Soda a larger part of our lives than we think?

The number of calories that soda contributes to our daily intake is a hotly debated topic. Soft-drink manufacturers don’t believe that soda should be singled out in relation to the nation’s obesity, and critics argue that Americans are slowly drinking themselves into a world of motorized scooters.

The Center for a Livable Future (CLF) recently took issue with an argument from Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent that only 5.5 percent of our daily caloric intake comes from soda — a statistic attributed to the National Cancer Institute — as part of his editorial in The Wall Street Journal this month on why exercise is a better health care strategy than taxation. The CLF cites a study from the University of California-Berkeley that suggests soda actually accounts for up to 7.1 percent of our caloric intake.