Sodium Benzoate (or E211) found in soft drinks [General]

2007 May 27
Do you know that a 355ml can of pop has 10 teaspoons of sugar?

Anyway, many studies in UK discussed that soft drinks are found to contain high level of sodium benzoate which has the ability to switch off vital parts of the DNA.

www.nzherald.co.nz

I am no expert in chemical contents. But we should take note and pay attention to what we are drinking and eating.

www.organicconsumers.org



2007 May 27
Well, hold on. Sodium benzoate is a very common preservative, found in things like pop, soy sauce, salad dressings, cinnamon, cranberries, and apples. And since it's FDA-limited as an additive, the amount of sodium benzoate in fruit is far higher than in any processed food like pop or salad dressings -- because the manufacturers aren't allowed to add as much sodium benzoate to their products as naturally occurs in fruit. If you really want to avoid sodium benzoate, the best way is to avoid things it naturally occurs in.

The usual problem with sodium benzoate in pop is the possibility that it can form benzene. The studies in the UK might be promising, but they aren't "many", and they all originate from a single researcher, Peter Piper. (That Herald article refers to a single study.)

I don't think anyone here thinks pop is a healthy choice. But it's important to keep things in context, especially when it comes to nutritional information numbers and preliminary studies. For example, 10 teaspoons of sugar is only 150 calories! (Sugar is surprisingly bulky.) An equivalent amount of orange juice has around the same number of calories; the real disadvantage of pop there is that the calories aren't accompanied by a good dose of vitamins as they are in OJ.

On the other hand, both pop and OJ have significant amounts of dihydrogen monoxide, and we all know how dangerous that can be: www.dhmo.org/

2007 May 27
Hmm. This is really interesting. I have a minor "addiction", I guess, to CocaCola. In oither words, whenever I do decide to have a soft drink, it's Coke. I wonder how many times perweek in permissable to be "healthy". I average one time a week, sometimes two. Compared to my friends (twice to three times a day) I think I drink very little of it. I hope I am not drinking too much?