101–110 of 185 posts
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My Grandfather used to use it to take the rust off his car.
In my country Coke is used by plumbers to unblock drains and pipes. Just knowing that has always discouraged me from drinking it.
Not that I'm a fan of Coke, I rarely drink it. Although it IS great for an upset stomach.
I wish Coca Cola would make a acid free version of coke. The Phosphoric Acid adds a slight tang to the drink, but in exchange absolutely destroys your teeth over years of consumption. For regular drinkers like myself I'd happily pay a small premium to buy the "acid free" version of the drink. The sugar still does damage but with both the acid AND sugar it is like a double whammy of "badness" (acid which destroys your…
Of course you realize that if there wasn't any Phosphoric Acid in the drink, you would vomit due to the intolerably high concentration of sugar. The acid is fooling your body into drinking the stuff and besides damaging your teeth depletes calcium ions.
Carbonation makes soft drinks taste a lot less sweet; compare a "flat" glass of a soft drink with a carbonated one and the effect will be obvious.
The phosphoric acid (or citric acid in some countries) is what (in addition to caffeine, which is bitter) gives Coke its sour "bite", but it doesn't really change the sweetness that much.
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> I wish Coca Cola would make a acid free version of coke. Good luck with an acid-free version of a carbonated beverage.
If you're referring to carbonic acid, it's too weak to cause tooth decay (at least, according to my reading of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_erosion ). But, in addition to phosphoric acid, Coke also has citric acid. I'm not sure you could remove both and get a drink that's still tasty enough... EDIT: See below. Carbonic acid may not be as meek as I thought.
Coke changes ingredients around to fit local regulations. In Europe, Diet Coke uses acesulfame potassium ("ace-K"), aspartame and sodium cyclamate. Cyclamate's effect is to neutralize some of the bitterness of ace-K and aspartame, but it's banned in the US and some other countries in the 1950s due to research determining it to be harmful. The ban is being upheld despite later research showing that the original science was flawed.
You can make your own almost-Coke... OpenCola, the open-source cola. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCola_(drink)
Anyone tried it?
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Try drinking water and eating fruit when you feel the urge to have a soft drink. Maybe you do already. It worked really well for me.
Seriously I think outright rejection of all sweetened drinks is probably the best ROI for a dietary change one can make. The whole truth about what soda pop and other heavily engineered processed foods do to one's metabolism and general health is going to be shocking to people when it is finally revealed, and I think tooth enamel is the least of your worries.
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Yeah, that's definitely wrong. It looks like it's been an unsourced fact in there since the beginning of 2008. Enamel erosion due to acid is tied to the acidity of the mouth, which, if the pH drops low enough, starts the demineralization of teeth (note, however, that this is a dynamic process, with systems in place to remineralize teeth, and that this dance happens every time we eat or drink something). Typically car…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11556958 "Dissolution levels with all of the mineral waters were very low and for several still waters were undetectable. Sparkling mineral waters showed slightly greater dissolution than still waters, but levels remained low and were of the order of one hundred times less than the comparator soft drinks. De-gassing of a sparkling mineral water reduced its dissolution, but the total…
"The complex and heterogeneous mineral compositions of mineral waters could influence the dissolution equilibrium of apatite in enamel and controlled addition of several ions to ultrapure deionized water was investigated. Calcium ions led to the greatest reduction in hydroxyapatite dissolution, but their effects were moderated by other ions including magnesium and sulphate. Thus, mineral waters appear to offer a safe alternative to more erosive acidic beverages and their complex mineral ion compositions may positively influence any dissolution processes at the tooth surface."
This effect can be surprisingly strong, e.g. here's a study from a few years later showing "that fortifying apple, orange and grapefruit juices with calcium prevented enamel erosion and decreased root surface erosion (P [1]
In fact buffering is well known to protect calcium phosphate in teeth from dissolution (e.g. an older study here[2] which points to the saturation of the same calcium and phosphate ions that the study you cite does as the source of protection), so it's actually quite odd that they would suggest that minimal dissolution from sparkling mineral water would suggest that the carbonation may not be an important factor of erosive potential.
It's hard to judge too much from just an abstract, however, and I can't find a full copy anywhere. That suggestion may just be an off-hand one.
To keep you drinking they add plenty of sodium (50mg+) masked with sugar, HFCS, or sweeteners. They also add caffeine as a diuretic to keep consumers drinking, too. And then they market it to children, lovely people. Check out Dr. Robert Lustig videos. Also, the book Salt, Sugar, Fat, about food industry engineering.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/13/262175623/coffee...
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This is borderline insane. Pure sugar results in huge swings of actual blood sugar levels. Coke has zero fat, protein or complex carbohydrates all of which are much better macronutrients than pure sugar. If Coke is your only option, sure, but I've never seen a doughnut so terrible that I'd take a coke instead.
Let me get this straight: you're advocating commercial dough deep fried in corn or soy oil over some sugar? You have no idea what you're talking about. Sugar does not produce major swings in blood sugar levels unless you're diabetic. Have a working pancreas? Good, then sugars are a perfectly healthy source of calories which your system will merrily mop up into glycogen. Anyway, starch produces a larger insulin respon…
Article title should probably contain (2013).