One Day me and my younger brother was sitting with a conversations on Soft Drinks and from there i started research on cold drinks So lets start with the facts and myths related to it.

Imagine half a glass of sugar, can you imagine eating all of it at once?
Isn’t it difficult even in your imagination? But in a 600ml bottle of Mirinda,
there’s this much sugar. Soft drinks have become so common in our lives that no matter which city, country, you are living in, you can always find a bottle of Soft drinks like Coca Cola, Mirinda,Sprite etc
Do you know, that only 2 countries remain where Coca-Cola is not sold?
North Korea and Cuba.

Soft Drinks Are Everywhere || Dark Truths of Soft Drinks

In all other countries, Places from cinema halls to cricket matches,
from college canteens to wedding functions, children to senior citizens,
you can find people drinking soft drinks everywhere.

According to Coca-Cola’s website every single day, 1.9 Billion servings of Coca-Cola are sold.
Only one drink is sold in such a big number
If we include all soft drinks, the bulk quantity of it consumed worldwide is unimaginable.
So i find this blog to show you the reality of soft drinks in all over the wolrd.
Once you know about them, show this to your friends and family so that they can know what they consume.
Let’s begin the blog with the myths of soft Drinks This isn’t aimed to scare you with lies. I want to tell you what you are drinking. One of the biggest myths about soft drinks is that it is called as ‘toilet cleaner’.
Can Pepsi and Coca-Cola be compared to toilet cleaners? Answer to it is, NO.
People use this comparison often because toilet cleaners contain certain acids, and cold drinks contain certain acids too. The acids in cold drinks are citric acids, and phosphoric acids.

Citric acid can be found naturally, you get citric acid in lemons and oranges as well.
Phosphoric acid is a common Food Grade Additive. It is assigned the number E338.
Whenever there’s high sugar content, mould and bacteria can easily grow there.
Phosphoric acid prevents the growth of that bacteria. Not only will you find the phosphoric acid in soft drinks. Also in jams, processed meat, cereal bars, bottle coffee beverages, baking powder,
protein drinks, and in fact in cheeses also. Interestingly, these two acids
are also found in several toilet cleaners as well. Sometimes the homemade toilet cleaners,
lemon juice is added to vinegar and baking soda. Even so, comparing soft drinks and toilet cleaners to each other, will be wrong. Because as you would have studied Chemistry at school,
that there are some mild acids, the dilute acids, And there are concentrated acids,
they are stronger. Phosphoric acid is a weak acid. Toilet cleaners have stronger chemicals.
Such as Sodium Hypochlorite and Hydrochloric Acid.

These are used to clean strong stains. Hydrochloric acid is in our stomachs too.
It is one of the main components of gastric acid. Because chemistry is complex.
The pH level of a soft drink is the same as the pH level of a toilet cleaner.
The pH level of soft drinks is normally around 2.5 and pH level of lemon juice is around 2.0 to 2.6.
Pomegranates have a pH level of around 2.9. Grapes are around the same level.
If this myth is clear to you that you cannot compare both.
Let’s try to understand why soft drinks are dangerous. I won’t talk about ‘secret ingredients’ here .
The some frequent news stated that pesticides were found in cold drinks.
“The soft drinks that are being sold in Delhi. Coke brands had 30 times higher pesticide residues
and the Pepsi brands had 36 times higher pesticide residues.” This happened again in 2004, 2006, and 2016.

Let’s check their calories, It’s written that 100 ml contains 55 calories.
So in a bottle of 600 ml, 55 x 6 = 330 calories.
To draw a comparison in a bottle, there are as many calories,
as in 2 aloo parathas. [potato stuffed bread, fried in oil.]
Not only this, if you eat a masala dosa, with a bowl full of sambar and coconut chutney,
the amount of calories you consume, would be as much as this, if not less.

You might think that it is not a big deal. The point is that, when you eat aloo parathas or masala dosas,
it will be your lunch. You will feel full with that. But if you drink a bottle of Coca-Cola or Mirinda,
will that soothe your hunger? These extra calories are useless.
You will need to have lunch or dinner in addition to it.
In normal foods also, there’s protein, sodium, potassium, vitamins, fibres, fats, you get many nutrients in it.
Empty calories which have no nutrients. There’s only sugar, A high content of sugar. There’s so much sugar that you can’t even believe it.
For comparison,
Imagine same amount of sugar in an empty glass, there’s 13.8 grams of sugar in 100 ml in Mirinda.
So in the bottle, 13.8 x 6 = 82.8 grams of sugar, It fills half a glass, This much sugar can make you truly sick.
We get natural sugars from foods like lactose in milk, fructose in fruits you get these natural sugars
through which you get sufficient energy, These natural sugars completely fulfil the needs of your body.
Added sugars are the sugar that we put into our food, The extra sugar we put in while cooking, or preparing the food.
According to the American Heart Association, our bodies do not require any added sugar.
To function properly. So the body requires 0 added sugars.
How much of it can our body tolerate? What level of added sugar is safe for our bodies?
The recommended limit of it for an adult man is 36 grams in a day,
and for an adult woman is 25 grams of added sugar in a day.
In this 600 ml bottle of Mirinda, there are 82.8 grams of added sugar.
With one bottle, you will surpass your daily recommended intake.
Thats why it is so risky to consume such huge quantity of added sugar daily is enough to make you extremely sick.

It wouldn’t happen instantly, if yo will be regular on it for years then later you will start getting pain in joints, suffer undue skin ageing, liver damage, Type 2 diabetes, a pancreatic breakdown, kidney failure,
the risk of heart attack increases manifold and obesity.
When most people think about sugars, they shrug it off as being a bit overweight.
But the rest of the diseases, very few people know about them,
these occur because of excessive sugar. The most dangerous thing about sugar is that
you can get addicted to it in the same way as people get addicted to drugs.

In a 2017 Study sugar addiction has been compared to cocaine addiction, because when you see people around you people who drink soft drinks drink them quite regularly. You will find very few people who say
that they drink soft drinks once every 3-4 months. People addicted to sugar either they will regularly drink soft drinks or if they do not regularly drink soft drinks, they will eat candies, chocolates, sweets, ice creams, things that are high in sugar. With lots of added sugar, they will consume these things regularly.
In other countries, sugar overdose has been debated for some time.

Therefore in 1964 PepsiCo launched Diet Pepsi, and in 1982, Coca-Cola launched Diet Coke.
In both versions of diet soft drinks, contains 0 calories and 0 added sugar.
Does this mean it is safe to drink? Artificial sweeteners are used in diet soft drinks.
Such as aspartame, saccharin or sucralose these artificial sweeteners have a controversial history.
There have been many studies links them to cancer. Because of this, they were banned in many places.
But there were studies by other organizations that who said there were no links to cancer.
In the most recent study conducted 5 months ago on March 24, 2022, was carried out in France on 100,000 adults, they followed the effects on these people for 7-8 years.
They found that aspartame increases the risk of cancer.

If you look at the official website of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)
you find out that aspartame has been found to be linked to cancer.
In other studies, these have been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney and liver toxicity,
mental problems and even birth defects. But I’d still like to give them the benefit of the doubt,
let’s assume the studies done in their favor are correct, and the rest are wrong.
The rest of the ingredients, this is just the beginning. Another harmful ingredient in them is caramel.
Dark brown, black color of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, it’s made of caramel.
From 2012, linking caramel to cancer. What is caramel? It’s basically burnt sugar. Sugar is heated with ammonia and sulfites. Doing so will release the by product 4-MI. 4-methylimidazole.
Several studies have linked it to cancer and is listed as a carcinogen in the state of California.
It is stated by the law there if the amount of this carcinogen in any food or drink is more than 29 micrograms, then it is not allowed. But less than 29 micrograms is allowed.

According to newspaper articles from 2012, in samples of soft drinks was found to be 138 micrograms.
More than four times the legal limit. After this controversy, Coca-Cola said that it will change its pattern,
and use a new formula that will have a lower 4-MI. But they made these changes only in America.
In countries like India and several other developing countries, there are similar laws for that.
Similar reports surfaced again in 2014 when the organization inspected various soft drinks
for levels 4-MI. Again, these soft drinks contained exceeding levels of 4-MI.
On a side note, I would like to tell you if the food burns past a certain point, it is not good for your health.
If the bread in your toaster has turned black, or your vegetables are so burnt that you can see black parts on them, Don’t eat them! They contain an increased level of acrylamide.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Acrylamide is a probable human carcinogen.
There’s a good chance you’ll get cancer from it. The same logic is used here when you burn too much sugar, to make caramel it can also cause cancer. People drinking Mirinda and Fanta might think so
it is good news for them and that they are safe, because their drinks are not black.
The next piece is for you! Why won’t it end?
In drinks like Mirinda and Fanta, where does this orange color come from? Synthetic food coloring is used, its code designation is E110. Also known as Sunset Yellow FCF,
its chemical name: disodium 2-hydroxy-1-(4-sulfonatophenylazo) naphthalene-6-sulfonate.
It is an azo dye made from petroleum. But it is very important for your life. In 1973 pediatrician Benjamin Feingold found that artificial food flavours led to hyperactivity in children. It also affected the attention span of children. That’s why 22 years ago in the year 2000,
countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden, banned this Sunset Yellow FCF.

In 2007, South Hampton University conducted a study, found it to be associated with E110
attention deficit in children. Hyperactivity disorder has been observed in children.
After this research study, British Food Standards Agency, began to pay attention to this issue in the next 2008. They recommended the government that artificial colors in food should be banned.
They tried to extend this ban to the European Union. In 2010, this regulation was transferred to the European Union that if artificial colors are found in some products,
companies would have to put up labels stating that “may have an adverse effect on children’s activity and attention”
After that, several companies stopped using them. But only in the European Union,
because of the regulations there. Once again, in countries where these regulations did not exist,
companies continue to abuse the rules, or lack thereof. And continue to use the same ingredients. When you turn a bottle of Mirinda in India, you will find it written. Contains permitted synthetic food dyes, and there is ‘110’ in the bracket. 110 is the code name of Sunset Yellow FCF. Companies are very cunning.
They spend money fighting court cases in every country.
According to PepsiCo’s official website spent $3.6 million in America,
for activities related to lobbying. Lets know about lobbying, it is basically legalized corruption.
It is legal in countries like America companies to pay political parties for political parties to pass judgments and judgments in their favour. These companies are worried about their profits.
Not about people’s health. In countries where there are no regulations, they keep selling cheaper, cancer-causing products and nobody cares. Even now in 2022 India there are no such regulations for E110.
You can find it in many packaged foods.

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