Tea Vs Soda Pop - Caffeine, Calories, Health, Etc

Unsweetened tea, including both true teas (black, green, oolong, white, etc.) and herbal teas, contains only negligible calories. Although it is not truly calorie-free (due to trace amounts of sugars and proteins), it is effectively calorie free. However, this is only true when you drink it unsweetened and drunk without milk. If you add milk or sugar to your tea, you add whatever calories is in these additives.

Soda has a lot of calories, due to its high sugar content. The amount of sugar in different sodas varies, but it tends to be around 40 grams per 12-ounce cup (a usual small soda can). To visualize this, see how much sugar is in sodas and beverages on SugarStacks.com. This is about 160 calories, which is between 6 and 7 percent of your calories for the day!

Sugar is a major contributing factor to obesity in America, especially childhood obesity, but is also a matter of concern for adults.

But what about diet soda?

Diet soda, like tea, has zero to negligible calories. However, there is evidence that diet soda can still be detrimental to health, possibly due to its artificial sweeteners. It may even contribute to obesity, see Exploring a Surprising Link Between Obesity and Diet Soda. Artificial sweeteners may increase the body's craving for sweets.

One question you might ask to compare tea to soda is: Which one is better for you? We know that soda is bad for you in a number of ways, but does it have any health benefits? The unfortunate answer is no.

There is no evidence that drinking soda provides any benefits to health. Most soda has no food value other than calories, and an overwhelming majority of people who consume soda consume too many calories, not too few. A small number of sodas have certain additives, like Vitamin C, which can be beneficial to health, but these vitamins all occur naturally in other foods, like fruit and vegetables, and are better absorbed by the body when consumed in whole, natural foods.  Soda isn't even good for hydration, because its water content is offset by its huge sugar content, and it can thus be dehydrating.

Tea on the other hand, has some compelling health benefits.  It also is decent for hydrating (if unsweetened and not brewed overly strongly).

Hydration (keeping your body's water stores replenished) is another realm where tea wins out over soda.  Because of their high sugar content, soft drinks are not a good source of hydration.  Unsweetened seltzer water is an exception, and diet drinks (without sugar) are a better choice.

But tea is better than all of these: not only does it have no sugar if unsweetened, it contains a small amount of potassium, an electrolyte that a lot of people don't get enough of.  Although high doses of caffeine can act as a diuretic, the amount of caffeine in tea is small enough that tea hydrates almost as well as water.

Too much of anything can be harmful to the body, and neither tea nor soda are exceptions. But soda is much worse for you than tea!

The health risks of tea are mild, and only apply to very heavy tea consumption. Heavy tea consumption may inhibit the body's absorption of iron, particularly when the tea is consumed with a meal, but this effect can be mitigated by eating small quantities of meat and foods that contain Vitamin C, and this effect may be so small as to not even be an issue with anyone. Tea also contains caffeine, and too much caffeine is harmful, but cola and many other soft drinks also contain caffeine.

Sugar-laden soft drinks can contribute to numerous health problems:

Soda or soft drinks, on the other hand, carry much greater health risks. Because soda has so much sugar, it can contribute to weight gain and obesity, and can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. A high sugar intake can also worsen or increase the risk of a variety of other health problems, including heart disease, anxiety and depression, high blood pressure, and liver problems. Perhaps more importantly, soft drinks provide empty calories, meaning that the calories come without other nutritional value. Natural calorie-rich foods like fruit, nuts, or whole grains also contain protein, fiber, and valuable micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. The greater your portion of empty calories, the less you get of vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, and other beneficial nutrients.

Aside from the higher caloric content in the form of sugars (empty calories), sodas can also harm your health in other ways. Soda can contain the toxic and carcinogenic chemical Benzene, see Benzene in soft drinks. Soft drinks may also contribute to decreased bone density in women. Drinking very large amounts of soda can cause low potassium levels. One of the biggest concerns though with soda drinking is that drinking soda replaces drinking other more nutritive beverages, such as milk or fruit juice, or even tea or herbal teas which contain some phytonutrients.

The main reason that people prefer soda to tea is the intense sweet flavor that soda has.  Straight tea is not particularly sweet, and can be quite bitter.

Taste, however, is changeable over time. People have a natural, innate preference for sweet flavors over bitter, and for good reason. Many naturally-occurring poisons are bitter, whereas sweetness signals the presence of sugar. In nature, sugar most often occurs in fruit, which is also rich in potassium, Vitamin C, and other valuable micronutrients. The good news though is that people can and do become more accustomed to bitter flavors over time.

Although there is a degree to which tastes are subjective, on a more objective level, people who learn to appreciate more subtly flavored beverages like tea will naturally seek out healthier foods lower in empty calories than people who stick with intensely sweet beverages like soda.

As you train yourself to appreciate tea, you will be helping to retrain your sense of taste and preferences in food and drink so that you naturally enjoy healthier foods.

Some candies can mimic the characteristics of fruit, a natural, nutrient-rich food, but most candy contains only empty calories.  Soda is similar--it activates our taste buds but is in a sense tricking us: it has no nutrients other than straight calories, and most people in modern societies consume too many calories and too few micronutrients.