Save Money While Cutting Extra Calories!

Soda is responsible for a lot of unwanted extras

Think about how much money you spend in a week’s time just on beverages. Do you order soda along with your fast food? Do you stock the refrigerator with soda, bottled teas, and such? Do you order one of those fancy coffee drinks that run you over three bucks a pop? Do you drink alcohol when dining out? Each soda you order in a restaurant is about $2; each glass of wine or cup of coffee is about $3 to $4. If you just cut out two of these a day, you could save $6 a day or $42 a week or $2,184 a year.

And that’s not even considering the savings in calories:

• Each soda you cut out saves about 150 calories.
• Each fancy coffee drink you decline saves 200 to 450 calories.
• Each beer or glass of wine you pass up saves about 150 calories.

According to one estimate, soft drinks contribute 20% or more of the total daily calories for some segments of the American population. That’s a lot of calories—and money—that can be saved by cutting out or cutting down on soda. Switch to water, mineral water, or diet soda.

Keep in mind that although alcohol—particularly red wine—has shown some protective action toward heart disease, this is in moderate amounts, meaning no more than one drink a day for women and one to two drinks a day for men. According to cardiologists I’ve interviewed recently, many of their heart disease patients who do drink, drink too much. Many people can’t stop at one drink—but that’s a whole ’nother blog post. Suffice it to say that you should limit consumption of high-cost, high-calorie beverages.

By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
The Recipe Doctor Blog