Sugary drinks – what they do, and what to drink instead

Sugar you drink and sugar you eat do not have the same effect, and the difference is fullness. A sweetened drink is absorbed quickly and barely registers as food, so it does not make you eat less at the meal that follows. It adds to the day's total instead of replacing part of it.

The result over years is weight gain, a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and — because sugary drinks bathe teeth in acid and sugar together — a lot of dental decay, particularly in children.

South Africa introduced a Health Promotion Levy on sugary beverages in 2018, one of the first countries in Africa to do so. It is charged per gram of sugar above a threshold, which is why many manufacturers reformulated their drinks to contain less sugar rather than pay it.

That is worth knowing for a practical reason: the sugar content of familiar drinks has changed since then, and reading the label on a bottle you have bought for years is no longer pointless.

• Fizzy cool drinks, including the ones sold as 'sparkling fruit'.
• Squashes, cordials and powdered drink mixes made up with sugar.
• Fruit juice and fruit nectars, including 100% juice.
• Energy drinks — usually both very sugary and high in caffeine.
• Sweetened iced tea, flavoured water and vitamin waters.
• Sweetened milk drinks, drinking yoghurts and flavoured maas.
• Coffee and tea with several spoons of sugar, which for many households is the largest single source.

The South African dietary guidelines put it simply: drink lots of clean, safe water. In practice, most people need a step in between rather than a cold stop.

1. 1Cut the sugar in your tea or coffee by half a spoon at a time rather than all at once. Taste adapts within a couple of weeks.
2. 2Dilute juice and squash with water, then keep diluting further.
3. 3Make water more interesting: a slice of lemon, cucumber, mint, or a rooibos teabag left in cold water in the fridge.
4. 4Keep a jug of cold water in the fridge. Cold and available beats warm and in a tap almost every time.
5. 5Treat cool drink as an occasional thing rather than the household default.

Artificially sweetened drinks contain little or no sugar and do not damage teeth in the same way, so as a step away from full-sugar drinks they are a reasonable one — especially for someone with diabetes.

They are not a health food, and the WHO does not recommend non-sugar sweeteners as a way to control weight over the long term. Treat them as a bridge to water rather than a destination.