Saturday, July 12, 2008

Mythbusters, Diet Coke, Mentos and Artificial Ingredients

Ever seen the show Mythbusters? It's a really interesting show that explores the science behind "myths" and everyday things that the average person has no idea of the workings behind it.

While we were on vacation, we saw an episode that showed the combination of mentos and diet coke causing a bubbling geyser of beverage. (Sorry, I was unable to embed the video of their investigation, but here's the link.) The guys looked at the mentos candy and diet coke ingredients, one by one and figured out which ingredients caused the reaction. They did this by adding powdered versions of all the funky stuff in diet coke one at a time.

Now I have to say, I like my diet coke. A lot. But it kind of makes me wonder why phosphoric acid is in it- that stuff is used to prevent/remove rust in addition to flavoring colas. Weird!

I'm not sure if I could wean myself off the stuff (although I will make sure not to eat mentos at the same time!). Does anyone know of a "natural soda" that would be as good as the old faithful?

3 comments:

Melissa said...

as my friends and i are root beer fanatics, we always look for brands that are high fructose corn syrup-free. We've found most of those sodas to also be generally free of any other preservatives (e.g. funny acids, colorings, etc.). We usually go for Virgil's which can end up being a bit pricy, but definitely worth it. There's also Boylan's and Polar (cream soda and root beer in bottles) that are more reasonably-priced soda bottles that are also all-natural. No HFCS, etc.

If you want to look into sodas that are fruit-induced, we definitely love to splurge every so often with Izze, Steaz, and Jones Soda. If you visit Nano again sometime soon, you have a small (but good) chance of finding some of the "weird" (non-popular, but most likely all-natural) brands on sale. Oh, and Hansen's are supposed to be good too.

One thing that I do like to do personally is make fruit soda yourself. Instead of buying into the Coke or Pepsi Corporation, I just buy 100% fruit juice and flavored seltzer and do a 1:1 ratio of both to make a good spritzer. Feels like a soda, but is completely good for you!

Melissa said...

Or if you insist on still having that good ole' coca-cola, buy coke during major Jewish holidays, or products from other countries. They don't put HFCS in their soday because a) it's not kosher, and b) their HFCS is more expensive than sugar.

If you're a Dr. Pepper fan like me, you could also travel to Texas (I think?) where the recipe originated from and buy a couple cases from the factory. They've just recently started making special cases of the original recipe (Doc was very strict about having ONLY good sugar in his Dr. Pepper)!

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