Did you know that Americans drink almost more soda than water?
Water is the most important nutrient for the human body. Water comprises about 75-80% of the human mass and is vital for every cell. Since it is the body’s most abundant substance, water is a very important component in your overall health.
The term “soft drink” is misleading because it is anything but soft on the body. In fact, there are many potential health risks associated with soft drinks. Many soda drinkers are not aware of the dangers of this beverage.
Origins
Soda pop actually originated in pharmacies. It was used as a drug or pharmaceutical substance. Several inventers of certain brands of soda pop, such as John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola, were pharmacists who patented soda pop as medicine. Adding to its appeal, Coca-Cola was known to relieve indigestion and hyspepsia.
Because soda pop was supposed to be a great reliever of dyspepsia, a brand was finally produced whose name was hidden in the word “dyspepsia”. We find Pepsi within the word dys(pepsi)a.
7-Up was originally a drug or medicine used on mental patients. It was given to people in insane asylums. The name 7-Up derives from the drug originally having seven ingredients, with the seventh ingredient being lithium, a known chemical drug that is given for depression.
Incidentally, soda pop originally started out as liquid drug (medicine) sold at the local pharmacy.
So why do we drink soda pop? Well, because we’ve been conditioned to drink soda pop and we enjoy the taste. But it’s potentially quite dangerous to our health.
Sweeteners
Soda pop contains some of the most harmful synthetic sweeteners in existence. Many brands of soda pop contain aspartame and saccharin, both of which are artificial sweeteners and proven to cause cancer.
Aspartame
Aspartame-which is 200 times sweeter than sugar-is an artificially made sweetener composed of two amino acids – phenylalanine and aspartic acid. It contains 10% methyl alcohol, which is also known as methanol (a light volatile pungent flammable poisonous liquid alcohol used as a solvent, anti-freeze, or denaturant for ethyl alcohol and in the synthesis of other chemicals). It’s also a known neurotoxin that impairs brain health and function. A neurotoxin is a toxin that can adversely affect fetal brain development in unborn babies.
At the temperature of 86 degrees farenheit, aspartame converts into a neurotoxin called formaldehyde. Since the human body’s natural temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, aspartame will automatically convert into formaldehyde once inside the human body. Those who consume aspartame are essentially embalming themselves with formaldehyde.
Saccharin
Saccharin is just as dangerous and toxic as aspartame. Saccharin is a non-caloric petroleum derivative that is 300 times sweeter than sugar. Saccharin is absorbed but not modified by the body. It is excreted unchanged in the urine. Saccharine causes bladder cancer in lab animals, which means that it will also cause bladder cancer in humans.
Other sweeteners
High fructose corn syrup is another dangerous sugar that many soda brands contain. Once ingested, this harmful sugar goes straight into the blood and adversely affects blood sugar levels almost instantly.
ACE-K is one of the latest synthetic sweeteners added to soda brands such as Pepsi-Cola. This drug adversely affects the brain.
Other brands of soda pop may contain corn syrup or dextrose, both of which are harmful to your health.
Sugar
Some soda pop brands outright use sugar in addition to other artificial sweeteners. Sugar is the number one legalized drug on the planet. It kills more people in one day than all the illegal drugs combined within 1,000 years.
One can of soda is equivalent to 11 tablespoons of sugar. No wonder soda pop consumption plays a role in diabetes, kidney failure, and anxiety. Mark Pendergrast, author of “For God, Country and Coca-Cola” correctly states that soda is “99 percent sugar water.”
Nowadays, public schools have soda-dispensing machines throughout the campus of junior high schools and high schools throughout the nation.
Coloring
Caramel coloring creates a brown color of the cola beverages. Caramel is nothing but burnt white sugar. So soda pop literally contains sugar on top of sugar. Soda pop simply has too much sugar in it and thus is a major drug.
Caffeine
Soda pop contains high amounts of a drug called caffeine. Caffeine belongs to a chemical drug group known as Methyl-Xanthines.
Twenty to thirty percent of American adults consume more than 500 milligrams of caffeine per day. This is twice the amount that doctors consider to be a large “drug dose.”
Digesting caffeine places severe stress on your heart. It also drives your nervous system into a state of sympathetic alert, the state you attain when a wild animal is chasing you and you are running for your life.
Hundreds of thousands of young American schoolchildren are drinking a soda in the morning before class starts every single day. Caffeine and sugar consumption is the a major reason why anxiety is a problem in American public schools. Caffeine is one of the world’s most psycho-active drugs and sugar is the most addictive drug on the planet.
Caffeine depletes you in B-vitamins, especially B1 (thiamin). Vitamin B1 deficiency symptoms include fatigue, nervousness, general aches and pains, and headaches.
If your adrenal glands do not react to the stimulation of caffeine, it could mean that you are headed for a physical breakdown due to adrenal exhaustion.
When you get into a state of sympathetic alert, your digestive system turns off because your blood is now sent preferentially to your muscles, lungs, and heart.
If you have any food in your digestive tract, it is subject to fermentation, and eventually becomes rancid from sitting too long in the intestinal tract that is shut down. Instead of being nourished by your food, your body becomes poisoned by the rotting products of incomplete digestion.
Caffeine also has diuretic properties that put extra stress on the kidneys and causes dehydration. Caffeine makes the nervous system work harder than it needs to.
Various studies have linked caffeine to birth defects. Research shows that caffeine interferes with DNA replication and depletes the body of vital nutrients, especially B-vitamins, Vitamin C, zinc, and potassium. Caffeine can also prevent the absorption of iron.
More than all other drugs combined, Americans have a physiological and/or psychological dependency on caffeine.
Most well-known and liked soda brands are loaded with caffeine. Consider the following:
- Mountain Dew – 54.0 milligrams
- TAB – 46.8 milligrams
- Coca-Cola – 45.6 milligrams
- Diet Coke – 45.6 milligrams
- Shasta Cola – 44.4 milligrams
- Dr. Pepper – 39.6 milligrams
- Pepsi-Cola – 38.4 milligrams
- RC Cola – 36.0 milligrams
Preservatives
Soda contains preservatives as well. The chief preservative in many soda brands is sodium benzoate. Sodium benzoate is used to preserve freshness. Soda has to be preserved because it is a dead substance. If something needs to be preserved, then it is dead.
Most soda brands contain “taste freshener” chemicals such as erythorbic acid and potassium benzoate. It can also contain “flavor protector” chemicals such as calcium disodium. All of these chemicals are synthetic. Once inside the body, they help to preserve the taste of other chemicalized foodstuffs in addition to corrupting and polluting the taste buds.
Other ingredients
The acid in soda is erodes and weakens teeth, more specifically, the enamel. Calcium is the most alkalizing mineral in the body. Teeth are alkaline in nature due to calcium, the most alkalizing mineral in the body. Because soda is greatly acidic, it corrodes the teeth and enamel.
Another sinister ingredient some soda pop brands may contain is polyethylene glycol. Glycol is also used as an anti-freeze in automobiles and an oil solvent.
Phosphoric acid is another chemical that is found in soda. It is very acidic and it dissolves calcium out of the bones. This plays a major role in the development of osteoporosis, the weakening of the bones and skeletal structure. Due to the bones becoming fragile, a person becomes more susceptible to broken bones.
Phosphoric acid also damages the skeletal system and greatly disturbs the body calcium-phosphorus ratio. It fights hydrochloric acid, a chemical that is needed for digestion in the human stomach.
Carbon dioxide makes soda effervescent. Carbon dioxide is a natural waste product that the body produces. Carbon dioxide is released with every exhalation. When you drink soda, you are putting carbon dioxide back into the body even though the body naturally expels it with every exhalation. Essentially, nature takes out the carbon dioxide and then people put it back into their body. Soda is predominantly carbon dioxide and colored sugar water.
A few brands of well-known soda pop brands indirectly contain synthetic phenylalanine, a synthetic amino acid that plays a role in phenylketonuria. Penylketonuria is a metabolic disease that is characterized by the inability to oxidize a metabolic product of phenylalanine and also by severe mental retardation. This is why a few soda cans warn the consumer (who may be a phenylketonuric) that the beverage contains phenylalanine. Everything containing aspartame also contains phenylalanine.
Cleverly hidden within the chemical name, glycerol ester of wood resin, is actually wood alcohol. This type of alcohol is terrible for human health. However, it doesn’t stop the soda manufacturer from using it in their products.
Petroleum-based chemical color dyes or lake dyes are dangerous to human health. Yellow Lake, Blue Lake, Red Lake, and Green Lake are all carcinogenic or cancer causing.
Other ingredients in soda pop may contain citric acid, sodium citrate, sodium polyphosphates, potassium sorbate, and gum acacia. Just about every soda pop can or bottle may have the ingredient “natural flavor” listed, but this isn’t what is seems. Natural flavor is an umbrella term that allows companies to hide synthetic chemicals under the banner of that which is natural. If the flavor is natural or derived from natural sources, why not list them on the product? Well, clearly because the truth of the matter is that the “natural flavor” is derived from unnatural and synthetic chemicals that pollute and corrupt our taste buds and our blood.
A recent health finding shows that leptospirosis is caused by digesting soda. Leptospirosis is caused by dried rat urine on soda pop cans. Occasionally, rats may pee or urinate on the soda cans in many stores and markets. The urine dries on the can and then unconscious consumers purchase the can of soda and drink from the can, exposing their mouth to the dried rat urine. If you are going to drink soda, make sure to drink it from a glass or cup.
Rat urine contains very toxic and fatal substances. A New York City University study showed that the tops of soda pop cans are more contaminated than public toilets and are full of so-called germs and bacteria.
Flavors
Soda doesn’t contain the real source of its flavor. If you drank a strawberry soda and read the ingredients on the can or bottle, you rarely see the word strawberry under the list of ingredients. However, most soda labels tell you in fine print that the beverage is artificially flavored. The artificial flavoring industry is very good at what they do.
“The flavor industry is highly secretive. Its leading companies will not divulge the precise formulas of flavor compounds or the identities of clients. The secrecy is deemed essential for protecting the reputation of beloved brands. The fast food chains, understandably, would like the public to believe that the flavors of their food somehow originate in their restaurant kitchens, not in distant factories run by other firms. The New Jersey turnpike runs through the heart of the flavor industry, an industrial corridor dotted with refineries and chemical plants. International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), the world’s largest flavor company, has a manufacturing facility off Exit 8A in Dayton, New Jersey; Givaudan, the world’s second-largest flavor company, has a plant in East Hanover. Haarman & Reimer, the largest German flavor company, has a plant in Teterboro, as does Takasoga, the largest Japanese flavor company. V. Mane Fils, the largest French flavor company, has a plant in Wayne, Bush Boake Allen is in Montvale, and Heavenly Flavors is in Bayonne. Dozens of companies manufacture flavors in New Jersey industrial parks between Teaneck and South Brunswick. Indeed, the area produces about two-thirds of the flavor additives sold in the United States.” Fast Food Nation. Schlosser, Eric. New York: Houghton Mifflin (2001), pg. 121
pH
All soda is 100% acid forming regardless of the type or brand. It has a pH balance of 2. This is a very low pH number.
Our bodies were made to have a natural pH balance of 7.3, which is slightly alkaline. A pH of 6 is ten times more acidic than a pH of 7. A pH of 5 is 100 times more acidic than a pH of 7. A pH of 4 is 1,000 times more acidic than a pH of 7. A pH of 3 is 10,000 times more acidic than a pH of 7. And a pH of 2 is 100,000 times more acidic than a pH of 7.
One can of soda pop greatly lowers your alkalinity. Once can of soda is 100,000 more acidic than your natural pH level.
A pH of 2 means that a person would have to drink 32 eight ounce glasses of alkaline water just to neutralize the effect of one can of soda.
There is nothing soft about soft drinks. All soda is harmful to your health. Unfortunately misleading, diet soda is just as worse as regular soda. If you drink diet soda and don’t physically exercise, the sugars in diet soda will convert into fat.
Solutions
People who find themselves addicted to soda pop should replace the soda with cider. There are many carbonated ciders that taste comparable to soda. Some even contain pure fruit juice and sparkling mineral water.
Cider is far better for your health than any brand of soda pop. The Crystal Geyser carbonated sparkling fruit juices are also healthier alternatives. Along with fruit cider, these make for a good transitory beverage for the soda pop addict.
So while you may still be ingesting carbon with cider and/or sparkling fruit juice, you are not digesting the harmful chemical sugars, caffeine, phosphoric acid, caramel, phenylalanine, and preservatives that are commonly found in soda pop.
“Virgils” makes pretty near-healthy soda pops that include the traditional American favorites such as root beer, sarsaparilla, black cherry, and ginger ale. These compare well to the average soft drink company.
If you enjoy ginger ale and/or root beer, you can find a few good brands on the shelves of health food stores.
In general, the less soda, the better. If you continue to drink soda, the healthier brands are generally more expensive. However, the cost outweighs the health benefits when compared to the average soda pop.
Vincent Stevens is the senior content writer at Dherbs. As a fitness and health and wellness enthusiast, he enjoys covering a variety of topics, including the latest health, fitness, beauty, and lifestyle trends. His goal is to inform people of different ways they can improve their overall health, which aligns with Dherbs’ core values. He received his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Redlands, graduating summa cum laude. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
