It’s a great way to start off the New Year and the new decade. And it just might be the most important New Year’s resolution you’ll ever make. Taking the 2020 Sugar Challenge by cutting back on added sugar can have a profound effect on your health and quality of life. 

As this New York Times article points out, added sugar lurks in nearly 70 percent of packaged foods and is found in breads, health foods, snacks, yogurts, most breakfast foods and sauces. So not even counting the sugar that naturally occurs in items like fruit and dairy products, the average American eats 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day. That’s about double the recommended limit for men (nine teaspoons) and triple the limit for women (six teaspoons). For children, the limit should be about three teaspoons of added sugar and no more than six, depending on age and caloric needs.  And when you add sugary drinks on top of that (a single glass can contain 11 teaspoons alone) and other sweet treats you can have serious health issues. 

Those issues can include heart disease, obesity, diabetes, liver disease and more. That’s why this year it’s important that you take the 2020 Sugar Challenge, and the New York Times article has a few tips to help you get started: 

• Cut the sugar out of breakfast (it tends to be the sweetest meal of the day)
• Cut down on sugary drinks (Syfo can help with that)
• Eat whole foods rather than packaged foods
• Try eating fruit for dessert
• Read the nutrition labels on the food you eat to look for hidden sugar.

When it comes to cutting down on sugary drinks, Syfo can help you rise to the challenge. Our delicious Naturally Flavored Sparkling Waters are free of sugar, artificial sweeteners, sodium, preservatives or other additives and are refreshing and satisfying on their own. To gradually reduce your sugary drink habit, you can always mix one of our flavors or our Original Seltzer with your favorite soda. You can read more on how to cut back on sugary drinks without going cold turkey in our post here. 

So start the challenge for the next seven days as the article recommends and make it a habit throughout the year. You can read more about the 2020 Sugar Challenge here. 

Since the first Super Bowl Sunday 53 years ago, the Super Bowl party has become an American tradition. Make your Super Bowl 2020 a healthy one with Syfo Beverages.

Syfo Beverages contain no sugar, sodium, artificial sweeteners or preservatives so they make a great alternative to soda for your Super Bowl party this year. Our Naturally-Flavored Sparkling Waters — which come in Tangerine-Orange, Lemon-Lime and Wild Cherry flavors — taste delicious, and our Original Seltzer makes the perfect drink mixer. All of our products are made with water that is not just filtered, but purified through reverse osmosis.

Partake in the Super Bowl snacking with perhaps a little less guilt by choosing Syfo Beverages. Click here to find a store near you that carries Syfo and stock up for this Super Bowl Sunday!

Yes, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, but if you’re trying to wean yourself off all those unhealthy sugary drinks, there’s no need to go cold turkey  Mixing one of our delicious Naturally Flavored Sparkling Waters or Original Seltzer with your favorite soft drink is a great way to cut back (a fifty-fifty mix is a good place to start).

Some customer favorites that we can share:

• Root beer with Syfo Wild Cherry Naturally Flavored Sparkling Water
• Sprite or Seven-Up with Syfo Lemon-Lime, Tangerine Orange or Peach-Pear Sparkling Waters
• Coke or Pepsi with Syfo Lemon-Lime Naturally Flavored Sparkling Water.

And just in time for a healthier holiday, here are more quitting tips from the health24 website:

Go gradual — not cold turkey. We’ve already covered this and dietitians agree: “Making drastic changes is not an effective way to create sustainable behavioral changes,” says dietitian Mascha Davis, RDN, author of the upcoming book Eat Your Vitamins.

Have a plan. Well we’ve all run into this with our New Year’s resolutions ) which are not far away). It’s one thing to tell yourself you’ll cut back, it’s another to have an exact goal that you can work toward. Have a plan to gradually cut back the amount of soda you consume, with Syfo’s help of course.

Reevaluate and adjust. Take time during the process for an assessment. How tough was the first step? How is your plan progressing? “Most people say that incrementally decreasing intake is actually an easy switch,” says Davis. Once you feel comfortable with your new soft drink routine, cut down more — have one soft drink four days a week and half a soft drink the other three.

Find balance elsewhere. Unfortunately, if you were consuming large amounts of caffeinated soft drinks, you may experience caffeine withdrawal symptoms as you cut back. To diminish the side effects, stay hydrated, eat a balanced diet, exercise and prioritize at least seven hours of sleep per night.

Be patient with your taste buds. Although cutting back on soft drinks may leave you with major sugar cravings at first, your taste buds will eventually adjust and you’ll stop seeking out super sweet flavors. When that happens your desire for soft drinks will wane.

Never say never. This cuts both ways. Never think that you can’t kick the habit, but don’t be afraid to give yourself a treat every now and then. Check out how other people have used Syfo to kick the soda habit on our Testimonials page.

You can read the entire health24 article here.

The New York Times called it the drink of this past summer. Business Insider highlighted the connection to millennials’ focus on health. No matter the perspective, millennials are flocking to sparkling water and leaving soda behind, leading to explosive growth for the category.

According to Technomic, since 2018 sparkling water has experienced double digit growth while the sales of soda have increased only one percent over the same span. Americans spent about $1.7 billion on sparkling water at restaurants alone in 2018.

Last year the NPD Group, a market research firm, surveyed more than 10,000 Americans about their drinking habits and found that we consumed sparkling water an average of 10 times per capita, which equates to about 3.3 billion servings. That’s four more servings per capita compared to 2013.

“The primary reason behind it is the whole health and wellness movement,” said David Portalatin, a vice president and food consumption business analyst at the NPD. “What the consumer doesn’t want is anything artificial or synthetic.”

And according to Business Insider, this trend is being fueled in part by millennials’ lifestyle choices, leading them to be dubbed the “wellness generation”. They’re looking for healthier beverage choices and Syfo Naturally Flavored Sparkling Waters certainly fit the bill. Our four delicious flavors contain no sguar, sodium, artificial sweeteners, preservatives or any other additives.

Of course it’s not just about health for millennials or any other group, it’s also about enjoyment. With or without alcohol, sparkling waters make for a fun refreshment at any time of year. Look for our delicious drink recipes perfect for the coming holiday season.

You can ready the New York Times article here and the Business Insider article here.

According to the latest research published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the answer is probably that diet soft drinks are not any healthier than their sugar-laden counterparts. The study found that regular consumption of all soft drinks — sugary and artificially sweetened — was associated with a greater risk of all causes of death.

Participants who drank two or more glasses of soft drinks per day had a higher risk of mortality than those who consumed less than one glass per month. The study, one of the largest of its kind that tracked more than 451,000 people in Europe, found different risks for each soft drink type.

Two or more glasses of artificially sweetened soft drinks a day were positively associated with deaths from circulatory diseases. For sugar-sweetened soft drinks, one or more glasses a day were associated with deaths from digestive diseases, including diseases of the liver, appendix, pancreas and intestines.

Although some researchers were surprised by the results for artificially sweetened drinks, this is not the first study to link artificially sweetened beverages to health issues that include cardiovascular disease, as seen is this study outlined in the AHA Journal. The health risks of sugary drinks have been extensively documented in various publications and on this site.

The bottom line — if you’re going to switch, make a real change. Syfo Original Seltzer and delicious Naturally Flavored Sparkling Waters taste great and contain no sugar, sodium, preservatives or artificial sweeteners. If quitting sodas altogether is too difficult, even substituting half soda with half Syfo can make a healthy change in your diet. Making the switch to Syfo from any kind of soft drink has helped thousands of our customers lead healthier lives without having to give up great tasting carbonated beverages!

You can read more about the study published in JAMA Internal Medicine here.