Interesting Facts

According to a study carried out by Action on Sugar hot drinks can contain at least as much sugar as a can of Pepsi or Coca-Cola. (In some of the worst cases the drinks tested contained 20 or more teaspoons of sugar. For example, a large Chai Latte can contain around 80g of sugar: according to the NHS, the maximum intake of added sugar per day for those aged 11 and over is about 30g or seven teaspoons - a can of Pepsi or Coke can contain around 9 teaspoons. The drinks assessed included flavoured coffees such as mochas and lattes, hot fruit drinks and hot chocolates from coffee shops and fast food chains.  98% of the drinks they tested would have to carry a red food label for high sugar content.)

A regular sized cup of coffee (about 5oz) can contain anything from 65 to 125 mg of caffeine. It all depends on the type of coffee and how it's been made: On average there is 110-150mg for filter coffee, 65-125mg for percolated, and 40-80 mg for instant. Typically an 8 oz cup of Starbucks coffee contains165 milligrams of caffeine. (I looked into this following yesterday's IF, and the amount of caffeine in energy drinks also varies. They can contain between 70 and 200 mg. A Dr. Pepper gives you 61mg, and a can of Coke provides 50mg, but according to Web MD, a full can of 150mg Rockstar energy shot contains a massive 229 mg! That's not a drink, that's medicine.)

The supermarket chain Morrisons has banned under-16s from buying caffeine-infused energy drinks. (The ban will only apply to drinks like Red Bull, that contain at least 150mg of caffeine per litre and has been introduced amid health fears about extreme caffeine intake by children, and staff have been instructed to challenge any customers who look under 25.)

Seemingly tea and coffee are grown in the UK (see previous post).  (Tea is grown and sold from the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall, and Arabica coffee is being grown in the rainforest bio dome at the Eden Project, That said, I doubt they could grow enough to satisfy the tea and coffee drinking habits of the UK. Accroding to the BBC, the coffee harvest at Eden produced about 2kg of cherries, which would create approximately 300g of dried coffee beans to make around 50 cups of Cornish coffee.)  

Fizzy drinks are on average, 5,000 times more acidic than water, which has a neutral pH level. (This is having a disastrous affect on people's teeth. A normal sized can of pop contains approximately nine teaspoons of sugar, and regular consumption of these sugary drinks increases the risk of tooth decay by over 200%. According to dentists, who are at the front line of the battle against tooth decay, if you drink a lot of canned or bottled fizzy pop, you might as well stick your teeth in an acid bath. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1969 Australians used to drink about 47 litres per person in a year, in 2012 it was estimated to be over 100 litres, and rising. That's almost 300 cans a year! Australian peridontist, Dr Amis Lidums, said "Teeth initially become quite sensitive and they'll start to become shorter as the protective enamel over the surface of the teeth disappears." Almost 60 per cent of children aged five to sixteen consume ...

According to a study by Dr. Honglei Chen, an investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, there is a link between soft drinks and depression. (Participants in the study who drank more than four servings of fizzy drinks per day were 30 percent more likely to develop depression than participants who didn't, but it's not just fizzy pop, people who stuck with fruit squash had a 38 percent higher risk than people who didn't drink sweetened drinks. And it's not just sugary drinks, the research also showed that people who drank low-calorie diet drinks, iced teas, and fruit squash were at a slightly higher risk of depression too, and the artificial sweetener aspartame may be to blame. It does make me wonder though: do sugary drinks cause depression, or do depressed people try to cheer themselves up with a sweet drink? The good news is that drinking unsweetened coffee can lower the risk of depression. I'm a happy go lucky person, guess what I d...