Interesting Facts

The UK is about to introduce a sugar tax on soft drinks, which will add at least 18p a liter to sweet fizzy drinks. (The tax will be levied according to how much sugar is added to a drink. According to the BBC, there will be two bands - one for total sugar content above 5g per 100 millilitres and a second, higher band for the most sugary drinks with more than 8g per 100 millilitres. Analysis by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility suggests they will be levied at 18p and 24p per litre. It is estimated that it will raise around £520m a year, which the government has pledged will be spent on increasing the funding for sport in primary schools. So, does this mean people will drink less sugary pop? Probably not, they'll just have less money to spend on fruit.) The sugar tax has an interesting history:- First they said they wouldn't, then they said they might, now they have: Talk about flip flopping:- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-rules-out-s...

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...