’s antioxidants by drowning them in 20 teaspoons of sugar. Your tea of choice should carry no more than 15 grams of sugar per 20-ounce serving.
360 calories
84 grams of sugar
These hulking calorie cannons (5 percent juice, 95 percent sugar water) are sold at gas stations and convenience stores across America for the low, low price of 99 cents, making this quite possibly the cheapest source of empty calories in the country.
400 calories
10 g fat (6 g saturated)
60 g sugar
Quik and other chocolate milk manufacturers try to sell parents on the bone-building calcium found in their product, but what they don’t talk about is the fact that a single bottle of this stuff contains as much sugar as three Haagen Dazs Vanilla and Almond ice cream bars. Yikes. Make it yourself at home with 2 percent milk and a scoop of real powdered cocoa-you’ll save about 150 calories, plus get the antioxidant benefits of cacao without the high-fructose corn syrup.
420 calories
47 g sugar
This is exactly the kind of drink that health-conscious consumers knock down each morning thinking they’re doing themselves a favor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Flavored lattes-even ones flavored with seemingly healthy stuff like chai-are bad news. Stick to skinny lattes or unsweetened chai.
436 calories
60 g sugar
While most parents sip their lattes and cappuccinos, most kids sip on hot chocolate. Problem is, few things could be worse for a growing body. There are more calories in this small drink than in Cosi’s Gooey Grilled Cheese sandwich, plus enough sugar to send your kids bouncing off the walls.
640 calories
23 g fat (15 g saturated)
76 g sugar
Caffeine abstainers will find little nutritional refuge in Starbucks’ hot chocolate concoctions. This one packs an entire day’s worth of saturated fat, with more than enough sugar to set you up for a dramatic mid-afternoon energy crash. Stick with the Steamed Apple Juice instead.
625 calories
75 g sugars
Made from a blend of sickly-sweet pineapple juice and fat-riddled coconut milk, pina coladas may be this summer’s biggest beach-body saboteurs. In fact, the only redeeming part of this drink is the garnish – that lonely chunk of pineapple hanging from the rim. Try a lime daiquiri or a mojito instead and save up to 400 calories.
660 calories
22 g fat (14 g saturated)
95 g sugar
Important Rule of Thumb: Avoid holiday-themed items from coffee shops at all costs. From peppermint to egg nog to pumpkin, these are often the most sugar- and fat-packed drinks you’ll find at places like Starbucks. Make your own flavored drinks instead, using skim milk, sugar-free syrups, and, of course, skipping the whip.
1,020 calories
232 g sugar
With three of the five worst drinks in America, you have to wonder if Baskin-Robbins is in bed with the sugar cane industry. One thing is for sure: People ordering this “smoothie” expecting a healthy afternoon snack have something else coming to them. The second ingredient, after water, is sugar. If you must sip on something at Baskin- Robbins, make it a small low-fat Cappuccino Blast, which has just 220 calories and one-fifth of the sugar of this Fruit Blast.
1,033 calories
35 g fat
177 g carbohydrates
Frozen coffee amalgamations pollute the antioxidant powers of a simple cup of joe with a huge hit of whole milk, sugary syrups, and whipped cream. What you end up with, in worst-case scenarios like this, is half a day’s worth of calories, ready to be sipped down in a matter of minutes. Want a cold caffeine kick? Try iced coffee.
1,170 calories
169 g sugars
Jamba Juice calls it a smoothie; we call it a milkshake, with more sugar than an entire bag of chocolate chips. (Note: We’re pretty sure this is the drink Hollywood actors rely on when looking to put on 20 pounds for the role as a heavy!)
2,210 calories
103 g fat (57 g saturated)
281 g sugar
The freakish brother of the Heath monster, the York shake earns its title as the most sugar-saturated product in America. To put it in perspective, you’d have to down 15 Twinkies to match the sugar content in this Baskin-Robbins blunder.
2,310 calories
108 g fat (64 g saturated)
266 g
Let’s look at America’s Worst Drink in numbers:
73: The number of ingredients that go into this milkshake.
66: The number of teaspoons of sugar this drink contains.
11: The number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in one Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake.
12: The average number of minutes it takes to consume this drink.
240: The number of minutes you’d need to spend on a treadmill, running at a moderate pace, to burn it off.
So there you go. The next time you think a smoothie is healthy because of the fruits in it, think again!
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Calvin
September 20th, 2008 at 2:11 am
gusto ko yung heath bar shake. daming calories!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 am
[...] – The 20 Unhealthiest Drinks in America saved by aetherane2008-09-12 – The ‘Bouncing Bulldogs’ Take Game To Beijing saved by [...]
Tomas
September 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I really like Rockstar, I guess this means I will really have to limit myself to 1 a week. How often if you are going to drink one is it considered minimal harm to ones body?
katkat82
September 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
well that really depends on your body’s recommended calorie intake. if you go beyond, then chances are high you’ll get obese or diabetic (if you’re not a very active person)
Wolf’s Blood « …but I think…
October 1st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
[...] find a could picture of a Minute Maid Lemonade 20 oz bottle’s label, but check this site for the nutritional facts, and also of a few other [...]
Alex
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Thanks for the information. Added you to bookmark))
Your new reader.
phaelun
November 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am
i guess water is the safest drink huh?
KINDELAN
March 21st, 2009 at 12:32 am
Solving the insanity through international law, or simply US law. Close down corporations, Wall Street, any product proved harmful, any company that poisons us, the soil, the water or the air, any company that used harmful ingredients, any company that lies, cheats, and misleads customers. Solution: Give them one year to create healthy altermatives, or bye, bye. It has to come to that, or we will not survive this century as a species.