This Soda Contains The Highest Amount Of Sugar
There's no denying it — most Americans consume way too much sugar. According to the American Heart Association, the average adult ingests 77 grams of the sweet stuff each day from several different sources, which comes out to about 60 pounds of added sugar per year. That is more than double the recommended daily allowance for men and triple for women. And what is the culprit of the majority of this excess? Beverages. Sugar in a liquid form comprises about 47% of all our added sugar intake, with soft drinks being responsible for 25% of that.
We all know soda tastes good, which is why people drink it, but when you factor in some scary statistics — like the CDC reporting over 130 million Americans are struggling with diabetes or prediabetes (with many of them not even aware they are) and such numbers rising at an alarming rate (via Diabetes Research Institute) — it's probably time to start paying attention to where precisely all this sugar is hiding.
As with all foods and drinks, soda's nutritional info varies quite a bit from brand to brand and flavor to flavor. So before you grab that next cold, bubbly soda to get your caffeine fix, find out which canned king sits on the throne of sweetness.
The sweetest of the best selling bunch
Dubbed nectar of the gods by its many fans, Mountain Dew takes the crown for the soda with the most grams of sugar, according to Business Insider. Coming in at a whopping 77 grams per 20-ounce bottle, per PepsiCo, that's more than 18 teaspoons of added sugar (via American Heart Association). After just a few big swigs of the product, you'll be well above your recommended sugar intake for the day.
Caffeine Informer reports the citrus-flavored carbonated thirst quencher has hung out in the top five of America's favorite soft drinks since 2014, and according to Newsweek the brand accounts for about $7 billion in PepsiCo sales. Given sugar's potentially addictive properties, as shared by Healthline, such high numbers may come as no surprise. Business Insider has Cherry Coke and Wild Cherry Pepsi rounding out the top three popular syrupy soft drinks, both trailing pretty close behind Mountain Dew in their total grams of sugar per serving.
Though almost all sodas contain some amount of added sugar, if you're concerned about your intake you may want to reconsider next time you decide to "do the Dew."