Health

Soda Is No Longer America's Most Popular Beverage

Americans downed about 12.4 billion gallons of soda in 2016, but that wasn't enough to take the top spot.

Soda Is No Longer America's Most Popular Beverage
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Bottled water is now more popular in the U.S. than carbonated beverages.

Beverage Marketing Corp. reports Americans downed 12.8 billion gallons of bottled water in 2016 — that's about 400 million more gallons than they consumed in soda.

The popularity of packaged water started when Perrier was introduced in the 1970s. Since then, it's been on a pretty consistent — albeit slow — climb to the top.

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Soda is declining probably because more people know it's linked to weight gaintooth decay and other medical problems.

Despite soda consumption numbers going down, The Wall Street Journal reports it still made more money than water.

Researchers behind the study expect bottled water to keep trending up.