We see our idol athletes in the commercial who suddenly stops running, sweating heavily, picks up a can or a bottle of energy drink, opens it, drinks it up and then makes a refreshing Ah! This is how energy drinks are commercialized. But just recently, The New York Times exposed the dangers that energy drinks predisposes us to.
The energy that energy drinks provide us mainly comes from its caffeine and sugar content. According to studies, caffeine contents of energy drinks can be as high as 500mg per serving; a 12 ounce cola contains only approximately 35 mg. That is too much caffeine for the body if you’ll try to imagine it.
As for the sugar content, energy drinks contain about 13 teaspoons of sugar per can and it can easily add up if you consume more bottles or cans. It can indeed give you energy but not for long. Feeding the body with more sugar that it needs, will make you fat since once the sugar levels are high the liver will act by storing extra sugars as fat thus decreasing the amount of sugar into a certain amount that the body can handle. This explains why it can only provide short-term energy needs.
If you’ll check on the label, it is easy to find the sugar content of energy drinks but in the case of caffeine, it would not be that easy to decipher how much caffeine it really contains. This is because caffeine is contained in other ingredients. Some ingredients of energy drinks may sound scientific but not all of them are proven safe. In some cases, energy drinks contain substances that are not controlled and potentially harmful. Always keep in mind that not all scientific sounding ingredients of foor are safe.
Giving all these evidences, why settle for energy drinks that will only give you energy for a minute while you can have fruits and vegetables which can sustain you with energy that’s good for a day? Energy drinks may contain minerals and vitamins that your body needs but it also contain harmful chemicals as well. So still, fruits and vegetables are the safest sources of all the raw materials that our body needs as compared to energy drinks.