Soda

Back in 2006, my family made an effort to help my then almost 11-year-old son who was a soda drinker.  He drank a lot of soda.  Soda seemed to be his favorite thing to consume.  I was concerned for his health.  Since he was a child, I thought soda was not good for his growth.  So as his mom, I took a stand.  I said that for the next year, we would no longer have soda in the house.  When we were at a restaurant, it was okay for anyone to drink soda.  But in the house, we would refrain from any fizzy drinks.  After the year, I was no longer drinking soda.  I will occasionally imbibe in a Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda or even the rare Fresca, but that’s it.  My other children changed their habits to occasional soda drinking.  But my son who I was trying to curb from soda drinking?  He pretty much went back to his old ways.  These days, he’s actually not much of a soda drinker.  But I try to have his favorite soda in my house when he visits.   What a quirky turn of events that has become.

What do we do about soda?  Personally, I’m not a soda drinker.  But so what?  So many people love soda.  I love chocolate.  I’m not telling anyone to take chocolate off the market.  Still, there are food police saying we should take soda off the market.  Why?  Soda is just empty calories.  There is no beneficial food element to soda.  Is that true?

Some people use soda to stay awake.  Caffeine can be a stimulant for many.  Some people enjoy the sugary flavor.  Some people enjoy the boost to their blood sugar levels (which will probably crash later unless you have another...soda!).  Soda is an inexpensive way to get a lot of flavor.  While it won’t give you the energy and staying power of a solid meal, it’s a cheap way to get something into your mouth.  All those bubbles can fill your tummy with a lot of air, giving you a false sense of being full, even for a little while.

That said, I’ve seen so many stories about soda being bad.  People showing science experiments they’ve done; dropping teeth into soda and watching the teeth erode from the chemicals they are floating in.  I’ve heard about the high quantities of sugar that float around in soda.  While having sugar in conjunction with proteins and fats can help your body absorb the sugar, having the sugar alone in a high concentrated amount can cause insulin spikes in your body.

This time of year, I see so many articles on “eating healthy” and “losing weight.”  I start to wonder: Is making demons out of sodas the way to get people healthier and smaller?  It’s a weird paradox.  First there were the holiday advertisements that showed polar bears enjoying a refreshing Coca Cola.  Then there’s diet ads telling us to stop imbibing in the evils of sugary drinks. 

While the ads for sodas keep showing up in our magazines and on tv telling us how cool we’d be if we drank Coca Cola, we keep hearing how “bad” we are for taking in too much sugar.  Sugar becomes one of those moral issues and we try to eat and drink less of it.  Honestly, I think the ability to take in less sugar is about so much more than willpower.

Sodas are cheap.  They are easy to store.  They don’t need refrigeration (unless you want to drink cold soda), and they have incredibly long shelf lives.  Really, the only thing that seems to decrease the shelf life of soda is when you open it and start to drink it.  Like I said earlier, sodas can give you a false sense of being full.

Foods that are deemed “healthy,” on the other hand, are trickier.  Meats, fresh fruits, and vegetables all have a much shorter shelf life.  Additionally, I’m probably going to need refrigeration to store these things.  I can’t have too much cold either.  If I leave my green beans out in the snow on a January day, they are going to freeze and become mushy and useless.  Healthy foods need special care, and they aren’t cheap.  

When I go into a restaurant, be it a McDonald’s or a fine Italian restaurant, soda costs both restaurants the same amount of money.  It’s super cheap.  It’s only a little pricier than the water the restaurants provide.  Yet, it’s sold at an incredible markup.  So it’s a wonderful money maker for the restaurant vs. the healthier food options the restaurant serves.  Of course the restaurant is going to plug the soda!

In the meantime, a number of cities in the United States have implemented a tax on sugary drinks.  The intent of the tax is to discourage people to drink sugary drinks.  Does it work?  While the purchase of sugary drinks in those cities declined, the purchase of sugary drinks in outlying cities increased.  So did the city change anything?  Perhaps not.

For me, I don’t think the war against sodas is so black and white.  Just like my son who went back to sugary soda after a year away, I don’t think we can so easily take soda out of the picture.  Luckily for my son, we could afford water, milk, and juice.  He was also given fresh fruit, vegetables, and fresh meats.  He could fill his tummy with other healthy choices.  Not everyone who’s drinking soda has this opportunity.  We were also able to share the benefits of healthy foods with him.  We could talk about how eating healthier foods “fed” his body.  We could talk about how it supported his teeth and how healthier foods had more staying power.  Still, at the end of the year, my son went back to drinking sodas.

Sometime in his late teens or early 20s, my son stopped drinking so much soda.  He was suddenly interested in building a healthier and fitter body, and soda didn’t seem as important to him as it was in the past.  Now he doesn’t keep soda in his house.  Again, he has the opportunity to purchase other beverages and foods.  So his choice is based on the variety available to him.  

It’s easy for us to label soda as “bad” and then insist people just stop drinking it.  We can moralize soda.  But for some, it’s the only way to stave off hunger when a more valuable kind of food isn’t available.  Why aren’t we sending out truckloads of green beans?  Why aren’t there commercials of a smiling sexy woman eating broccoli?  

Even if “healthy” food is available, must we force people to eat it?  Must we shame folks for drinking soda even if they have and can afford more earthy options?  I don’t think so.  I am confused by the push for the righteous carrot over the shameful cola.  I know that when we mark something as “harmful” or “bad,” people often want to buy more of it.  So let’s just leave folks alone.  If they want to enjoy the taste of soda, let them do it.