How to Choose Healthy Drinks

Registered Dietician and Nutrition Expert, Jeannette Jordan talks about how what we drink affects our health.

What we drink really effect our health. A lot of people don’t realize how much sugar and calories that are in certain beverages even some of that what we would call nutritious beverages many people get anywhere from 500 to a thousand calories a day from a beverage. Now let's keep in mind that most women only need about 16 to 18 hundred calories all day long, most men maybe about 2000 or 2500. So let's take for example if a person says I'm going to have six ounces of soft drinks—16 ounces you are looking about 11 to 13 teaspoon of sugar in this amount and about 200 calories same thing with be true for sweet tea or sweet Kool-Aid which is something that you know, kind of grew up on drinking this beverages and a lot people they, “Okay, well I worked out a little bit so I'm going to just fill out with sports drinks.” Well, it’s the same thing. A lot of sugar has been added and so the calories are there and if you're trying to control diabetes or your trying to control your weight let's take for example you workout for 30 to 45 minutes you burn 200 calories that’s great, right. Well, if you just decide okay, we’ll I'm going to have a regular soda pop here that’s 200 calories so you’ve kind of—here's what I'm saying in terms of trying to manage weight or loose if in fact that your goal. So, one of the things that we’re doing is just trying to recommend that people eat their calories rather than drink their calories. Another thing that I like to mention is juices. Orange juice, apple juice, grape juice they are great, good nutrient resources, again the amount that is use is important because in eight ounces of apple juice you looking at almost 200 calories, same thing with the grape juice a little bit more. So the key thing would be keep—if your going to drink any kind of juice make sure it’s a 100% fruit juice and you kind of limit to about six ounces at a time which is important because again 12 ounces of orange juice you probably looking at about this much of sugar when it digested. So the key thing is and same thing with milk, milk is good for you its high in calcium. We do recommend the low or fat milk but again eight ounces is a serving. So if you drink for example eight ounces of 2% milk you're looking at about 135 calories, five grams of fat. So if you say okay, I’m just going to drink 16 ounces do you see how that and now its about 260 something calories. So moderation know the serving size as key if you feel like you have to have soft drinks what I thought people is to find a perhaps a diet drink that they can enjoy. Again, moderation is the key. I remember one young lady that I working with she was drinking like 13, you know, 20 ounces a day of regular soda and of course she was swelling up she start having all these medical problems and I found out what was going on as we’ll listen you got to make this adjustment she did and believe it or not the symptoms are on way. So if the person is going to have even a diet drink which does not have calories or sugar I say maybe no more than maybe two a day because again it does have false prostate it and it does have a little bit of sodium, caffeine, so we don’t want to over do it. I think moderation is the key. So then what we should be drinking what I suggest to people of course is that we try to drink more water. If you have to add a little bit of lemon or lime which is what I do and sometimes I may add just one pack or artificial sweetener of course some people just have problem with the taste of water I've kind of gotten to the point now where I can just drink the whole bottle and not think about it but it took me a little while to get there. But we do need to drink more water. What I suggest was water is that people drink maybe eight ounces when they get up in the morning, may we have about eight ounces that every meal and then about eight ounces before they go to bed. You can play with that water. Some people will use like the little packs where they carry around in this kind and I can show you what that looks like. But they will just play water. And again, this is sugar free so you're not getting the 200 calories then you just take this and add it to the water and just shake it and so now you have flavored water and for that people that work good or you can decide at home I'm going to use the sugar free beverage which is what I've done and here the little cups and it makes like two fourth and you put in the refrigerator and when you need to something to drink you just pull it out and we have a sugar free beverage which is really great. So what we’re suggesting in terms of beverages is that you try to go for more water and if you're going to need something else other than water which mean it was do at times then you try to go for something that is sugar free and the calorie free because we need enough calories we don’t need to get 500 calories from a beverage. And that what's happening and it is contributing to the overweight, the obesity problems to people with diabetes or constantly drinking sweet and beverages throughout the day there's some possible to control their blood sugars. The other thing that I didn’t want to mention is sports drinks because unless you really athletic and you're working out for extended use of time when you're sweating whatever you really don’t need the sports drink because really what that does is that replenish your sodium, potassium but it also add at sugar in here. So most people after they workout for 30 minutes to 45 minutes they can just drink some water. And again, you know avoid the extra sugar and calories that’s even in the sports drinks. I would not say that diet soda are bad for us I would say that in moderation. I think anything is bad for us if we over do it. So what I suggest to people who want to drink diet drinks that you just maybe limit to no more than two diet drinks a day. Now I can tell you that I've met people who drink five a day or they’ll drink three liter a day and I think again you got to look at there other things in diet drinks as well you still had your prostate, you still have sodium, you still have caffeine, so I would say moderation. In terms of flavored waters again I would say look at the level and make sure there are zero calories and zero carbohydrates because some of the flavored water they added sugar or two. And what you want to do is to have one that one the are sugar free because again we want to eat our calories and not driking.