 Hi everyone, thank you for tuning in today. My name is Christie and I'm here with one of my fellow nutrition interns Taylor and today we're going to talk to you about beverages and specifically how we can limit the amount of sugar that we are consuming in our beverages. So to start off hydration is very important. We need fluids to maintain our blood pressure, to help our blood carry energy and nutrients to our cells, to keep our kidneys getting rid of excess waste, and then to also keep us at the right temperature. So we lose water and fluids when we urinate through valve movements, sweating, and even when we're breathing too. We need at least 64 ounces of water a day to help our body function properly. So for reference this is a 32 ounce water bottle, so you need two of these a day preferably. Now sometimes we may need more or less water depending if we have any metal conditions or if you are a very active person you may need more as well. So always check with your doctor first to see if you need to restrict your fluid for any reason such as kidney disease or heart disease. Hi I'm Taylor, I'm the other nutrition intern so we can tell that we're hydrated by looking at our urine. Clear meaning that you are well hydrated and when it's bright yellow usually meaning that you're dehydrated and need some more fluid. So one rule of thumb is that when you're thirsty it's probably a little too late and you should catch up on drinking your water. So try to having a cup of water every hour during the work day and you can fill up like Chrissy said this 32 ounce bottle of water two times a day. So now we know why fluid is important so we want to make sure we're making smart choices with our beverages. Avoiding sugary beverages so anything that has added sugar to it is really important. So sugary beverages would be anything that has these sugar to make it really sweet so we think sodas, kool-aid, sweetened iced tea. Consuming these sugary beverages daily can increase your risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, dental cavities and non-alcoholic liver disease. To start going through our beverages we're going to start at the beginning of your day so some things you might drink in the morning. So first we'll go over coffee. Now coffee creamers can often have added sugar in them. So I brought in this Giovanni coffee creamer and looking at our nutrition label on the back here we have four grams of added sugar. So when we're dumping that into our coffee in the morning it can be a little hard to control exactly how much sugar we're putting in our coffee. So as an alternative what we can do is just add a little bit of milk or you know milk alternative like we have our soy milk here and then use your own you know teaspoon of sugar or however much you like just to sweeten it to your taste and that way we have more control over how much we're actually consuming. And as far as adding the milk to your coffee try to add just enough to change the color. I know my mom has a tendency to add a lot and it basically just looks like milk at that point so try not to do that. Also keep in mind when you go to some coffee shops so looking at Starbucks and Duncan a lot of their drinks that they advertise that look delicious have a lot of added sugar in them so thinking their frappuccinos all of those caramel lattes and everything they have a lot of extra sugar that we don't really need. So some tips for going into our coffee shops would be to ask for just a regular latte asking for skim milk or asking for sugar-free syrups and skipping the whipped cream if you can. I know at Duncan their regular syrups are already sugar-free so it's just a flavor pump whereas their flavor swirls have added milk and added sugar to them so asking for the flavor pump instead will help to reduce that sugar that you have. And you can always ask your barista to go light on the milk or the half and half to go light on the sugar or you can always just add your own cream or your own sugar yourself too. Then as far as tea so you can always add in here we have a little Lipton tea so you can always add some fruit or a little splash of 100% fruit juice. Also you can always add in just a little bit of a flavor to it so here we have this Neo just a berry flavor so you can add just a little squirt of that give it a little more flavor. You can also add something like lemon juice to give it that little tart flavor. And that can help reduce the sugar instead of adding a lot of honey or sugar. If you are someone that likes to sweeten your tea a little bit adding honey and sugar when the tea is still really hot will help it dissolve better and that way you can help measure how much you're putting in it a little bit better. Okay sugar alternatives they are not healthy or unhealthy they're just zero calorie sugar alternatives and we should use them in moderation. They're having a lot of rumors and claims that they cause cancer or that they're bad for our health but that is not true the FDA has made statements using research that debunk those claims. To keep them in moderation they are very very sweet and having these sugar alternatives in excess can train our brains and our taste buds that to want more sweet things so again we want to use them in moderation. So there are a lot of options. We have our saccharin our sweeten low our asper team and our equal and then we have sucralose and our splenda stevia and monk fruit are our natural sugar alternatives. They're all 200 to 700 times sweeter than our traditional table sugar so keep in mind if you are switching from sugar to sugar alternatives to you half the amount. So four packets of sugar table sugar you would switch that out for two packets of sugar alternative but again adding it slowly to keep it on the lower side. Another common beverage is Gatorade or other sports drinks or electrolyte replacement drinks. So the average person does not need those electrolyte repletions you know for me just going to work today I'm not doing any strenuous activity I really don't need that and there is a lot of added sugar in those as well. Now people who are athletes you know running around all day performing really strenuous activity they may need that extra sugar the extra electrolytes to keep them going throughout the day but again the average person does not need the extra sugar or the extra electrolytes from those drinks. Not least water I want to emphasize the myth that we need to have basic or alkaline water is not true and science has proved that that is not true so unless you have kidney disease your body will maintain the pH it needs to work its best just like our body maintains the temperature throughout the day it will also maintain the right pH so filling up your bottle of water with filtered tap water which is what this is filled up with is just fine you don't need to go buy the newest most expensive water bottle at the food store so any what I have is just okay and some tips to increase your fluid intake throughout the day are carrying a water bottle around I know that for me wearing a mask all day I forget to drink something and at the end of the day I realized I've had no fluids and there are some apps that remind you to hydrate they will ring or vibrate your phone every hour which can be very helpful to remind you to have a cup of water every hour and then one last thing is making sure you're drinking something with each meal. Thanks for tuning in for more information on nutrition and hydration you can look check out eatrape.org or myplate.gov keep hydrated