How I Justify Drinking My Sweet Tea

I got to thinking about it one day and wanted to see if my sweet tea recipe was really better than drinking a coke, both by volume and by how much I'd normally drink of it. I needed to do a little bit of math to help with this project, but math isn't the worst thing ever, right? So, what do we need to know?

Let's start with the hard parts: Calories per gram of sugar - between 3.5 and 4 (source). How many grams of sugar are there in a cup? From the same source as previous, approximately 200. Now we're primed for some math.

Normally, I like between 16 and 20 fluid ounces of whatever it is I'm drinking. Personal preference, I'd call it. And having consumed far too many 20 oz. cokes, I can attest that it's exactly what I want almost every time. Ok, so according to Coca-Cola, a 20 oz. coke has 65 grams of sugar and 240 calories. Given that many of my meals with this diet are right around 240 calories, it seems rather silly now to blow an entire meal by simply drinking a coke, plus not near as filling.

My sweet tea recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar per 3.5 quarts of water (and a gallon sized tea bag with Lipton or Luzianne being my brands). But, how does that compare to a coke? With 32 fluid ounces per quart, 3.5*32 = 112 fluid ounces per brew. Sugar per ounce would be 200 / 112 = ~1.785 g/oz. So, for a 20 oz. serving of tea, I'm looking at roughly 35.7 grams of sugar. Taking the worst case of 4 calories per gram, 20 ounces of my sweet tea is just under 143 calories.

So, I save myself 97 calories aka nearly 6 minutes on the elliptical by simply drinking tea instead of coke. Conversely, if I want to indulge, I know I can pay it off with 6 extra minutes on the elliptical. Neat :)

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't first mention that this is the recipe my mama taught me, so props and thanks go to her. And now, the recipe:

Recipe: Sweet Tea

• 1 Gallon Size Tea Bag (or 4 single serving tea bags)
• 1 Cup of Granulated Sugar
• 3.5 Quarts of Water

Boil at least 1 quart of water. Remove from heat, add sugar and tea bag. Let rest for 10 minutes. Remove tea bag and stir while adding remaining water. For stronger tea flavor, use more tea bags.