It's not free if you end up paying for it

[trinityvixen]

So, I got out of class this morning and went to stand by the bus stop to wait for the uptown shuttle. There was a trio handing out free sodas. By "free," they meant both that it cost nothing and was "free" of chemicals and bad stuff. Stuff that, you know, I kind of depend on in my soda. Caffeine is pretty much the whole reason I drink soda. (That, and I've since become addicted to it. So, a little from column A and a little from column B.)

The brand is Snow. The website will give you the gist of their marketing strategy--all natural ingredients! No fake sugar! No preservatives! Vitamins! Green tea extract*! Part of our sales income goes to stopping global warming!

I managed to get two of their three flavors--Pure Cola and Lemon Lime. I figured "generic cola" and "Sprite-like" were probably safer bets than a start-up company's attempt to make something called "Cranberry Pomraz." The fact that they're messing with three fruits there (as opposed to Lemon Lime's two) completely ruled it out as a choice.

I should have left all of them alone. Pure Cola tastes like nothing until you swallow it. It has this abusive aftertaste of shitty beer and sheet metal, as if you licked PBR off a rusty spoon. Lemon Lime is only marginally less awful. It's like they found a way to put the horrible false-citrus taste of a powdered vitamin C supplement into liquid form. It reminds me of the taste of Airborne.

So, yeah, I can totally not recommend free street soda. Unless you already know the brand--any free Coke/Pepsi product I've gotten that I've already tried has never hurt me--stay the F away from it. I can't believe I didn't learn my lesson after the debacle of the Diet Dark Cherry-Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Blech.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

It almost seems like a prank from a libertarian group. "To show you what the environuts want, we made a soda without HFCS, phosphoric acid, artificial sweeteners; added vitamins and green tea extract, and put a significant chunk of profits towards reducing greenhouse gases. And look, it tastes awful!"

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Of course, Honest Tea manages to do all of those things (except the greenhouse-gas profit donations, but they've got a litany of other "green" practices) and tastes quite good. I suspect the makers of Snow are simply incompetant.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think it's more a sign that you can't have soda without the preservatives and have it taste good than that people who want such a thing are stupid.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

That would be the point of the libertarian version of the prank, not necessarily that the people who want such a thing are stupid. Though let's be honest, a lot of the chemicalphobia driving people to buy stuff like "Snow" is pretty stupid. And one of my clients makes a lot of profit off that stupidity!

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of foods that I can identify as food. It's part of the reason why I cook and bake so much - I know exactly what's in my cookies. And I do think we probably eat too many artificial chemicals that are not, in fact, food.

That said...umm...food is chemicals. Air is chemicals. We are made of chemicals. Every bit of mass in the universe is made out of chemicals. Chemicals? Not so bad, in and of themselves.

While I try to avoid enormous amounts of artificial whatevers, my reaction to the people who obsessively equate natural = good for you is the reminder that you know what else is natural? Hemlock. Also arsenic, uranium, cyanide, and a whole host of other really nasty shit. Oh, shit's natural, too. Tasty, tasty shit.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I agree. Part of the laughable bit with this all natural soda is the "green tea extract" billeting. I mean, what, exactly, is one extracting from green tea? Chlorophill comes from leaves, but it's not really going to do anything for me...

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

EGCG and caffeine - in the right proportion, it's an extract for the treatment of obesity! (but not for prevention or curing, as the USPTO found no scientific evidence for the "treatment"'s effectiveness.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think I need to rethink my previous statement whereby people who want soda without the shit aren't stupid. They clearly are naive, and some are just so hopeful as to make themselves stupid.

I doubt we'll ever really get past "diet and exercise" at the rate we're going...

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately far too many people get taken in by the "Artifical=Bad" BS.
Seriously, the molecule for Flavour 237-b is exactly the same if it's found in nature or if it's made in a lab.
ZOMG! Someone must have spliced chemicals for the artificial version into Genetically Modified versions of the original food!!

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Have you ever had Honest Tea?

For that matter, you can mix fruit juice into seltzer. Voila! Carbonated beverage that tastes good with no artificial crap!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The carbonation doesn't count? I thought that was as much the enemy as anything else.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I mean, there's a point to the "it's not natural" crowd's objections--a lot of what we eat is so heavily processed now that you can tell that it didn't come from a natural source. (Like how in America we're biologically like 90% corn these days because everything we eat--including meat--has corn in it.) There are worthwhile objections to processing food, mostly on the basis that reducing food to nutrients isn't necessarily better than eating the food in the first place and getting nutrients as a benefit. Stuff like that I can get behind.

But then there are the people who want to make "healthful" junk food. That seems rather to miss the point, doesn't it?

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's my argument against veggie-burgers.

[(Anonymous)]

For the record, I'm very adventurous when it comes to food, but I've NEVER had good luck with free soda samples. To the point that I have two un-drunk free-sample energy drinks (Motley Bird, Emergen-C) in the back of my fridge that I contemplate from time to time, but have thus far wisely avoided.

I was even afraid of Red Bull when it came out, and I still have no fondness for it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I can get behind that sentiment, too. Though I will say that if I ever developed the conscience to stop eating meat, I'd be happy for a veggie burger that could approximate what I'd otherwise be missing.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Free soda samples! Feh! Who needs 'em?

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have a really good recipe, if you're interested. Primary ingredients are lentils & walnuts, and I as a carnivore have eaten and actually enjoyed. I just refuse to call them burgers.