I. Drink. Soda.
october 17, 2009 07:53am – in Korea
I drink soda at the rate of about a liter a day. Recently a growing contingent of people smugly brag that they don't drink soda, and do so with an obnoxious "that stuff'll kill ya" tone of voice. I don't begrudge them their inclination, and far be it for me to demand that they explain themselves. But God help me, I just don't understand what's driving them to exclude this simple pleasure from their lives, or think less of me for not doing so. Soda is AT WORST a relatively harmless vice. Although it wasn't always...
Some people (My ancestors, probably) have shied away from drinking regular water whenever possible for thousands of years, preferring wine, mead, beer or whatever alcoholic drink was lying around because bad germs can't reproduce very well in alcoholic drinks, and also because they get you drunk. I'm not saying our species has learned to avoid water because it's somehow dangerous, but on the whole, cultures generally seem to get around to finding something more fun to drink, as evidenced by so many distinct, separate cultures figuring out on their own how to make booze.
Carbonated soft drinks came along in the thirteenth century. The first thing that would have been close to what we have now was called Dandelion and Burdock. It was fizzy (due to slight fermentation) and sweet, and the flavor would have been close to root beer since it came over time to have sassafras root extract added. Dandelion and Burdock was later proven to give people cancer due to a chemical that got in there called safrole. Non-carcinogenic versions of these are still available.
Through the ages, most of these soft drinks have been hyped up with supposed medicinal properties, in spite of all the cancer. Water was first carbonated on its own in the late 18th century by suspending it over beer and trapping the carbon dioxide as it dissipated. As soda fountains became popular, it stood to reason that they would pop up in pharmacies since the syrups that would be mixed in would all be marketed as medicines. Today, people can no longer be swindled into thinking something with no nutritional value is actually medicine. Ever. Never happens.
Not the least of these ersatz health tonics was the stimulant-heavy Coca Cola, with coca leaf extract, in addition to extract of kola nuts, which are rich in caffeine, and about ten other euphoria-inducing stimulants. Initially, the cocaine in Coke was a huge, jolting dose. Now, while there is still coca leaf extract in Coke (contrary to popular belief), there's probably no cocaine in it. Though there probably is still extract from kola nuts in it.
And that real kola nut taste is probably why it tastes good. kola nuts have been gnawed on in in Africa for thousands of years, and remain popular in conservative Muslim countries where they can't drink alcohol. That's how they dose themselves with caffeine, while we take it in our beverages. Today, real kola is absent from most "cola" drinks, replaced with cinnamon and vanilla and caffeine that was made in a lab somewhere.
Today we have canned "energy drinks," which are delivery systems for massive doses of caffeine. Not content to call a caffeine high "energy," they also supplement you with dubious extracts like guarana, a plant that gives you "energy" because there's caffeine in it, and taurine, a chemical extracted from bile that has a long and confusing list of health effects (cats need to eat the stuff every day or they go blind, but there's no scientific evidence that it gives you energy). Most damning of all, however, I don't hear anyone ever sip an energy drink, and say anything positive about the flavor.
As for me, I'm concerned, as you might have guessed, about the excessive carbohydrate content of the sodas I drink. There's a well-known debate raging over whether the high fructose corn syrup present in most sodas at the moment is unnatural, or harmful to people. A peer-reviewed 2007 study seemed to prove that HFCS, disturbingly, suppresses feelings of fullness, and promotes type-2 diabetes. High fructose corn syrup, it should be noted, is hugely different from the delicious glucose syrup (probably "Karo" brand) that your mother uses to sweeten fudge. High fructose corn syrup is not available as a retail product. It's a chemically complex substance, the synthesis of which requires safety goggles, and involves small amounts of sulfuric acid. In my opinion, HFCS doesn't taste quite right. It's not quite as bracing as artificial sweeteners, but the flavor is not quite as soft and agreeable as sugar.
To me, when it comes to sugary sodas, you can't beat "Mountain Dew Throwback," made with honest table sugar (admittedly not something that occurs in nature). You likely know that Mountain Dew has a lot of caffeine, and is favored by extreme athletes, but did you know that in each batch of Mountain Dew there is a faintly noticeable, but real, drop of orange juice? I like the faintly tropical, citrus, taste, well suited to greenish yellow color. Some people find the color repellant, and I can see why. My other favorite soda is cactus cooler, an orange-pineapple concoction you can only get in Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. Unfortunately you can't get it with table sugar instead of corn syrup. But both of these are for special occasions. I have a hard time keeping my conscience clear about knocking back a 12 ounce drink with ten calories per ounce, no matter which -ose I'm dealing with.
This is why I usually drink diet cola all day long. This means I consume enormous amounts of the non-caloric sweetener aspartame. Aspartame is such a controversial compound that in a 1999 press release, the FDA, well-aware that the stuff had fierce opponents, called it "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved," in an effort to dispel rumors. On one hand Aspartame has not been proven to have any detrimental effects on human health in literally any reasonable dosage (to wit, eighteen cans of diet cola consumed all at once is the stated limit lest one suffer possible side effects like "momentary nausea" and "headache," but this limit was placed by determining the lowest dose deemed positively harmful, and dividing it by 100). Articles preaching the dangers of aspartame also advertise that it will give you brain seizures and cause you to -of course- gain weight (conventional wisdom states that if any words of wisdom are counterintuitive, they must be true), but these don't cite credible evidence. Oh and it'll definitely cause cancer, according to your aunt.
Aspartame is one of the many flavoring additives we allow to be put in things we consume. But being sweet without any calories, it's perceived, at least in my observation, as something that must be too-good-to-be-true (And why? It doesn't taste THAT good). It's true that there's a warning about it right on the can, but that's because it causes brain damage in people with phenylketonuria, a genetic disorder that effects one in 15 thousand people. It's true that it hasn't been around very long, and you're right, it took until smoking cigarettes had been around for a while for people to realize it was giving them cancer. Never mind that cigarettes are a crude combustion of plants and paper, while aspartame is a single, refined chemical compound. Aspartame is, essentially, guilty until proven innocent. Or have the bastards at Nutrasweet (formerly a division of the notorious Monstanto corporation, so we're talking about bastards of the highest order) gotten to me?
Another more convincing argument against drinking soft drinks is the damage they do to the environment. In some countries like Mexico, Indonesia, and South Korea, you can get sodas in reusable glass bottles. Here in America, and most other countries, they come in cheap, disposable containers, or, worst of all, at mom-and-pop restaurants they come in styrofoam cups. The Horror. Despite the relative efficiency of recycling aluminum, most recycling is still an enormous burden on our resources. What's more: plastic recycling is laughably inefficient.
(A store shelf stocked with better-tasting Mexican recipe coke, featuring [natch] table sugar among other subtle differences.)
To answer this in my own mind, and probably nowhere else, I've recently purchased one of 7 Eleven's more absurdly American products: The 64 ounce "Ultimate Gulp" reusable plastic soda mug. The advantages of buying soda this way are numerous. In addition to purchasing just the liquid, without any disposable container, I prefer the taste of Diet Pepsi from a fountain to any other diet cola in a can. I can also add a drop of Dr. Pepper, which I find masks the aspartame aftertaste. Lastly, every fill-up is 1.9 liters and only costs 99 cents.
(A mating pair of "Gulps" in their natural habitat.)
Still, these arguments are of no help when I make a first impression on someone with my Ultimate Gulp in my hand. It doesn't help that it's decorated with holographic football players and the words "YOU WANT SOME OF THIS" (That's not a question). The fact is that in our culture, I'm a strange specimen. As a relatively socially conscious person and a soda drinker, I'm outmoded in this century, like the odd baseball player who still smokes cigarettes. I should be getting my caffeine from cups of coffee, a more socially acceptable drug delivery system. But it's more than a drug for me. I love the fizz, the sweetness, the hissing sounds, the bubbles, the whole experience. And if you don't like it, well look at my cup. Do I look like I care?