What’s your favourite global drink?

Ever wondered what other countries are drinking? Well, you’re not alone, the American Society of Nutrition did, and they started out on one of the world’s most comprehensive studies to see what different countries were drinking. In all the drinking habits of 185 separate countries were analysed to see what the favourite beverage was.

There was, of course, more than an idle curiosity behind the research as the organisation set itself the task to assess the impacts of these beverages on global health and diet. The researchers took data from 1,100 global surveys that had seen 6.78 billion people take part in and looked for habits and trends.

The results showed that in Latin America sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice intake was the highest, in Sweden, Finland and Iceland milk was the favoured drink but mostly in those aged 12 and under but also in those aged over 72.  

Mexico has a particularly sweet tooth with 19 ounces of sugar in 2.5 cups of sweetened drinks every day. Suriname and Jamaica came close behind with 15 ounces a day, but China, Indonesia and Burkina Faso all seemed to shy away from the sweet stuff. Across the Caribbean fruit juices are the most popular drink by far, but again China shies away from fruit juices as does Portugal and Japan.