Hot summer days in the past meant that some enterprising youngsters in the neighborhood would set up a lemonade stand at 5 cents a glass, or the family would share a pitcher of iced tea on the front porch to cool off.
Today, the drink of choice is a soft drink, usually carbonated.
And while the summer heat does call for more to drink, Americans have a powerful thirst all year long.
As a result, we each drink about 51 gallons of soft drinks annually — up 16 gallons from 1980.
The increasing popularity of bottled water has lead to an even greater increase.
In 1980, we each drank about 2½ gallons of bottled water. Now, that figure is just over 18 gallons a year.
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