Cristiano Ronaldo replaced two bottles of coke with a bottle of water during a press conference in 2021.

This simple action led to billions of dollars in loss for Coca-Cola.

Soon, Lee Grant and other Manchester United players began to gush about Ronaldo's diet, his abstinence from sugar and the effect on his body and his performance and so on.

I got the message so I waved goodbye to Coca-Cola and substance with added sugar.

That's the power of influence.
My Transition Stage
In the past, anything entered in and out of my body.

I was polluting and weakening my immune system with lots of junk and soda. I didn't realize my body is a city and myself, the custodian.

Those meals were like the rebels at Martinsburgh who entered Chambersburgh nicely dressed, wearing good smiles and scents only to burn down the town.

Added sugar in junks and sodas does the same to your body.

After this enlightenment, I subconsciously began to nauseate over any sight of added sugar until I remembered seeing a boy gulping down an orange juice with high calories down the street.

I cringed and then I realized how much I'd changed.

It looked to me like the kid was gulping down a bottle of poison down his throat and was going to end up like Romeo's Juliet.

That's the way I began seeing people and the fact remains:

Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of added sugar, a total of 10 teaspoons. Pepsi contains 41 grams while Orange Fanta contains 44 grams and they do not have the highest sugar content in soda drinks.

These numbers may not seem much but when you consider that these drinks are usually taken with complements like junks. Putting into consideration that the average sugar limit for men and women is 9 and 6 teaspoons respectively.

You'd realise that's not just dangerous. That's poisonous.

Statistics
A 2012 study shows the use of caloric and noncaloric sweeteners in some 85,000 food and beverage products, 74% contain added sugar.

During the 2017-2018 NSSRI, the results from a study accounted for 70% of children and youth in the United States have added sugar intake.

Adult men take in an average of 24 teaspoons of added sugar per day, according to the National Cancer Institute. That's equal to 384 calories.

Staggering!
What is Added sugar?

Added sugar, also referred to as free sugar, is sugar carbohydrates added to food and beverages at some point of consumption.

They include sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup.

They are empty calories that contribute little nutritional value to food.

Foods that are common with added sugar may include sweetened beverages and desserts e.g soft drinks, sweet snacks, cakes, cookies, cereal, candy, bread, and most processed foods.

Sugar can be found naturally in all foods that contain carbohydrates that offer a supply of energy to the cells.

But the danger of added sugar includes tooth decay, inflammation, skin aging, wrinkles, and overeating.

Danger Of Added Sugar

"Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease," says Dr. Hu.

"High amounts of sugar overload the liver. "Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat," says Dr. Hu.

Over time, this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease.

Sugar also causes your body to turn off its appetite control system which makes you overeat and thereby leads to weight gain and obesity.

Most people that suffer from obesity are known to be consumers of large junk and sugary substances.

Bottom Line

Sugar from natural sources is not harmful. What to avoid is added sugar or caloric sweeteners instead.

Check the Nutritional Value Table in every product you buy to keep track of how much sugar you'd be consuming.

Other sodas with less added sugar include Diet Coke, Coke Zero Sugar, Dasani,Gold Peak Unsweetened Tea, Smartwater, Sprite Zero and Vitamin Water Zero.

Or you can replace them totally with plain unsweetened yogurt, fruit juice and water.

The more you reduce added sugar intake, the more your taste bud adjusts its sweetness level and you begin to notice that certain food or products you once consumed become too sweet.