Brand guide

How to quit Mountain Dew

Mountain Dew has more sugar and more caffeine per can than most big-name sodas. A 12 oz can lists 46 g of sugar in its USDA FoodData Central label record and 54 mg of caffeine on the PepsiCo product facts page. That combination is worth planning for.

By Patrick McCarthy, reviewed Oct 27, 2026

Not medical advice. QuitSoda is habit support for adults. If caffeine, sugar, pregnancy, medicines, or a health condition affect your plan, ask your clinician.

What is in a can of Mountain Dew

For comparison, a 12 oz can of Coca-Cola Original lists 39 g of sugar and 34 mg of caffeine. The full lists are on sugar in a can of soda and caffeine in soda.

Checked Oct 26, 2026. Larger bottles have more per bottle; check the label.

Plan for the caffeine first

At 54 mg a can, several Dews a day adds up. The FDA lists 400 mg a day as an amount not generally linked to negative effects for healthy adults, and suggests cutting back gradually if you want to reduce (FDA: Spilling the Beans).

Some options people use:

• Taper the cans before the quit date, for example one fewer can every few days.
• Keep caffeine from another source such as unsweetened coffee or tea, and quit the Dew itself.
• Quit both at once, knowing that some people report headaches or tiredness for a few days. See the soda withdrawal timeline.

Find your Dew moments

Write down each can for a few days: time, place, and what was going on. Long drives, gaming, late shifts, and the afternoon slump come up a lot. Give each moment a specific replacement drink and put it where the can used to be.

What about Diet Mountain Dew or Zero Sugar?

Switching removes the sugar on the label, but the habit and the sweet taste stay, and in the QuitSoda challenge they still count as soda. We have not listed caffeine numbers for the diet versions here because we could not confirm them from an official source when this page was reviewed.

Swaps

• Plain sparkling water or seltzer, with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime at home if you like.
• Unsweetened iced or hot tea, black or green.
• Unsweetened coffee, if the can was mostly about caffeine.
• Still water in a bottle you like, kept where the can used to sit.

Many Dew drinkers miss the citrus bite. A squeeze of fresh lime or lemon into very cold plain seltzer is the closest on-plan swap. Soda alternatives has more.