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The main ingredients in any soft drink are water (usually carbonated), flavourings, acid and a sweetener of some kind (sugar or artificial sweeteners in diet soft drinks).
Apart from the water, it would seem that there is very little benefit from drinking any of the ingredients normally present in the majority of soft drinks. The main ingredient of concern in non-diet soft drinks is the high amount of sugar (or corn syrup) present. A can of soft drink can contain up to 40g of sugar – about 10 teaspoons. Overconsumption can therefore lead to a variety of problems associated with high sugar intake, including dental problems and obesity. Dental problems may also be exacerbated by the acid present in soft drinks (although this is true of any mildly acidic drink, even fruit juice).
Many commercially available soft drinks list 'flavouring' as an ingredient. As with anything else, Scene Green would recommend that you avoid any product that does not fully list ingredients or uses general terms such as 'flavouring' as you can never be exactly sure what you are drinking. Caffeine is also added to some soft drinks as a flavour and overconsumption should probably be avoided, especially by children since it can cause hyperactivity and sleep disruption.
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 diet soft drink might be a good one. But we have found that the diet versions of soft drinks contain more artificial ingredients that the versions containing sugar or syrup.
The main ingredients of concern in diet soft drinks 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 soft drinks 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 soft drinks 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.
In light of the above, we would recommend that you err on the side of caution and avoid diet and low sugar soft drinks due to the chemicals used to sweeten them. We therefore recommend soft drinks sweetened only with sugar – but would further recommend that even these products are consumed in moderation due to possible health implications from high sugar consumption. Soft drinks flavoured naturally are preferable to those containing 'flavourings' and of course, if you can find soft drinks made from natural flavourings that are organically sourced, then so much the better.
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