"The Dirty Dozen" #8

8. Soft Drinks: By Jordan Rubin

A 12- ounce, sugar or HFCS sweetened beverage contains nearly 9 teaspoons of sugar and 150 calories--empty calories that provide little or no nutritional value. If you drink one can of soda per day and dont change anything else about your diet or exerecise regimen, you will consume 55,000 extra calories in one year, which adds up to 15 pounds of weight gain. (wow...thats insane!...think about that one! Quit drinking sodas and lose 15lbs a year!)

Soft drink manufacturers know that once teenagers leave the adolescent years, they become more health conscious, or at least more aware of how bad sweetened soft drinks are for them, so thats why they try to hook 'em young. Nicki swore off soft drinks during her senior year of high school (so did I and I lost 20lbs!), but not because she wanted a better fit in her prom dress. Her epiphany came after conducting an experiment in her science class. One day her teacher informed the class that they were going to learn about acidic reactions. He dramatically dropped a galvanized contruction nail into a glass of Coke to see what would happen over night. The nail didnt desolve--that was an old wives tale--but the red rust encrusting the galvanized nail blew Nicki away. She hasnt had another soft drink since then.