Most people have foods and drinks that start to become a part of your daily life.

Sometimes those drinks in particular aren’t the best for you.

For me, I started to get addicted to Bang energy drinks.

After talking to my adviser Joanna Chadwick about writing an article about them, I planned to focus on the positive aspects of Bang.

She told me to do some research first.

I complied, obviously.

And I haven’t drank one since.

Bang drinks are advertised as a healthier alternative to mainstream energy drinks.

They actually aren’t. Bang drinks have 300mg of caffeine per can.

That amount of caffeine can cause everything from high blood pressure to heart palpitations to panic attacks.

Those are all things that I really could do without, obviously.

The company that produces Bang energy drinks, VPX, has developed a new compound called Super Creatine that sets it apart from other drinks.

Super Creatine however isn’t actually creatine at all.

When the body ingests the Super Creatine compound it doesn’t break down into creatine.

You try and give a company the benefit of the doubt, but VPX commissioned a study to test this compound on rats. This proved that Super Creatine isn’t actually creatine.

VPX knows that it doesn’t and still continues to market it as such.

As a consumer, that hurts.

The nutritional aspect of the Bang energy drinks are bad, too.

The two other ingredients that are large parts of the marketing scheme for VPX are branch chain amino acids and coenzyme 10.

Branch chain amino acids have been positively viewed amongst athletes and the fitness industry. But in small quantities, like the amount in Bang energy drinks, it does little to nothing for you.

Coenzyme 10 on its own can help treat heart disease, migraines and Parkinson’s disease, but when its mixed with the common ingredients of an energy drink it doesn’t do hardly anything.

So all that’s left is a common mainstream energy drink.

With a lot of caffeine and carbonation.

Before discovering Bang energy drinks, I was under the impression that energy drinks are terrible for you.

You know what? They definitely are terrible for you.

Most of the time when people like a certain food or drink it is hard for them to give it up if it has bad long-term effects.

Not me.

Those simple facts are just enough to keep my hands off of a Bang can — maybe not forever — for a long time.