Pepsi captured #1

Pepsi finally bests Coca-Cola Company, but not by selling more carbonated drinks than non-carbonated. The company recognized that people's tastes were changing and moved to sell more variety.

Personally, I prefer Pepsi-Cola, but Coca-Cola has a monopoly in my school, so I have to go off campus to get Pepsi. Even then, I sometimes prefer the "Vitamin Water" because they taste surprisingly good.

When I found out that one of the Powerade (or Gatorade?) bottles was selling "brominated vegetable oil", I blanched. Usually, vegetable oil will float on top of water. Bromination means adding bromide ions to the oil, making it polar enough to be suspended in water, or heavy enough to force the oil to intermingle with water.

Many chemists don't know the purpose of adding brominated vegetable oil. It could be for health kick, because the vegetable oil (without bromine) could be unsaturated fat.

One explanation I've heard is that brominated vegetable oil makes the drink cloudy. People, from everyday experience, gullibly believe that cloudy drinks mean they are made from real fruit.

It has been suspected to be carcinogen. Apparently, many of the world's countries have already banned the use of BVO. BVO, like aspartame and other artificial flavor drinks, is a suspected carcinogen.

I don't drink diet cokes because I believe it causes obesity. Ironically, some people drink diet soda to lose weight, but that only causes your body to hunger for more sugar, when it isn't getting any.

So I recommend not drinking diet soda, and to drink sugary drinks instead. By taking real sugar (either fructose corn syrup or sugar cane), you will help re-balance your body and reconcile taste and nutrition the way the cavepeople did.

I think I posted about this before, but I don't remember ...