Ingredients for many commercially available fruit cordials consist primarily of sugar (or syrup) and fruit juice of one kind or another. Unfortunately, you probably need a chemistry qualification to make sense of some of the other ingredients, but here’s the briefest summary we could manage that will apply to most products:

Sodium Benzoate (E211), potassium sorbate (E202) and sodium bisulphite/metabisulphite (a sulphite) are all preservatives and are generally thought of to be safe – we could find no research to conclusively prove otherwise. Although reactions to these preservatives are considered to be rare, sulphites are known to cause adverse allergic reactions in susceptible people.

Citric acid is added to the squash primarily to produce a tart, slightly acidic taste to compliment the flavours of the fruit in the drink. It is non-toxic and easily biodegradable and there are no health implications from this ingredient.

Anthocyanins (sometimes listed as natural colour in red or purple fruit squashes) are plant compounds that provide pigment for red, purple and blue plants and can be found in blackberries, pansies, petunias, plums etc. They are antioxidant flavonoids and are thought to beneficial to health, although the full benefits have yet to be researched.

So provided that you are not one of the very few people who are allergic to the artificial preservatives, when taken individually the ingredients would appear to be harmless. Upon further research that may not be the case. Many squashes also contain vitamin C (sometimes listed as ascorbic acid or E300). At first glance it might look like a positive thing to have extra Vitamin C included in your squash. But when that squash also contains a preservative in the form of a benzoate (the most common one to be included in the majority of commercially available cordials is sodium benzoate), the two may combine to form benzene, a known carcinogen. The additional presence of citric acid (which again, we have found in the same list of ingredients time and again) is thought to accelerate the formation of benzene. Although any amounts formed will be tiny (and we are aware that we all ingest a certain amount of benzene on a daily basis without being aware of it due to uncontrollable external factors such as pollution), we believe that additional exposure to known carcinogens is something to be avoided where at all possible for obvious reasons.

There has been a media spotlight on the increasing tendency towards obesity in the UK recently and you might be forgiven for believing that a move towards a low sugar cordial might be a good one. But we have found that commercially available low sugar cordials tend to have more artificial ingredients than the ones containing sugar or syrup.

The main ingredients of concern in diet squash are the artificial sweeteners. Aspartame is the most commonly used. We do not have room here to list every concern we have about aspartame and would urge you to do some additional research of your own as information on this ingredient is readily available. Suffice it to say that 10% of Aspartame is made up of methanol – a known poison. Although the amounts of methanol ingested from drinking diet squashes are very small and you would have to drink gallons of the stuff to ingest significant amounts, it should be noted that the US Environmental Protection Agency considers methanol a 'cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed'.

Acesulfame K is another artificial sweetener included in diet squashes and is used to cover the bitter taste of Aspartame. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), this additive was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US based on incomplete testing of the chemical which indicated in any event, that it may be carcinogenic in animals. Subsequently the CSPI have urged that it be banned pending further research. So we would recommend that until further research is carried out on this additive, it is probably best avoided.

Other ingredients added to diet squashes may include Malic Acid and Xanthan Gum. Malic Acid is used as a flavouring and PH regulator (it is much more acidic than citric acid) and is generally recognised as safe. However, high concentrations are not permitted in infant food as small children lack the capacity to metabolise large amounts of it. Xanthan gum is used as a stabiliser and thickener and is a natural gum made from the fermentation of corn sugar.

In light of the above, we would recommend that you steer clear of diet and low sugar cordials as they contain too many artificial chemicals. We would like to point out however, that even natural squashes will be acidic as they contain fruit juice. Since they also contain sugar they should be consumed in moderation by those concerned about dental health or those wishing to avoid excess sugar consumption. And of course, wherever possible, we recommend that cordials made from organic fruit are preferable to those produced from conventionally grown fruit.

Scene Green recommended products

	Cordials and Squash – Natural, Organic - Rocks Organic
	Fruit Juice Concentrates - Organic - Crazy Jack