Fit and Well Idaho: The dangers of added sugars in drinks

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Some of us may enjoy sugary, caffeinated beverages, but St. Luke’s is reminding everyone just how much added sugar there is in these types of drinks.

That is the topic of this week’s Fit and Well Idaho report.

Soda and energy drinks contain a lot of sugar.

St. Luke’s says there is an easy way to determine how many teaspoons of added sugar is in one bottle of soda or energy drinks.

The way to determine that is by dividing the amount of grams of sugar by four.

She says it is important to look at the label while you are shopping, because it is hard to recognize how much sugar is in certain things.

“In a 20 ounce doctor pepper, you would have 16.25 teaspoons of sugar, because here in the total sugars it says 65 grams, so divide that by 4 to get the 16.25 number,” said Makenzie Searle, the coordinator for the community health team.

Females should only be consuming seven teaspoons of added sugar and males should only be consuming nine teaspoons or less.

Children need only five teaspoons or less per day.

“There is sort of a limitation for how much added sugar we should be including in our diets, there is a lot of reasons for that, inflammation, stress to our system, increased weight, obesity, a lot of chronic conditions can be linked back to added sugars,” said Kyli Gough, the Community health manager.

She says some healthier options are seltzer waters or regular water.

There are certain energy drinks and sodas without added sugars, but you need to read the label to check which ones.

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