DARK SIDE OF COLD DRINKS / CARBONATED DRINKS
Before jumping into the core matter, I just want to share a real-life experience of my own. I have a friend, he is Billy (Name changed). One fine morning we were going to market, but en route to the market he fainted suddenly. I tried to wake him up, but he doesn't wake up. So I hurriedly took him to the nearest hospital. And you know what after checking the doctor said that his liver was damaged badly due to excessive cold drinks consumption. He needed an urgent liver transplant, else he won't be able to survive. The medical bill was Rs. 35.00 lakh (Rupees thirty-five lakh only!!!!). Luckily his family went for the operation, and he was lucky enough to survive, but you too drink soft drinks and if something like this happens to you then what will you do?
Because if you consume cold drinks, then there are very high chances that you are at a risk. It can be that your liver has been damaged too. Very few people know that 1 liter of Coke has 106 grams of sugar, which is three times more than the doctor-suggested daily added sugar level. Excessive sugar disturbs your blood composition. As a result, to fix that thing, your liver needs to work even harder. Have you ever experienced that if you had a cold drink on empty stomach? And after that, you had a severe stomach ache. But have you ever thought about why all this happens?
Now let us explain the science behind it. Normally whenever you have food your food has carbohydrates, and that carbohydrate is converted into glucose by your body so that it can be used as an energy source (The process is known as Gluconeogenesis). Now to convert it into glucose your body release hydrochloric acid from the stomach and liver releases bile juice. Using which, food carbohydrates are converted into glycogen and this glycogen is stored inside your cells as stored energy. But that hydrochloric acid remains in your stomach for sometimes and in that case whenever you add some sugary drink to your stomach, then at that time that thing quickly gets digested in your stomach. But the acid remains stays in your stomach for sometimes due to which you feel uneasy and have a stomach ache. Research by the Harvard School of public health shows, that every year, 1.8 lakh obesity-related death attributed only to a cold drink. But how did all this happens and if all these things are so dangerous why no one took any action against this cold drink?
This story starts in 1767. When an Englishman, Joseph Priestley made such a device, with the help of which carbon dioxide can be infused in water. Water and Carbon Di Oxide (CO2) equal carbonated water. The thing which became the most important thing in every cold drink was the taste of this carbonated water of Priestley was very good. Seeing this, he started to serve this thing to all his friends, and it started to get popular. In 1792 Priestley produces a paper in which he produced carbon dioxide and infused it into the water how to produce carbonated water. Presented the formula of it to the world and in the late 18th century people started to add flavors to this carbonated water. And you know what, at that time this carbonated water is not known as a soft drink but, was used as a medicine. But to effectively seal and sell this bottle in this industry was the most problematic because the carbon dioxide gas inside the bottles came out easily. But finally in 1870 Hiram Codd named person solved this problem. Codd started manufacturing these bottles. In 1886, the famous brand of today, Coca-Cola established after which Pepsi, 7up, Sprite, Fanta, and many more soft drinks came into the market. Within a few years, cold drinks became a mainstream drink. Everyone started having a cold drink, from children to an adult.
And even today whenever we go to someone's house we are offered a cold drink. But many don't know what that one glass of cold drink does to your body. People have it for many years and then one day they get a shock.
Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, liver damage, arthritis, skin aging, kidney failure, and maybe cancer, and life is spoiled forever.
But the question is if these cold drinks are so dangerous. Then why are the sales of all these cold drinks companies increasing continuously?
What is that thing, which are forcing people to consume cold drinks, instead of healthy drinks? In the very first place, let's understand what the cold drink composition looks like. Let us for example consider a Coca-Cola bottle whose composition is something like this. This bottle contains 90% of water, after that, it has purified carbon dioxide gas. In a hundred milliliters of this, there is 10.6-gram sugar. Other than this it has caffeine, caramel, phosphoric acid, and carbonic acid. And is one another thing, Sodium benzoate, which is a preservative?
Let's start one by one.
The phosphoric acid desensitizes calcium absorption in your body. And as a result, your bones become weak, and your joints become stiff. Carbonic acid gives a preservative effect means it won't ruin the thing for a long time, but this acid kills the good bacteria in your body. As a result, your gut health decreases. The black color in Coke is due to caramel, and you know that Caramel is a Carcinogen that can create cancer in your body. And in one liter of Coke, 138 mg of caramel is used, which is 4 times more than the permitted limit. This thing was changed in many countries, but there is no action taken in India regarding this.
And let's come to the three major dangerous things about this cold drink. Number one is caffeine, whenever you consume a high amount of caffeine then your body will have the following reactions - number one you will have dehydration, number two your anxiety will increase third your heart rate will increase rapidly, and fourth your blood will be toxic. This means intoxication of your blood will increase a lot. Number two sugar according to researcher sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. Because sugar releases a high amount of dopamine in your body and, you know what will you experience due to excessive sugar consumption. You can have weight gain, hypertension, diabetes, and even diseases like non-alcoholic fatty liver. Now come to the third most important element, sodium benzoate.
If you read the coke wrapper carefully, then there is a code 110 there.
This code is used for sodium benzoate. Sodium benzoate is a preservative whose use is not wrong. But you know what will happen whenever this cold drink exposes to heat and light. When it is kept outside shops. After that, if you mix ascorbic acid with this cold drink means vitamin C then a chemical reaction takes place which forms benzene gas. That gas that comes out from your car's exhaust. Which is a lot of toxic, but our body has one more function which makes all this consumption more deadly. That is General adaptation syndrome. Our body is designed in such a way that the effect of any particular thing on our body decreases even more with time. In very simple words with time, our body adapts effects happening from anything, so over some time if you want to show the same effect of the thing then you have to increase its consumption a little bit more. People think they are addicted to caffeine or sugar. But scientifically, that's not how it works.
Whenever you consume sugar, your body releases a chemical named dopamine. And this is released in very high amount. When this hormone gets released, your brain gets addicted to this dopamine. On the other hand, the consumption of caffeine releases another hormone named adrenaline. And your body gets used to this, so over a while your body adapts to sugar and caffeine consumption. This means if you want the same amount of dopamine and adrenaline, then over some time you need to consume more quantity of them. Why, because the old quantity is adapted by your body. Now, that doesn't work on your body, but there is a catch.
Because your body doesn't get addicted to these substances or hormones released by them, our body gets addicted by effort for secretion. This means the effort taken by your body to release this hormone Dopamine, whenever you are happy your body releases dopamine.
Now the thing is, you can do two things, go to the gym and work out well, your body will release dopamine in this case too. On the other hand, consume something sugary. In that case, too, your body will release the same amount of dopamine. But the difference in both scenarios is an effort to go to the gym needs hard work but consuming sugar doesn't and when your body gets an easy way to release dopamine then why will let you work hard? So your body doesn't get addicted to sugar or caffeine. Your body gets addicted to that hormone, which releases on consumption not even from that hormone but from the effort of secretion. The extra calories generated from excessive sugar are converted into fat deposits, which then get stuck in your blood vessels. From this, the chances of heart attack increase by 30%. According to the research of the Victoria Cancer Council, one bottle of soft drink increases 13 types of cancer risk. But the question is, if these cold drinks are so dangerous, then how do the sales of these cold drink companies increase every year? And most importantly, why our government is not taking steps to stop this?
We should ban cold drinks too like drugs well to understand this you have to understand these two things:-
Number one propaganda techniques that this cold drink company uses, and number two why behind it. That is why all this happens.
Have you ever noticed that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and all other cold drink-making companies target mostly Children and youth? But why? Habit formation. The ex-employees of Coke and Pepsi said this themselves.
The best way to make someone our customer is to make sure that they consume cold drinks. From the earliest age possible, research shows that the more a kid is exposed to sugar, the mo re they get addicted to sugar to grown-ups. And you know what, cold drink companies did this very smartly.
Companies like Coke and Pepsi made exclusive contracts with schools, colleges, and many sport training centers. Contracts allowed this company to put a vending machine on the campus. And give them a percentage cut and made clear that no other beverages than cold drinks will be sold. So you see whatever will be available to the students in school and colleges they are likely to buy and by default not wishing, they became addicted to these cold drinks. And we all have heard that habits which we get from childhood are most difficult to leave behind. Not only this, but if you look very closely, you will find where these companies use characters like Santa Claus to attract children. There, on the other hand, brands like Thumbs Up and Mountain Dew target action and thriller emotion in their advertisement to attract youth. Because they all know for a fact that once you make a habit at a young age, then you get a paying customer for a lifetime.
But interestingly, in the 1980s, everything started to change all the future of these cold drink companies was at risk. With time much such research came forward which claims that the consumption of cold drinks leads to diabetes, hypertension, Heart disease, and even cancer. And from here things started to change. Slowly, all this research started coming into the public domain and people became aware of the harmful effects of cold drinks. In fact, in some places, cold drinks were also getting banned. The situation was becoming worse. The sales of cold drink companies were declining every day, but they found a way out. Research always has a scope for better results and whenever better research is done the previous research is doubted. All the research is done on the harmful effects of cold drinks. To create doubt in all the research these companies made more research by spending millions of dollars, and it's obvious, all the research is funded by these cold drink companies.
According to that research, cold drinks have close to no harmful effects on human health, all the old research said that cold drink hurts human health. The world started doubting that research and where there is doubt you can easily get away with claims and that happened. Sales again started to skyrocket.
And today, Coca-Cola company alone sells 1.9 billion bottles daily. But why? Even knowing all these things are so dangerous for us, why these companies are selling this so much? And why never this company thought about changing the composition of this drink? Well, it's all about why behind it. That is why is an exorbitant profit. Coke and Pepsi are the largest buyer of sugar in this world, and you have no idea how much profit they earn on one bottle because, in reality, these cold drink companies don't make cold drinks nor even sells it. If you look very closely then the manufacturing of cold drinks is done by a bottling plant and on the other hand, the sales of these cold drinks are done by distributors and retailers. The cold drink companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi just provide the syrup of cold drinks to these manufacturers and provide marketing support to distributors and retailers
So technically from manufacturing to selling, these cold drink companies don't work much on anything. A bottle filled with acids, caffeine, preservatives, and lots of sugar with 90% of it being only water. What do you think if something is so much addictive and profitable? Then will someone stop selling it? And very openly saying Government don't ban these cold drinks for these two reasons:-
Number one spread across industries the cold drink is spread in every industry, movie theaters, cricket stadiums, schools, colleges, grocery stores, shopping complexes, restaurants, etc. These cold drinks are available in all places and the thing is because these cold drinks sell everywhere hence every business on more money due to these cold drinks and as a result when they earn more they pay more taxes to the government.
And secondly sugar, Coke and Pepsi are the biggest buyers of sugar so see ultimately any sugar business their majority portion comes from cold drink companies like Coke and Pepsi if you ban these cold drinks, then all these businesses will affect, and they will not be able to pay taxes to the government and consequently, the government will lose a lot of taxes.
So what is the solution, should we leave to drink cold drinks? Well yes, if you look at facts and research, then definitely you should leave drinking cold drinks. But I know for a fact, to leave the consumption of cold drinks for most people is close to impossible. Because whenever you go out to eat something, you will need a cold drink there. But yes you can replace that cold drink with fresh lime soda because the sugar quantity in fresh lime soda is very less compared to cold drinks. And secondly, fresh lime soda has citric acid in it, which reduces the bloating effect and negative effect of sugar a lot. Still, the truth is now in front of you. And life is yours, so take the decision wisely. Business is war, and this is the reason the business shows only one side of them which is the best for their very profitability.
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