The 50 Club / Soft drinks

Drawing for Soft drinks: the 50 Club mark with the word SOFT DRINKS, sparkling water, juice bottle, lemon, glass of water, herbs, cucumber, strawberry and black coffee.
Better choices for soft drinks: sparkling water, juice bottle, lemon, glass of water and herbs.
the 50 club

Soft drinks: getting off the sugar water. Juice included.

A can of cola is a day's worth of sugar you drink in two minutes and forget in ten. Here's what it does to your body, why juice isn't the way out, and a four-week plan to get to water without hating your life.

The short version

Best
Water, sparkling water, unsweetened tea, black coffee.
OK
Sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon, lime or orange. A juice spritzer while you step down.
Never
Cola, lemonade, juice, smoothies, and every "diet", "zero" or "light" version.
When
Water any time. Anything with sugar only with a meal, and only while you taper.
Our take
Don't drink your sugar. Step down over a month, then stop buying it.

The one rule: don't drink your sugar

Sugar you eat at least comes with chewing, fibre and a full stomach. Sugar you drink comes with nothing. In a small but neat study, people got the same extra sugar every day for four weeks, once as jelly beans and once as soft drink. With the jelly beans they ate less at meals to make up for it. With the soft drink they didn't, and their weight went up.1 Your body doesn't count liquid sugar as food.

So the rule is simple: soft drinks and juice are not drinks, they're sugar. Thirsty means water. Everything else on this page is about getting there.

What a can does to your body

A regular can of cola can hold up to nine sugar cubes. The NHS limit for adults is 30 g of free sugars a day, about seven cubes, so one can already blows the whole day.2 The World Health Organization puts a can at up to 40 g, or ten teaspoons, and wants you under 10% of your daily energy from free sugars, better under 5%.3

Your blood sugar

All that sugar arrives at once, with no fibre, fat or protein to slow it down. Do that every day and it shows up in the long run: in a review of 17 cohort studies, every daily serving of a sugary drink went with an 18% higher risk of type 2 diabetes, and still 13% after accounting for body weight.4 Observational data, so not proof on its own, but it lines up with the trials.

Your weight

A meta-analysis of cohort studies and trials concluded that sugary drinks promote weight gain in both children and adults. In adult trials, adding sugary drinks put on close to a kilo.5

Your teeth

The bacteria on your teeth love sugar as much as you do, and turn it into acid. The systematic review behind the WHO guideline found tooth decay is lower when free sugars stay under 10% of energy.6 Sipping a soft drink over an afternoon gives them a party that never ends.

Juice is not the healthy option

Orange juice has a vitamin on the label and a sunny farm on the front. Your body sees sugar. Once fruit is juiced or blended, the sugar is out of the fruit's structure and counts as free sugar, exactly like the sugar in cola.23 The NHS says no more than 150 ml of juice or smoothie a day, with a meal.2 In the same diabetes review, juice also went with a higher risk (7% per daily serving after adjusting for weight), though the evidence there is weaker.4

Eat the orange. Skip the juice. More on fruit as dessert in our sweet snacks guide.

Drink by drink

Sugar per 100 ml, rounded. Brands vary, so check the label.7

DrinkSugar per 100 mlVerdict
Tap water, sparkling water, mineral water0 gAny time
Sparkling water with lemon, lime, cucumber or mint~0 gAny time
Unsweetened tea or black coffee, hot or iced0 gAny time
Juice spritzer, 1 part juice to 3 parts sparkling water~2–3 gStep-down only
Juice spritzer, half and half (Schorle, g'spritzt)~5 gStep-down only
100% fruit juice, smoothies~9–11 gNever
Cola, lemonade, orange soda, ginger ale~9–11 gNever
Sweetened iced tea, bubble tea, cordialsvaries, often moreNever
Energy drinks~11 g, plus caffeineNever
"Diet", "zero", "light" soft drinks0 g, sweeteners insteadNever

The step-down plan

Cold turkey works for some people. For most, it lasts until the first hot afternoon. Taper instead. Pick the plan that matches your habit.

If you drink juice

  1. Week 1: half and half. Half juice, half sparkling water, in a normal glass, with a meal. Never more than one glass.
  2. Week 2: one third juice. One part juice, two parts sparkling water. You'll notice it still tastes like juice.
  3. Week 3: a squeeze, not a pour. Sparkling water with a squeeze of fresh lemon, lime or orange. Done.

If you drink cola or lemonade

  1. Week 1: glass, not bottle. Halve the number you drink. Pour each one into a glass with ice, and only with a meal. Everything else becomes water.
  2. Week 2: half the glass. Half cola, half sparkling water with lime. Still cold, still fizzy, half the sugar.
  3. Week 3: a splash. A quarter cola, the rest sparkling water. Or switch to sparkling water with orange slices.
  4. Week 4: water with flavour. Sparkling water with lemon, mint or a few frozen berries as ice cubes. Cola moves to Rebel Day.

One warning for heavy cola drinkers: cola has caffeine, about 40 mg a can.8 Several cans a day add up, and stopping suddenly can bring headaches, tiredness and bad mood for a few days. In experiments, people got withdrawal symptoms after stopping doses as low as 100 mg a day.9 Another reason to taper. A black coffee or tea in the morning covers the gap.

"Zero is the healthy swap." It's sugar-free, we'll give it that. And honestly, the aspartame cancer scare is overblown: WHO says a 70 kg adult would need roughly 9 to 14 cans a day to go over the safe intake.10 But WHO also advises against sweeteners for weight control, because long-term use showed no benefit for body fat.11 Our reason is simpler: sweeteners keep your taste buds expecting sweet with every sip. We want you off the sweet, not on a different sweet. So "zero" stays on our never list.

"Smoothies count as fruit." Five fruits blended into one bottle is five fruits' worth of sugar, freed from the fibre, gone in a minute. It counts as free sugar, not as a portion of fruit you can repeat.2 A smoothie is a dessert in a cup.

Drink, forget

Drink

  • Tap water, still or sparkling
  • Mineral water, soda water
  • Water with lemon, lime, cucumber, mint, ginger
  • Frozen berries as ice cubes
  • Unsweetened tea, hot or iced
  • Black coffee
  • Juice spritzer, only while you step down

Forget it

  • Cola, lemonade, orange soda, tonic
  • Fruit juice, "100% juice", smoothies
  • Sweetened iced tea, bubble tea, cordials and syrups
  • "Vitamin waters" and sports drinks
  • Energy drinks
  • "Diet", "zero", "light" and "no added sugar" drinks

Drink it where you live

Singapore and Southeast Asia

  • Singapore residents average about 58 g of sugar a day, and over half of it comes from drinks.12
  • Nutri-Grade helps: grade D drinks are the sugariest, and they can't be advertised.13 Treat C and D as never.
  • At the kopitiam, order teh-o or kopi-o kosong (no sugar). Siew dai (less sugar) is a step, not the goal.
  • Bubble tea: 0% sugar, no toppings, or skip it.
  • Lime juice and barley at the stall are sweetened. Ask for plain water or iced Chinese tea.

Austria, Germany, Switzerland

  • Apfelsaft g'spritzt or Apfelschorle is the perfect step-down drink. Ask for "extra Soda" and make it thinner every week.
  • Soda Zitron: soda water with fresh lemon. Check it's real lemon, not syrup.
  • Almdudler, Spezi and Eistee are soft drinks, whatever the alpine label says.
  • Tap water is excellent. Ask for Leitungswasser.

Festivals and family visits come with sweet drinks on the table: Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, Christmas. Have one glass with the meal if that's part of the occasion, then switch to water or tea. During Ramadan, water and dates at iftar beat a jug of syrup drink, and water through the evening helps you get through the next day's fast.

Can't quit cola completely?

Still a no: "diet" and "zero" drinks, juice by the litre, sugary drinks between meals, and anything but water, black coffee or plain tea during your fasting window.

Allergies and intolerances

Most soft drinks contain few of the EU's 14 mandatory allergens, but a few drinks around them do.14

DrinkPossible EU allergenSwap
Bottled lemon juice, cordials, some juice drinksSulphitesFresh lemon or lime
Milk tea, bubble tea, iced coffee drinksMilkUnsweetened tea, black coffee
Soya bean drinkSoyWater, plain tea
Barley water, malt drinksCereals containing glutenIced Chinese tea
Almond drinks, orgeat syrupNutsSparkling water with fruit

Talk to your doctor first if you…

  • have diabetes and use juice or a sugary drink to treat low blood sugar: keep doing that. A small glass of juice or regular soft drink is one of the standard fixes for a hypo, and diet drinks won't work.15 That's medicine, not a habit.
  • have kidney or heart disease and have been told to limit how much you drink
  • have an eating disorder or a history of one

How soft drinks fit into your plan

They don't. Your plan runs on water, sparkling water, black coffee and unsweetened tea, all day, including your fasting window. If your Healthen me answers say you drink soft drinks or juice now, your plan starts with the step-down above instead of a ban on day one.

On Rebel Day, have the cola with your meal, in a glass, with ice. Inside the eating window, never in the fasting part. Tomorrow it's water again.

This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor before changing how you eat or drink.

Sources

  1. DiMeglio DP, Mattes RD. Liquid versus solid carbohydrate: effects on food intake and body weight. International Journal of Obesity 2000;24(6):794–800. Small crossover study, 15 people. doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801229
  2. NHS. Sugar: the facts (free sugars, 30 g limit, juice and smoothies, cola). nhs.uk
  3. World Health Organization. WHO calls on countries to reduce sugars intake among adults and children. News release, 4 March 2015 (Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children). who.int
  4. Imamura F et al. Consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, artificially sweetened beverages, and fruit juice and incidence of type 2 diabetes: systematic review, meta-analysis, and estimation of population attributable fraction. BMJ 2015;351:h3576. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h3576
  5. Malik VS, Pan A, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain in children and adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2013;98(4):1084–1102. doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.058362
  6. Moynihan PJ, Kelly SAM. Effect on caries of restricting sugars intake: systematic review to inform WHO guidelines. Journal of Dental Research 2014;93(1):8–18. doi.org/10.1177/0022034513508954
  7. US Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central (sugar values for soft drinks and juices). fdc.nal.usda.gov
  8. European Food Safety Authority. Caffeine (topic page, caffeine per typical serving). efsa.europa.eu
  9. Juliano LM, Griffiths RR. A critical review of caffeine withdrawal: empirical validation of symptoms and signs, incidence, severity, and associated features. Psychopharmacology 2004;176(1):1–29. doi.org/10.1007/s00213-004-2000-x
  10. World Health Organization. Aspartame hazard and risk assessment results released. News release, 14 July 2023. who.int
  11. World Health Organization. WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control in newly released guideline. News release, 15 May 2023. who.int
  12. Health Promotion Board Singapore. Measures for Nutri-Grade. hpb.gov.sg
  13. Ministry of Health Singapore. Mandatory nutrition labelling and advertising prohibitions for Nutri-Grade beverages from 30 December 2022. moh.gov.sg
  14. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, Annex II (the 14 allergens). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/1169/oj
  15. NHS. Low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia): treatment. nhs.uk