Gum Arabic in Mountain Dew
They sure do put some weird shit into food and drink don't they? I was just taking a refreshing swig from my ice-cold can of Mountain Dew when I caught a glimpse of the ingredients on the side of the can. You've got the usual shit that you'd expect to find in there, such as sugars and flavoring but there's one thing which sticks out to me... Gum Arabic? WTF is that? Well, a quick search on Wikipedia shows that;
That's pretty cool, it's used in everything ranging from foods to paint. It also reduces the surface tension of liquids, which leads to increased fizzing in carbonated beverages. This can be exploited in what is known as a Diet Coke and Mentos eruption. That's pretty awesome too
But as I was saying, it's pretty interesting to see what they put into food and drink these days.
Gum arabic, also known as gum acacia, chaar gund, char goond or meska, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. The gum is harvested commercially from wild trees throughout the Sahel from Senegal and Sudan to Somalia, although it has been historically cultivated in Arabia and West Asia. Gum arabic is a complex mixture of polysaccharides and glycoproteins that is used primarily in the food industry as a stabilizer. It is edible and has E number E414. Gum arabic is a key ingredient in traditional lithography and is used in printing, paint production, glue, cosmetics and various industrial applications, including viscosity control in inks and in textile industries, although less expensive materials compete with it for many of these roles. While gum arabic is now produced throughout the African Sahel, it is also still harvested and used in the Middle East. For example, Palestinians use the natural gum to make a chilled, sweetened, and flavored gelato-like dessert.
That's pretty cool, it's used in everything ranging from foods to paint. It also reduces the surface tension of liquids, which leads to increased fizzing in carbonated beverages. This can be exploited in what is known as a Diet Coke and Mentos eruption. That's pretty awesome too
But as I was saying, it's pretty interesting to see what they put into food and drink these days.
Comments
I wish that major food companies used a greater number of natural, non-carcinogenic ingredients in their products.
They put large amounts of BVO, Brominated vegetable oil in mountain dew and a lot of other citrus type sodas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brominated_vegetable_oil
Here's another interesting read about it:
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/bvo-brominated-vegetable-oil-toxic-additive-in-many-sports-drinks-and-sodas/
Some nasty shit. you really have to be careful what you eat/drink these days there seems to be at least a small amount of poison in everything.
It's usually cheaper to add a chemical to impart a particular flavor, texture or scent to a product than it is to add the non-artificial ingredient that features those characteristics naturally. Since we lack the regulations to say that companies aren't allowed to use poisonous chemicals to do that, the companies add poisonous chemicals to our foods.
I was reading about how in Europe for example, most of the foods that would contain poison if you bought them in the U.S., do not. Their sodas are safer, their burgers are healthier, etc. They have laws against putting things in food that are demonstrably harmful to humans. All due to regulation that forces the companies to use actual food when they make a food product.
EDIT: It's one of the reasons I always lol when I hear people whining about government regulation, and how it has no place in society. The entire point of most of it is to protect people from the effects of big businesses cutting corners to increase profits.
Actually
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine
Pretty interesting stuff actually, apparently it makes up 0.1% of out total body weight.
It just so happens that my favorite soda (Coke) is loaded with that caramel-coloring. I really wish that they'd offer a coloring-free, glass bottle coke (With real sugar, rather than HFCS). Like the ones I buy now, but without the color.
EDIT: Nevermind, I just derped. It's a plant, but you can estimate the caffeine content based on the Guarana content, and by which part of the plant it was obtained.
Who the fuck drinks LITERS of MTN DEW per day?
They exist.