Mmmm, Coke! I Drink My Body Weight in Sugar Annually!
Below is an excellent little video that shows exactly how much sugar is in a can of coke. And before you watch it, if you do a little math, here are some staggering figures:
- There are 12 ounces (340 grams) in a can of coke.
- There are 39 grams (1.38 ounces) of sugar in a can.
- 340 grams / 39 grams = Coke is over 10% pure sugar!
- If you typically drink the equivalent of 6 cans a day you are consuming over 8 ounces or 1/2 pound of pure sugar per day.
- 24 oz. at lunch
- 2 cans during the day
- 24 oz. at dinner
- That level of sugar consumption equates to about 15 pounds of raw sugar per month, or 182.5 pounds per year. (This happens to be about my body weight.)
- Don’t drink that much Coke? Well, 3 cans a day still equals 7.5 pounds per month or 91.25 pounds per year that your body has to either burn off or store as fat.
- Sweet Tea has almost the same amount of sugar
- Sweetened Coffee counts too. A heaping tablespoon of sugar is about 20 grams.
Keep in mind that none of this includes the sugar intake from all other sources in your diet in a given day. Some samples might include:
- 1 cup of Kellogg’s Corn Pops, 14 grams
- 1 Snickers bar, 30 grams
- 12 ounces of Gatorade, 21 grams
- 1/2 cup Blue Bell Chocolate Ice Cream, 20 grams
According to Healthbolt, here is what happens to you physiologically when you consume a can of Coke:
- In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
- 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
- 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
- 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
- >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
- >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
- >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.
This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.) But, hey, have another Coke, it’ll make you feel better.
By the way:
- Harvard says that a single can of coke per day can make you gain 15 pounds of body weight annually.
- Other drinks such as Snapple, Gatorade, Red Bull, Propel Fitness Water, and Arizona Original Iced Tea are as bad for you as Coke, or worse!
- It should be noted that Diet Sodas have an entirely different set of problems due to their artificial chemical cocktails, and they have NEVER been proven to cause weight loss – in fact there is empirical evidence to suggest they lead to greater weight gain.
Get the next post by email.
One email per post. Twenty years of this, still going. Unsubscribe whenever.
So would one can every once in a blue moon (literally) do any harm?
And speaking of those slowly suicidal sugar spikes, did you know that eating two slices of whole wheat bread can increase blood sugar more than 2 tablespoons of pure sugar can? Ditch the wheat and your health improves substantially. A wheat-free diet has been associated with many benefits including weight loss, alleviation of type 2 diabetes, recovery from ulcerative colitis and celiac disease, improvement in cholesterol, improvement in bone density, reduction of inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis pain. Check out a book called “Wheat Belly” for more details.
I have always drank coke since I was a little boy. I don’t drink it everyday but occasionally. After reading this article I am a little thirsty for a nice cold Coca Cola.
My husband and i can get through 20 cans in a day, we are seriously addicted to it but since finding a bug in a 500ml bottle the other night at work, we have decided to stop altogether, it has been 6days so far and we are doing well, hopefully we will start seeing the benifits of not drinking this much craved drink anymore,
So glad to hear you found a reason to stop drinking soda, at least for a little while. Are you still soda free? Have you started seeing the difference around your waistline yet?
Ever since having a baby, I have used coke to help wake me up during the day ( I don’t drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverages). Now that it’s been 10 months I am pretty much having a can a day, and I want to quit it! My goal is to gradually reduce the amount I have by first: not finishing a can and dumping the rest, second: eventually switch to one every other day then third: have coke only on special occasions. I am just on my first step, and doing that quite well but have not managed to start the second step. I’ll keep trying!
“# There are 12 ounces (340 grams) in a can of coke.”
It is 12 FLUID ounces in a can which measures volume and has nothing to do with the mass.
Yuck! That was a real eye opener…thank goodness I can take pop or leave it. I have also heard that to neutralize the acid in one can of coke, you would need to drink 32 glasses of water. I don’t know about you but that’s a lot!!! I’ll pass on the coke thanks! :-)
Okay so… I just arrived to this article from your health challenge article, and I must say…. I am going to finish the can of cokes that I have already bought, since offcourse I don’t want to throw money away… and I am really going to try to just switch to water, I bet I could eat more too, with all that weight I’d be saving, hehe.
Have a Coke and a smile…
Well, if we always were looking at how things are bad for you we would be wrapped up in cotton in a basement living off (your favorite) scallops and drinking warm water only.
I am not as health conscious as I ought to be, but I sure enjoy life :)
I drink 6-10 cans of Coke a day, I switched to Diet Coke a few years back but have yet to see any weight changes. I usually have a jug of water in front of me while working as well though because sometimes the sweetness from even the Diet Coke is too much.
I have always been a Coke freak, and I am always trying to get my American friends to bring over new Coke flavors when they visit here. I even asked one of my Japan based friends to bring over one of the cucumber Pepsis, Cucumber Pepsi sounds too weird so I wanted to try one :)
Kim:)
Fast forward three years…
Actually US coke contains high fructose syrup not sugar. This is far worse than sugar. Sugar is bad but when they made this change coke became more addictive and damaging. You can find coke with sugar in Mexico and in some US stores featuring food from Mexico.
I used to drink 6 cans of coke a day in my office after I quit drinking coffee.
Apart from all the weight I put on, my teeth were taking a beating from too much coke.
Until I became health conscious I never really looked at what i was consuming.
Makes a different once you start to explode some of these things.
Incidentally, here is a link to an interesting article called: Soda: 7 Things You Didn’t Know.