BEANS Says, Re-Think Your Drink!!!

How much added sweeteners including sugar do you think the average American eats in a year? Almost 100 POUNDS! That’s almost a quarter pound PER DAY! Shocking? The BEANS teen educators thought so too. This week the BEANS Program focused its lessons on sugar consumption, conducting a “Re-Think Your Drink” lesson at after school programs throughout the community.

But before the teen educators were out warning young children about the negative health impacts of sugar consumption, they were able to spend some time learning all the facts and taste testing some DEEELICIOUS drink alternatives.

The BEANS teens, like many of us, were shocked to learn the amount of sugar pumped into all the sodas, teas, juices, and energy drinks out there. Can you believe that there are 14 teaspoons of sugar in every 20 ounce Coke? Think Gatorade, Sunny D, Nestea, or Capri Sun is an exception? Think again! They are chalked full of sugar just as much as the rest of them.

The teens learned all about the sugar epidemic in our country and the links between excessive sugar consumption and health problems such as Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease and obesity. They were also able to calculate the amount of sugar in different soft drinks and also learned about the excessive amount of sugar in many of our food products, including yogurt, breakfast bars, many breakfast cereals, crackers, and microwave dinners.
After learning about what food and drink items to avoid, they were able to taste test almost 15 different healthy drink alternatives, such as unsweetened teas, coconut juice, and sparkling flavored waters. But by far the favorite healthy drink alternative was Kombucha! The teens loved it!

The teens then spent the week teaching younger children in the community all that they had learned, by conducting their own “Re-Think Your Drink” lessons at local after-school programs. The teens made flavored waters (cucumber mint, lemon, and lime) for the kids to show that yummy drinks don’t have to be filled with sugar. The flavored waters were a hit, and some of the kids even went home with the recipes and made them with their parents! Just another example of how the BEANS teens are helping to improve the health of our community.