What's in your drink these days?

Soft drinks - fizzy drinks, sodas, pop - are generally known to be bad for you. Yet the shops are full of them - we're obviously addicted.

Now, the EU has done a daft thing by endorsing fructose as the sweetener for soft drinks, saying it has a lower glycaemic index than sucrose, therefore will help fight obesity.

But when it comes to putting on weight, it's all about glycaemic load, not glycaemic index per se - as is explained in this article -

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/21/fructose-poison-sugar-industry-pseudoscience

It's scary to think that fructose causes seven times as much cell damage than fructose! But, because fructose does occur naturally in fruit, it's ok when eaten "with fibre" - ie, in fruit, as fruit. 

Fructose gets a lot of blame for all that's wrong with Western eating habits - but surely it's short-sighted to blame just one thing, even though fructose occurs in most if not all processed food (check the label). Blame could just as easily fall on food advertising targeted to children, on profit-maximising food manufacturers, on the food/agriculture lobby - or on individuals for not changing their behaviour.

Meanwhile, it's a good idea to stick to drinking water - though someone is sure to tell you that there's some reason it's bad for you.