Pop... Soda ...Coke...

I have no problem sharing my opinions with you all, when it is something I truly am passionate about. 

I do not support the drinkage (yes, I just made that word up) if pop. I'm from the midwest, so to me it's pop, to you it may be soda or cola! 

Yes, you may enjoy a nice coke on a warm day but I can give you 1 Million and 2 reasons why you should cut it out cold turkey from your diet. Some of my reasons are obvious, others are horrifying and disgusting. 

Let me tell you that as a diet coke addict it is possible to quit cold turkey and not have any horrible side affects. It really is, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I went from 3-4 diet cokes a day to none in the blink of an eye. 

Lets first go over the obvious health issues associated with these tasty beverages: 

Here's a little trivia for you : 

Did you know that pop contains an ingredient that is banned in over 100 countries? 

This little ingredient is in 10% of flavors and is called BVO-- also known as brominated vegetable oil. It is basically toxic to your body --  believe it or not, many drinks containing BVO, do not include it on their label! Hmm sneaky sneaky companies. 

"Brominated Vegetable Oil, has as it's composition the element of bromine in which, believe it or not, the vapors of bromine are considered both corrosive and toxic...in other words can outrightly be considered a poisonous chemical. The chemical bromine is used for a number of products, from one of the chemicals that treat surfaces for light-sensitive photographic printing papers, as an additive for gasoline, to agricultural fumigants. At one time, bromine was even used to make sedatives, but then the FDA banned its usage around 1975, as it was found to trigger a whole host of psychiatric disorders."

via. 

YUM! 

BVO is in 2 drinks I can name specifically-- Mountain Dew and Gatoraide.

Now personally to me it is hard to drink one 8oz can full of empty calories-- that right there is just difficult to me. I'd rather have chocolate or something more fulfilling if I'm going to go blow my diet. 

via.

So you may be thinking "Well, diet soda is better for me" 

WRONG! So wrong... 

You will hear me rant and rave about artificial sweeteners all the time, plain and simple they are bad for you. HORRIBLE for you, and thats what diet soda is full of. If it has the word "ZERO" in the title-- that is basically a red flag for artificial sweeteners. 

Don't know what artificial sweeteners to look for? Here is a list of their tricky tricky names: 

• Acesulfame potassium (Sunett, Sweet One)
• Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)
• Neotame
• Saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet'N Low)
• Sucralose (Splenda)

Aspartame  which is  the technical name for NutraSweet & Equal,  is a common artificial sweetener with possible side effects that sound like they're out of a horror movie. From Hallucinations, seizures ,brain tumors, is it really worth intaking into your body for the sake of saved calories?

 Sucralose AKA Splenda isn't something to mess around with either. Recent studies show that Splenda can enlarge both the liver and kidneys and shrink the thymus glands. Sucralose breaks down into small amounts of dichlorofructose, which has not been tested adequately tested in humans. Splenda reportedly can cause skin rashes, panic, diarrhea, headaches, bladder issues, stomach pain, and that isn't even half the list.

Hmm how about this one for ya? 

The caramel coloring in soda contains cancer-causing chemicals.

"It seems that these days, everything has the potential to cause cancer, and soda is no exception. That brown coloring in soda is far from natural; it contains two chemical ingredients, 2-methylimidazole (2-MI) and 4-methylimidazole (4-MI), which have been shown to be carcinogenic in animal studies. Both Coke and Pepsi announced earlier this year that they would make changes to their caramel coloring to avoid placing a cancer warning label on their products."

via. 

With that said, coming from a girl who was a diet coke addict-- if you want to stop drinking pop, you can do it. I always thought "I don't like drinking water" ... but one day the lightbulb came on and hit me like a ton of bricks. Why waste calories on day to day beverages ? Empty calories people, it's total nonsense.