soda or cancer?

i mentioned before that i was starting to read ecoholic. well, it's amazing! i love it.

most of the books i've been reading tell you what to do. stop using so much of this, you can find a company for that, use more of this, don't eat anything with that in it. but this book actually names names and gives facts. she tells you that a certain company is saying they're organic, but they're really not. telling which ones to look out for and which ones are safer.

i keep reading things and wanting to post about it, but then that would take away all the information you would find by actually reading it! i don't want to spoil it for you. so you definitely need to go get it from the library or buy it (used, of course). i got mine from half price books.

i did come across something in the book today though. and i'm sure it applies to many of you. it's about soda. i'm not a huge soda drinker; if i do, it's sprite. when we're at home, i pretty much drink water, it's quite tasty! i can't get enough of it. but because of that, i get a little carried away at work sometimes. it's so easy to just grab a cone cup and take a little swig of sprite and dr. pepper. which, by the way, is so utterly wasteful! i really need to start taking my water bottle again so i'm not using so many cone cups.

anyways, back to the soda. this is from the book:

"When sodium benzoate (used to kill microorganisms in fruit juices and soft drinks) is mixed with ascorbic acid (vitamin C), as it is in many drinks, low levels of cancer-causing benzene may be created - the same pollutant that comes coughing out your car's tailpipe. In 2006 the FDA reopened an investigation into the problem preservative that had been closed 15 years earlier. New tests found the carcinogen in soft drinks at levels two and half to five times higher than safety standards. The FDA then tested 200 soft drinks and juices and found that 10 of them failed to meet those standards (including SunnyD, Kool-Aid Jammers, and the kids' juice BellyWashers, whose 2006 scores were off the charts). All the major offenders have been reformulated to eliminate the problem. Notably, some didn't test high enough to get the reformulation request but still tested positive."

now i know it's a low level, but who wants to drink cancer?! and i apparently did, because i have a purse made out of those kool-aid jammers and i drank every single one of the packages...just for the purse. but thanks for making it mom!

although it doesn't sound like a huge issue, it still goes to show you that you have to be careful what you're eating and drinking. and this book definitely brings up LOTS of issues. every time i'm reading, i just keep thinking about all the crazy and harmful stuff our bodies are taking in. ecoholic keeps mentioning that in europe half the things we still allow that harm us, they don't. why is it taking america so long to start realizing it and putting it into action?