I admit it. I have a thing for diet soda. At home, it's usually Diet Rite from a can, and in restaurants it's often Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi from the fountain.
I'm under no illusions. I realize that after going for a buffet meal and downing ten thousand calories, the Diet Coke will not magically dissolve away all those calories.
Still, if you can't count on a chemical laden soda to be safe and healthy, what can you consume?
Alfalfa sprouts were implicated in an e coli episode, and so were organic fruit juices.
But soda?...Yes.
A recent study in Virginia found that 48% of the soda dispensed from fountains contained fecal bacteria.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/soda-fountains-squirt-fecal-bacteria-study-finds/story?id=9506583
I haven't stopped drinking fountain soda since I read the study. Bad habits die hard, and it's awfully hard to turn down a free refill of a fecal bacteria laden soda.
3 comments:
Who cares? It hasn't harmed us yet, and our bodies (and our immune systems) are all the better for them.
The ultra strict food safety code that our society lives by is not making us healthier. Instead, it's what makes us get sick whenever we go abroad.
Looking back over the past few years, I can remember at least one E. Coli poisoning "outbreak" every year, if not more; something you just rarely heard of a few years back. I find it hard to believe that we're that much careless with our food handling, and I think it's much more reasonable to think that we have become much more sensitive to these pathogens.
PS: We were also surviving just fine before every single surface in our homes was cleaned with 99.99% antibacterial (research Hygiene Hypothesis for more info)
What's worse in ALL soda's is the chemicals. Artificial sweeteners just leave your body craving for more sweet stuff and Phosphoric acid has been linked to bone loss! This could be one of the reasons I believe, that the last few generations, especially of women, have a greater incidence of Osteoporosis.
I shower 2-3 times a week. I vacuum a couple times a month. I totally ate dirt when I was a kid. And I'm pretty healthy. Which proves...nothing.
I think there's definitely something to the hygiene hypothesis. However, I don't believe that having been exposed to more allergens/bacteria/gunk/whatever exempts one from the toxicity of fecal bacteria. If it did, millions of kids wouldn't be dying around the world from lack of a clean water supply. As in all things, even paranoia and health claims of dubious certainty, one must exercise moderation.
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