Beverage Association Rep Says Soda Hydrates Kids - Nutritionists Cringe

Cover your ears: A recent NPR report quotes a  representative of the soda industry claiming that soda is nutritionally just about equivalent to water.

Who in their right mind, aside from someone whose bills are paid by the sugary beverage industry, would say that soda is a suitable replacement for water in a kid's diet? Maureen Storey of the American Beverage Association did just that when Michelle Norris, host of All Things Considered, asked if she thought soda was "nutritionally sound."

This was Storey's idiotic response: "There are some studies that show that particularly with children, children who have been exercising may not drink enough water to get back to the hydration point that they need to be at. So with a little bit of flavoring and a little bit of sweetness, they will drink enough then to get back to where they need to be." We'd love to see those studies -- you can bet your last Coke they're funded by beverage makers.

I'd laugh, except it's too scary to think about how dangerous such absurdity is to our children's health. And when that absurdity is being spouted by people with pocketbooks as fat as they clearly want our kids to be, it gets even harder to stomach.

And speaking of hard to stomach, Storey's "little bit of sweetness" actually equals eight teaspoons of sugar in each can of soda, two more teaspoons than an adult woman should consume in an entire day. Kids should get even less. And we haven't even talked about the caffeine, high-fructose corn syrup and chemicals that constitute most sodas.

Her logic perfectly reveals how little grasp of — or regard for — reality this industry has.

Photo credit: worak via Flickr