ABSTRACT
We have learned that we are what we drink more than what we eat. In the past half-century, the world has undergone a profound transformation in a shift from drinking minimal calories from beverages to consuming hundreds of calories a day from them. More recently, really in just the past two decades, we have learned that we compensate very little in our food intake when we consume additional calories as a beverage. A large literature that encompasses short-term to long-term feeding studies, longitudinal epidemiological studies, intervention studies, and random controlled trials has emerged. We know that the form of the beverage does not matter, as there appears to be little variance in compensation when the beverage is fat-, carbohydrate-, or protein-based.1 We also realize that we have consumed water for hundreds of thousands of years but only recently have shifted to consuming any amount of caloric beverages. In this chapter, we review current knowledge about the relationship between beverage form and energy intake and the subsequent relationship with an array of cardiometabolic problems. We also discuss additional health problems linked with excessive rened carbohydrate intake and excessive fructose intake. We then present some historical evidence on beverage consumption and discovery and review recent patterns and trends of beverage consumption.
