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© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
A few years ago, a soft drink called Slice was introduced. It was advertised as containing 2% real juice. They were bragging. I was shocked. Only 2%? I would take 50 cans of Slice to give you one can of juice. Didn't Orange Crush, one of my favorites, contain way more than that? Nope. 0% real juice.
They had let the cat out of the bag. Isn't that a good cliché? OK. We knew it all along. Soft drinks were empty of nutrients. Water, that's mainly what you get from soft drinks. They are a tastier form of water, which we all need. They have a small amount of flavorings, some of which are actually good for you, others are mostly neutral. And they have carbon dioxide, which doesn't hurt you at all, except to make you belch, and make the water acidic. And they have sugar, way too much sugar. That's the bad part, isn't it.
When I was young, I was told, "An iron nail will dissolve in a glass of Coke. Just think what it does to your stomach." Actually, Coke doesn't do much to my stomach. How many weeks did that nail last? A glass of stomach acid would dissolve that nail much faster. Orange juice would dissolve a nail faster than Coke would. That was one of those home experiments that didn't prove what it was supposed to.
Soft drinks are not enhancing our health, particularly. But, besides having too much sugar, they are not as evil as my mother claimed.
The sugar people claim that sugar is good for you. They have firmer ground to stand on than the cigarette people used to have, when they said that smoking was good for you. Sugar is a natural food that your body can burn right up. Sometimes we can use that. But, most of us get way too much sugar.
I am told that soda pop contains phosphoric acid, which drastically increases the acidity, and that this is a health problem.