Walk down any street in America and take the time to notice the choice of drink that people, particularly you people, are walking around with. Attend a sports function and notice what the fans are drinking while watching. Walk around any office, store, or other place of business in America and take notice there of what adults are drinking. There are so many different drinks available today that the average American can walk into any store and choose a bottle of drink in just about any color and flavor imaginable – and with additives like caffeine and tons of extra sugar.
Anytime we are thirsty we can simply choose whether to drink sugar, caffeine or both. The simple choice of drinking water, plain old water, just doesn’t enter into the minds of most people anymore. Perhaps it is due to the mass marketing of all these neat, interesting, keep-you-awake drinks that are slamming us from every side. Whether on television, radio, bill boards or on every social media site available as well as banner ads on websites, these ads for drinks certainly aren’t for simple water. There is no way to escape the mass advertising of these different drinks. The market for flavored water is amazing. Unfortunately, the obesity problem in this country can be largely contributed to what we choose the drink.
Soda pop, strawberry milk, or juice used to be a treat that kids got on family trips or special occasions. Flavored milk was only available at school one day a week or even one day a month. Now these drinks are simply within reach at any given minute of the day to our children because adults want them, too. The real problem is that these drink companies aren’t just stopping with adding flavor and water, now they have added caffeine and called them “energy” drinks. The caloric intake of these drinks is amazing but we don’t even look at the label to see how many servings one container is worth or how many calories we are consuming. We simply pop the top and guzzle.
While schools have begun to listen to the experts and in many places have removed the soda machines from the schools, juice machines and flavored water appear to still be acceptable. However, these two also pack a punch when the amount of sugar in each one is considered. According to one site, Sunny D and Gatorade have just as much or maybe more sugar and calories than the banned sodas have.
A study conducted by the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan found that 85% of 8th graders said they consumed sugary drinks at least once a week and 26% to 33% reported they actually drank sugary drinks daily. Drinking these high calorie sugary drinks daily can actually increase a child’s odds of becoming obese by a whopping 60%. However, middle school isn’t the only level of students involved in choosing drinks that are potentially the unhealthiest drink available. America’s high school and college students have been taking advantage of the “energy drinks”. These drinks contain between 70 and 80 mg of caffeine per serving, some of them have as much caffeine as slamming 14 cans of Coke all at once. We all know that the first couple of years of college are as much about having fun as attending classes. Sometimes the partying takes precedence and sleep takes the back burner, then when it’s time to study or cram as they call it, the energy drinks come out to help keep them awake. And as with anything in college there are always experiments, like mixing energy drinks and alcohol. These can actually be deadly. It’s pretty tough to finish college much less cram for a test when one is passed out cold or worse from mixing two drinks that shouldn’t even be on the same shelf let alone in the same body.
After all this information passes through your mind, consider drinking water. Yes, to many kids it is boring; to others it simply doesn’t taste good. But to your body it is the healthiest thing you can drink. The taste of water can actually be changed without adding sugar and flavors. It is possible to have great tasting water right out of the kitchen faucet that everyone in the house would be happy to drink. While the endless choices of drinks have been developing over the last few years so have the choices in home water treatment systems. We no longer have to go out and buy bottled water to get the right taste. It is a matter of knowing what systems are available and what they can do for us.
There have been advancements made to water softener systems, water coolers, water filtration systems, and reverse osmosis systems, all to make them economically fit for individual homes. These water treatment businesses have known from the beginning that it all comes back to water, our bodies require water. Since the largest complaint about water has been the taste or flavor of it, these companies have been making advancements in technology to change the flavor. Making chlorinated city water taste like good old country well water to encourage people to get back to drinking the one thing that the body actually craves. For instance the RWI Water Systems Drinking Water System has three unique features that have never been offered on a drinking water system before now. This system allows the consumer to choose the flavor of the water, use less water than other types of systems, and tell the consumer a detailed system status. In a nutshell, this system is smart enough to save you money and your health.
With the current economic situation, we are all looking for ways to save money. Consider all the money being spent every day on all these flavored sugary drinks from the store. Take that money and purchase your own home water treatment system. You now have great tasting water that is for one thing cheaper than all the other drinks and most of all its healthy for you. Water no longer has to have the taste of chlorine from the city water treatment facility; it can have the flavor of spring water, drinking water, or purified water all with right system. Americans not only need to be making wiser choices with our money, we also need to be making wiser choices for our body, health and that of our children. Drinking water can do all of these things for us, it’s a simple choice really that makes good honest sense.
