Jonathan Steedman (00:02.318)
All right, team, we need to talk about energy drinks. So you have questions about energy drinks all of the time. This should be a relatively short podcast because there's not a huge amount to discuss. But often I get people asking, they safe? Can I have them? And so we'll go through that. I won't go through what they are. You probably know. Although there's a few different varieties, so we might go through that. Yeah, really what it comes down to, I think the biggest.

The I see with energy drinks is firstly, some of them are crazy high in sugar, so if it's not a zero calorie one, you need to be very mindful of the amount of sugar that you're having in that energy drink. It's usually the equivalent of like a soft drink, which is okay, but you just need to be mindful of where that's sitting in amongst your whole diet. If it is a zero calorie energy drink, that's also fine. The artificial sweeteners in those energy drinks are safe.

particularly in the amount that we consume them. So you don't need to worry about any of that. I think the big pushback against energy drinks is this idea, this naturalistic fallacy of this idea that natural is best. Like natural is safe, natural is good, artificial is bad. And that's way too overly simplistic. You know, the joke is always like bears are natural and not very good for your health. know, cyanide is natural.

So just because something is natural doesn't immediately make it safer or better and often I think that's what happens with those energy drinks. Also they come in the most aggressively colorful can so they just look crazy and I'm just now wondering if there's any you know the like biological thing of like if it's brightly colored it's bad for you it's toxic? I wonder if somewhere in our brains we're thinking that. Anyway that was a side quest. So if it's full sugar be mindful of the sugar.

If it's artificially sweetened, don't worry about it. You do need to be mindful of the caffeine levels, of course. This is the same for any caffeinated drink, tea, coffee, energy drinks, pre-workout, those sorts of things. So please just make sure if you're having an energy drink, first and foremost, you have checked the label to see how much caffeine it has. Some of them have 70 to 90 milligrams, which is about a shot of espresso. Some of them...

Jonathan Steedman (02:25.496)
have like 250 milligrams, which is obviously a lot more than a shot of espresso. And so depending on your caffeine tolerance, you know, if you have a relatively low tolerance and you accidentally consume 200 milligrams of caffeine, you're going to have a extremely bad time. It's technically safe, but it's not fun. always check that. And then of course that needs to be put in the context of your day and when you're trying to go to sleep. Caffeine does impact your ability to get to sleep.

or more specifically impacts your ability to get into those deeper restorative sleep cycles, your REM sleep and your deep sleep. So for some of you, might stop you from getting to sleep, but for others, it's a bit sneakier. You don't feel like it impacts your sleep, but it impacts your sleep quality. And so you sleep for eight hours and you wake up feeling like you've been hit by a bus still. If that's you, highly likely that one of the culprits is too much caffeine, too close to bedtime. So caffeine,

regardless of where it's come from, coffee, tea, energy drinks, has a half life of about, it's about five to six hours, but there's also a huge variance from person to person. Things like the pill can affect your ability to process that caffeine. And so we typically extremely conservatively and would allow even seven to eight hours to be perfectly honest. Cause the thing is if you have 200 milligrams of caffeine at lunchtime,

by 7 p.m. you've still got 100 milligrams of caffeine in your system, which is like an espresso shot or a shot and a half. just like my recommendations for any caffeinated beverage, for energy drinks, I would very much try not to have that after lunch, okay? Or at the very least, whatever your bedtime is, roll back eight hours, make that your last hit of caffeine for the day. So check the label, be mindful of when you're gonna be trying to get to sleep or.

Again, you could have a problem. The last thing I would say is if people are comparing caffeine, drinks to coffee, and by coffee I mean a normal latte or long black or iced long, you know, like not a crazy 500 mil venti monstrosity with cream and stuff like that. And if you like those, that's cool, but this doesn't apply. Just a standard cup of coffee versus an energy drink.

Jonathan Steedman (04:53.282)
I would say the pros for the energy drink if you're having a artificially sweetened one is it's gonna be lower in calories.

Jonathan Steedman (05:02.626)
And that's about it. The pros for the coffee are it's going to contain some nutrients. We know that coffee in particular has some good acids in it. There's some good micronutrients. There's actually some good stuff in coffee. And you see that habitual coffee drinkers tend to be a little bit healthier. I'm not saying go start drinking coffee if you haven't, but just coffee in and of itself actually contains some reasonably good stuff for you if you're having it sensibly and in sensible amounts.

depending on what milk you have with it, if it's like a fortified oat milk or almond milk, or it's a dairy milk or a soy milk, all of those contain some great micronutrients as well. Typically your B vitamins, some calcium, some phosphates and potassium. And so, and in the case of the dairy and the soy, you're also getting some protein. So a coffee made like that is going to give you more nutrients and nutrition than an energy drink.

Whether that's relevant for you or not depends on your individual circumstance, if you're tossing up, should I have a coffee or an energy drink? Those are the things that I would use to make my decision. So ultimately, if you don't want to drink energy drinks, don't drink them. But if you like the taste of them and if they fit in functionally with your day, they're very safe as long as you're being mindful of the sugar content, if that's relevant, as long as you're being mindful of the caffeine content, and as long as you're being mindful of the timing of them.

and the last thing as well, their effect on your teeth. They're pretty acidic. So just don't have one 30 minutes before brushing your teeth. So in the morning, if you brush your teeth, you want to give it a little bit of time, rinse with some water and give it 30 minutes for the enamel to kind of harden back up. Outside of that, if you're doing those things, energy drinks can absolutely fit in in the context of an overall healthy diet. If that makes you angry, please send all

hate mail to the PO box that I will absolutely put in the description of this episode. But until next time, have a good week!