Can 7-Up be Considered a ''Natural'' Soft Drink?

"Uncola" is now being marketed as all-natural because it has just five "100 percent natural" ingredients:

• Filtered carbonated water
• Natural citric acid
• Unspecified natural flavor
• Potassium citrate.
• High fructose corn syrup.

The deceptive ploy here is to confuse natural with processed. While high fructose corn syrup is clearly not artificial, it is anything but natural.

But you don't have to believe me. Just go to my favorite nutrition journal and look at their full-text article review of fructose. 

They found that fructose consumption produces:

• Insulin resistance
• Impaired glucose tolerance
• High insulin levels
• High triglycerides
• Hypertension

Consuming highly processed high fructose corn syrup is not the same as consuming natural cane sugar. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should severely reprimand Cadbury Schweppes for their deceptive marking ploy that will only lead to further confusion and help many justify their use of 7-Up as a "healthy" choice.

Isn't that what the FCC is supposed to do, protect the consumer? Well, I won't hold my breath for them to take any action on this one. But what I will do is encourage you to have your friends and relatives who are interested in cutting through the deception to sign up for the newsletter so they can help sort through the deceptive marketing practices many companies use to increase their profits.

So any soda that has sugar in it should be avoided as the sugar over time can literally devastate your health and increase your risk for every degenerative disease known to man, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis.

However, for 10 years after I graduated medical school I could never determine which type of soda was worse, regular or diet. In some ways this is analogous to asking which would you rather get hit with, a hammer or a baseball bat? There simply isn't a good answer to this one.

About two years ago I started writing a book on Splenda and it will finally be published this fall, titled Sweet Deception. Writing this book required me to perform a very critical review of artificial sweeteners, and after performing that analysis I am absolutely convinced that artificial sweeteners are more dangerous than even high fructose corn syrup.

So don't fool yourself and say you are drinking diet soda because it is safer than regular soda. The reality is that it is even worse and will cause you to gain even more weight than regular soda.

If you have reviewed the nutrition plan of my Total Health Program you will find that eliminating soda and shifting to clean water is one of the most important basic physical changes you can implement in your health program.

If you have a stronger physical addiction, I encourage you to consider using the simple, yet highly effective and completely free, energy psychology tool called Turbo Tapping. Many people have successfully used this to eliminate their soda addiction.