Most diets recommend avoiding caffeinated beverages or cutting back on them because caffeine stimulates both appetite and insulin production. Generally, cutting back on caffeine isn’t a bad thing. But something that’s been even more on my mind is sweetened beverages.

I find that I don’t drink a lot of plain water, nor do a lot of people. If it’s not soda, it’s tea, or coffee, or iced tea, or lemonade, or a flavor packet mixed in with plain water, or “infused” water containing a hint of flavor via essential oils from citrus or herbs. And that’s just the various stuff I’ve been known to drink. When we expand it out to the general market, there’s caffeinated water, water with vitamins, water with fiber… you name it.

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