While the fizziness of soda can sometimes feel like a relief if you’re experiencing indigestion, there are countless long-term and serious health risks to sipping these sugary beverages with artificial additives. We checked in with a registered dietitian and health expert to learn more about another carbonated drink that has proven benefits for your gut health and can still provide you with a bubbly sweet treat (with natural ingredients) to support your weight loss journey! Read on for tips and suggestions from Dana Ellis Hunnes, PhD, MPH, RD, senior dietitian at UCLA medical center.
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How Replacing Soda With Kombucha Can Aid Your Weight Loss Journey
If your goal is to lose weight or burn more calories, drinking soda every day is only going to hinder your aspirations. With that said, Hunnes recommends kombucha instead, as this fizzy, fermented tea can offer the same bubbly feel that soda does, but without artificial additives and with living probiotics to help your gut, metabolism, and ability to burn more.
"Kombucha is a fermented tea beverage that is high in beneficial probiotics that is also high in antioxidants (from the tea)," Hunnes explains. The probiotics and the antioxidants, she says, are "anti-inflammatory and can aid in promoting GI health by helping to colonize the GI tract with healthy bacteria" (known as probiotics).
With many different brands and flavors, shopping for kombucha (rather than soda) can feel just as fun and exciting. The best of it all is, you know you're making a better choice for your gut! The more probiotics you consume from kombucha (rather than sugary, nutrition-deprived beverages), the more likely you can lose weight if you're already creating a balanced diet for yourself, drinking ample water and regularly exercising, Hunnes says.
The antioxidants in this drink, Hunnes adds, "also help keep the inflammation away, promoting the health of the probiotics as well." It is also thought that kombucha can "slow down the digestion of carbohydrates by, likely in-part, because of the healthy anti-inflammation effects it has on the GI tract," she concludes. We'll take those benefits over soda any day!
