"70 Most Popular Sodas Ranked by How Toxic They Are" Review
Still indulging in pop/soda while trying to lose weight with your personal trainer in Denver? I've stripped down a recent list I found to give you the 10 worst sodas (from the article 70 Most Popular Sodas Ranked by How Toxic They Are). See if your favorite liquid waistline killer is on it!
10. DR. BROWN'S ROOT BEER
12 fl oz, 170 calories, 42 g carbs, 42 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Gum Acacia, Citric Acid, Caffeine Free
You know when you add some Mentos to a two-liter Diet Coke and the whole thing explodes? (Don’t try that at home.) That’s thanks to the Gum Acacia in the candy, which also in this soda—it’s a natural emulsifier. Despite it’s weird name, is probably this most natural ingredient in this sugar juice.9. DR. BROWN’S CREAM SODA
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 44 g carbs, 44 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Natural And Artificial Flavors, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Citric Acid, Caramel Color.
With more calories than a Mountain Dew (though with less artificial colors, thus its better ranking), this Cream would have made even Prince blush.7. MOUNTAIN DEW—TIE
12 fl oz, 170 calories, 46 g carbs, 46 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Concentrated Orange Juice, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness), Caffeine, Sodium Citrate, Erythorbic Acid (Preserves Freshness), Gum Arabic, Calcium Disodium EDTA (To Protect Flavor), Brominated Vegetable Oil, Yellow 5
There's flame retardant in your Mountain Dew. That soda with the lime-green hue (and other citrus-flavored bubbly pops) won't keep your insides fireproof, but it does contain brominated vegetable oil, a patented flame retardant for plastics that has been banned in foods throughout Europe and in Japan. Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, which acts as an emulsifier in citrus-flavored soda drinks, is found in about 10 percent of sodas sold in the U.S. “After a few extreme soda binges - not too far from what many [video] gamers regularly consume - a few patients have needed medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to bromine,” according to an article in Environmental News.7. MOUNTAIN DEW CODE RED—TIE
12 fl oz, 170 calories, 46 g carbs, 46 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Orange Juice Concentrate, Citric Acid, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate, Natural Flavor, Caffeine, Sodium Citrate, Gum Arabic, Calcium Disodium EDTA, Red 40, Brominated Vegetable Oil, Yellow 5, Blue 1
As we said, Europe and Japan have already banned the flame retardant brominated vegetable oil (BVO) out of their bubbly beverages. Code Red!6. A&W ROOT BEER
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 46 g carbs, 46 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate (preservative), Natural and Artificial Flavors
You gotta love that ingredients list: This American classic might have sugar and HFCS. Throw in two scoops of vanilla ice cream to make a Root Beer float and you have more than two day’s worth of sugar in one chilled mug.5. MUG CREAM SODA
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 47 g carbs, 47 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness), Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Calcium Disodium EDTA (to protect flavor)
Speaking of cream, you’d have to down 12 servings of Redi-Whip to equal the calorie count of Mug Cream Soda (distributed by Pepsi)—and would still need to eat 12 Hershey’s Kisses on top of that to equal the sugar count.4. A&W CREAM SODA
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 48 g carbs, 48 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Sodium Benzoate (preservative), Natural and Artificial Flavors, Caramel Color, Citric Acid, Flavored with Vanilla Extract, Caffeine.
A&W traffics heavily in the nostalgia of the roadside restaurant—the company created the nation’s first chain of them in 1923. But their cream soda is a car crash of HFCS and artificial colors and flavors. This is not your grandparent’s soda, in the worst way possible.3. DR. BROWN’S BLACK CHERRY
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 45 g carbs, 45 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Cherry And Other Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), and Artificial Color (Red 40)
With just one less gram of sugar than Stewart’s Black Cherry, Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry would horrify most doctors—and not just because of the sugar. Like Stewart's—and many of the colored sodas here—this one has the artificial color Red 40, which is it ranks lower than our next entry, despite having less sugar. Don’t get down with Brown.2. STEWART'S BLACK CHERRY WISHNIAK
12 fl oz, 190 calories, 46 g carbs, 46 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate, Caramel Color, Red 40, Blue 1
With more sugar than seven Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies, Stewart's Black Cherry would be a “Not That!” because of the sweetness alone—it’s the most caloric on this list. And, like many of the soda on this list, it also contains caramel coloring. This additive wouldn't be dangerous if you made it the old-fashioned way—with water and sugar, on top of a stove. But the food industry follows a different recipe: They treat sugar with ammonia, which can produce some nasty carcinogens. A Center for Science in the Public Interest report asserted that the high levels of caramel color found in soda account for roughly 15,000 cancers in the U.S. annually.1. FANTA GRAPE
12 fl oz, 180 calories, 48 g carbs, 48 g sugar
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Natural Flavors, Tartaric Acid, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (to Protect Taste), Citric Acid, Red 40, Blue 1
Liquefy a bag of Skittles and you’d still have to add 6 grams of sugar to equal the sweetness of this can of corn syrup, citric acid and artificial colors. In fact, that bag of Skittles has the exact same ingredients, including Red 40, which Canadian researchers found to be contaminated with known carcinogens. Even without its unsettling origin story—the Coca-Cola company created Fanta to profit in Germany when Nazis forbid the importation of USA-made Coke—this would still be the absolute worst soda in America!
What other foods or drinks are affecting your weight loss? Check out my post 20 Coffee Drinks with More Sugar Than a Can of Coke for other liquid waistline killers.
Are you having trouble attaining any level of weight loss success? Check out the list of tips and tricks in my post The 68 Best Ways to Lose Body Fat and More.
Picture Credit: MSN.com and Eat This! Not That!-Should you "Do the Dew" while trying to lose weight?
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