Some of the fuels you may use are polluted. Did you know that refineries add chemicals to gas in the winter and it makes your mileage per gallon less efficient? They also offer different types of gas, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, each with a different purity that has a clear effect on the miles-per-gallon. Getting better mileage means the fuel that is being used is burning cleaner. When the fuel burns cleaner, the engine is cleaner and the car is more efficient overall. My car gets 45 miles to gallon when I use 93-grade gas. It gets 36 when I use 87. This is not a coincidence.
Here are the two most important principles I can possibly relate to you:
1. THE ONLY BEVERAGE YOUR BODY EVER WANTS IS WATER.
2. YOUR MIND IS IN CHARGE OF YOUR BODY, NOT YOUR TONGUE.
Think of what you drink as gas. Is it 87, 89 or 93? Water is actually 100. With lots of water your body is zippy and fantastic. Tea is a 93 beverage. Tea can be important as it may provide specific nutrients that can aid in speeding the metabolism (for a short while) or theoretically cleansing specific internal organs. Sometimes we'll put in a fuel additive to give the car that extra little oomph and clean out some gunk. That’s a good thing to do now and then. But tea with a sweetener (any sweetener) and milk or cream brings the 93 down to an 89, or even an 87. It is counterproductive to drink tea with additives that can gum up the works. A little of this and little of that never hurt anybody, true. One footprint in the sand won't affect the beach, but a million will alter its shape forever. The silver door in Mecca that every pilgrim touches used to be 14' thick and now it's 6'. Every finger takes a molecule. The same thing happens with the additives in the tea. Every molecule that isn't H or O goes somewhere in your body, sometimes to do good things, but sometimes not-so-much. We can't survive on water alone, we do need other materials, but those will come through our food and the WATER will wash away the impurities the body finds in those foods. Adding impurities to your water is counter-productive.
Diet Sodas, on the fuel-meter, are worse than an 85, the lowest grade gas you can get. If water is 100, they are a big loser zero. Calories, Fat, Sodium, Carb, Sugar and Protein are all zero which makes them very attractive. And they taste good, right? (sort of?). But here's the skinny on skinny sodas:
Carbonated water means your adding C to your H and your O. What does your body want with more Carbon? It’s got enough already. In fact, your body gets rid of carbon with every breath.
Natural Flavors are produced in labs and manufactured using replicated elements found in nature. Don’t fool yourself into thinking Ginger Ale has real ginger which is beneficial to your digestion—it has a molecular copy of the essence of ginger and your body knows it’s not the same thing.
Citric Acid: anything that says Acid will make your tongue say yummy! But your heart, stomach and other tissues will scream What’dja Do That For?
Potassium Citrate is a salty acid that people take to get rid of kidney stones. But what does it get rid of if you don't have kidney stones? Adding salt to water is, again, counterproductive, dehydrating, and only benefits the tongue.
Potassium Benzoate is another salty acid that they put in there to make sure your beverage doesn't grow yeast or mold. Pure water never grows yeast or mold so it doesn't require it. Anything that needs an additive to prevent yeast or mold from growing means the manufacturer knows it might sit on a shelf for a long, long time (or at least long enough to grow yeast and mold). This preservative also eliminates many types of bacteria. Our bodies harbor millions of beneficial bacteria, especially in the digestive tract. What does killing our healthy bacteria do? How will we process our nutrition without our microbial friends?
Sucralose is non-caloric because the body cannot break it down. At its root, Sucralose IS table sugar, but it undergoes an intensive process of chlorination and acetylation that alter the molecular structure, then they use phosphorus oxychloride to remove the acetyl groups they imposed on the sugar. In the end the table sugar becomes sucralose, 600 times sweeter than the original sugar and now, tada!, indigestible—except not entirely. 11-27% doesn't actually get absorbed in the GI tract. And of that remaining 11-27% that floats around your body, only 90% gets cleaned from the blood by the kidneys and expelled in your urine. The remaining molecules stay in the body, and are stored in.... you got it... the fuel reserves, nestled sweetly in the fatty tissues. This potentially happens even if you’re not overweight. Incidentally, Sucralose is termed an organochloride that is immune to the effects of wastewater treatments, meaning it doesn't dissolve until it hits actual nature where it degrades slowly—possibly at the rate of some styrofoams. This is probably not something you want residing in your fatty tissue as it could stay in there for the rest of your life. Oh, hey, we're not done yet.
Acesulfame Potassium is added to diet sodas too because it masks the aftertaste of the Sucralose. Acesulfame Potassium has it's own aftertaste, however, which is counter-masked by the Sucralose in a crazy symbiotic aftertaste-masking relationship. Lord knows we wouldn’t want to taste either of their crazy concoctions, right? Acesulfame Potassium also stimulates insulin secretion and could be a possible carcinogen, although the jury is out (note that when the jury is out I tend to believe someone is paying the jury for their vacation, through marketing or new studies or whatever else manufacturers can use to delay the truth).
And finally, Caramel Color which is made by taking sugar (glucose or fructose) and heating it with acids, alkalis or salts using antifoaming agents along the way until it is fully oxidized and becomes water-soluble. In addition to adding color, it's also an emulsifier that prevents flocculation, meaning the other chemicals in the soda stick together properly and we don't see any caking of any of the elements on the sides of our plastic bottles. Caramel Color can also be derived from corn, wheat, barley or milk and there's enough of it in the soda, even though it's the tiniest last ingredient, that people with allergies are warned against consumption. Also, note that if Caramel Color is ensuring everything is bonded together then when the residue of your drink ultimately reaches your fatty tissues it could possibly remain tied together at a molecular level.
Why are you drinking diet soda? Because you’ve trained yourself into thinking that water is boring, somehow. The fact that water doesn't have a taste is what makes it so purely delicious, in my mind. Pure, Fresh, Clean, Delicious. And it doesn’t require an ad campaign to get you to consume it.
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