Is Beer Healthier than Soda?

This question is not a difficult one to answer, “is beer healthier than soda?” Yes. Without question. Yes.

To get right to the point, soda has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Even if you buy an all-natural, zero sugar, organic soda, you are still looking at an absence of nutrients and at least one form of toxin.

Beer, on the other hand, while typically alcoholic, carries with it a tremendous amount of nutrients and healthy calories.

Let’s look deeper.

What Is Soda?

Soda, soda pop, and cola are just a few of the names we use for sweetened carbonated beverages.

Soda was invented by the English in the late 1700s and has been a mainstay of the western world ever since.

The idea was simply to provide a fun and interesting beverage to people out and about.

Soda shops became a widely celebrated feature on main streets in towns across the west.

To make soda, you just add flavored syrup and maybe some coloring to carbonated water.

Most sodas that we think of today have their origin in a plant; coca cola began as coca leaves and kola nuts combined with carbonated water. Seven Up is a carbonated lemon-and lime-flavored drink. Squirt and Fresca both have flavorings derived from grapefruit.

A select few have their roots in true medicinal herbs, and those recipes were taken from indigenous cultures and were often fermented and brewed rather than merely mixed with carbonated water.

Root beer and ginger beer were both native to Northeastern cultures long before colonists arrived in the Americas, and settlers who engaged with natives learned of these highly nutritious beverages.

Root beer comes originally from the sassafras tree, which has been used for millennia to heal gut and digestive issues. The bark of the tree was harvested, boiled in water to make a tea, and then fermented to make the brew slightly alcoholic and thus easier to preserve.

Ginger beer has been a standard beverage everywhere ginger grows naturally, including Asia and South America. The rhizome is brewed as a tea and then can be fermented to make it slightly alcoholic. Ginger has dozens of health benefits, including anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, antioxidant, and anti-cancer properties. Not to mention it is good for a stomach ache.

Sadly, most commercial soda companies today make root beer without sassaras and ginger beer without ginger.

So, these sodas, too, are merely syrup, coloring, and carbonated water.

Health Data on Soda

The most recent health data on soda is unequivocal.

Sugar sweetened beverages like soda are a prominent contributor to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay, gout, and even arthritis.

The problem with soda is that it is often made with high fructose corn syrup, which is highly concentrated sugar, and when we include soda in our diet as a regular staple, we drink a ton of sugar and calories without realizing it.

On average, children in America drink over 500 cans of soda each year, and soda leaches calcium from bones, which is why we see a prevalence of arthritis in soda drinkers.

None of these statistics are to say that you should never drink soda. It can offer hydration on a particularly hot day. A real ginger beer or a lemon-lime soda can ease stomach upset, and if you are seeking caffeine for whatever reason, a Coke can give you the hit you need.

What it is to say is that even one soda a day can lead to serious health issues as soda provides no real nutritional value and only gets worse for you the more you drink.

How about beer?

Beer, in contrast, was designed as both a nutritious and fun beverage by our ancestors 10,000 years ago.

Anthropologists have shown that once a society settles down and can provide food and shelter to its people, alcohol is typically the next invention to follow.

Fortunately, beer was actually a healthy alcoholic invention.

Made from toasted grain that was boiled and then fermented, beer provided hydration, vitamins, minerals, and protein.

For thousands of years, beer was the only safe beverage for a family to drink, including children, and in times of famine, beer kept the most vulnerable alive.

Beer has been a staple across countries, societies, cultures, and even age ranges for thousands of years for a good reason.

Today, most craft beer is made true to those original recipes. If anything, the recipes are more well-controlled, minimizing unwanted bacteria and encouraging the growth of healthy bacteria and yeast, which are beneficial to human health.

Of course, large commercial breweries often pasteurized and filter beer, eliminating many of these benefits, and even sometimes adding high fructose corn syrup, so it is advisable to be aware of which beer it is you choose to drink when you do choose to drink.

Health Data on Beer

Ample studies have shown that beer has a wide range of health benefits, which include lowering the risk of cancer, controlling diabetes, preventing kidney stones, and reducing cholesterol and blood clots.

Beer is high in protein, B vitamins and healthy bacteria, all of which have healthy heart and brain benefits, as well as offering advantages to a healthy gut.

The negative side of beer lies solely in overconsumption, which means more than a drink per day.

Once you get into moderate drinking, you start to see effects like hypertension, kidney disease, and of course weight gain, obesity, diabetes and all the other health problems you may see when you consume far too many calories.

And obviously excessive alcohol consumption can lead to all kinds of problems like liver disease and a wide range of cancers.

The trick with beer is in extreme moderation, meaning no more than one beer per day and avoid benders that have you drinking several beers at once.

Beer Is Absolutely Healthier than Soda

In the end, there is really no competition.

Beer is healthier than soda.

The problems for both arise when they are overconsumed, but the health benefits of a single beer stacked against a single soda are beyond doubt.

Cheers!

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