***Unmentioned Ingredients

In 2009, Ronald Ball bought a can of Mountain Dew from the vending machine at work. One swig, and Good Old Ron was throwing up all over the place, sicker than the proverbial dog.

Upon breaking the can open and pouring out its contents for a look-see, what to his wondering eyes did appear but a rat. Well, some reports said it was a mouse, but either way, Yikes!

Being a good citizen, he immediately called PepsiCo, maker of Mountain Dew to warn them they might have a problem in their cannery.

A PepsiCo representative showed up to collect the rat and the can, said he’d be in touch and left.

When nothing happened for two years, our boy Ron sued PepsiCo for $50,000 or so.

Here’s where the story gets really good.

In 2012, PepsiCo asked to have the lawsuit dismissed because, they said, there was no way anybody could have found a rat in that specific can of Mountain Dew.

Why not? Well, markings on the can proved it came off the canning line fifteen months before it reached Mr. Ball’s lips, and in that time, any rodent in that can would have been turned into a “gelatinous mass” by the citric acid in Mountain Dew, leaving no identifiable evidence of a rat or any other vermin.

Right! They announced–in front of the court, God and the whole world–that as far as PepsiCo was concerned, there never was a rat. Besides, the problem resolved itself, so there was no cause for legal action.

As you might hope, the judge didn’t see things Pepsico’s way. No dismissal.

When you’re enjoying some Mountain Dew in the future, then, and find it to be a little thick, perhaps even somewhat chewy, at least now you’ll know why.

But what about the ingredients in non-gelatinous Mountain Dew? Any bad guys there?

In fact, yes.

• High fructose corn syrup shows up in more than ample amounts. Our bodies don’t know what to do with HFCS, so it gets dumped into the liver, which is supposed to separate out the toxins and other bad guys before passing it along.

But it swamps our livers because they don’t recognize this man-made, anything-but-natural substance and don’t know what to do with it.

Your liver’s going south, baby. Along with your pancreas and kidneys. Uric acid shoots up, as does your blood pressure. Triglyceride levels make like a rocket. Aging picks up speed. Your immune system takes a licking. And the copper you need to keep things balanced–including your thyroid–pretty much gets put out of business.

Rounding out this pretty picture, HFCS comes from genetically modified (GMO) corn, the better to whack your DNA, the basic building blocks of life, and it contains mercury left over from the processing it goes through.

• “Natural flavors” sound good, but in the world of ingredient labels, natural means anything they want it to mean–good, bad or indifferent. I’m guessing they’d identify any good stuff by name so they could take a bow (or dip a curtsy, as the case may be). So, natural flavors are ingredient X, and the risk is all yours.

• Citric acid, the stuff of gelatinous rats, also removes enamel from your teeth. It typically comes from GMO corn and may contain glutamate, which whacks your hypothalamus. Since the hypothalamus controls both your nervous system and your endocrine system, this is no small thing.

• Sodium benzoate is a preservative–at least for the Mountain Dew, but not for you. You, it whacks. For one thing, it damages the mitochondria. What, you might ask, are mitochondria?

The mitochondria are little energy factories in our cells–our millions of cells. No energy production means the cell dies, and when enough cells die, so do you.

• Caffeine gives Mountain Dew its pick-me-up ability–and it has enough to lift a small truck. While caffeine is not a problem in its natural habitat, such as coffee where nature provides a synergistic balance, the caffeine used here is an isolate, that is, an isolated molecule stripped of all natural companions. Our bodies don’t like isolates.

• Gum arabic, also known as acacia gum, causes a skin rash in some people.

• Erythorbic acid typically comes from GMO corn, and it can irritate the respiratory system in sensitive people.

• Calcium disodium EDTA can cause liver and kidney damage. Mineral imbalances, too.

• Brominated vegetable oil is double trouble.

First off, vegetable oils are Omega 6 oils–which cause inflammation throughout the body, and inflammation leads to disease. Which dread disease you end up with is a “weakest link” sort of thing.

And bromine alone should set alarm bells to ringing. Bromine sails in and whacks the thyroid something fierce–in a way tests will never notice. Even whilst lying comatose on the floor, you’ll ace the blood test, and the doctor will utter that famous phrase, “You’re fine.”

And that’s not bromine’s only claim to fame. Back in the day, they sold a stomach-settler called BromoSeltzer. It had a nasty habit of bumping people off, though, so they took it off the market.

Too much bromine creates all sorts of chaos: Diarrhea, seizures, coma, an unreliable heart beat, weird eye problems, sweating, muscle cramps, even vomiting.

• Yellow 5, a coloring agent that comes from coal tar (YUM!), is banned in several countries because of the serious allergic reactions it causes, including such things as migraine headaches, clinical depression, asthma, etc.

Finally, Mountain Dew is very acidic. In pH terms, low numbers mean acidic, while higher numbers mean alkaline. Coffee has a pH of 5.9, water about the same, and pasteurized, homogenized milk a pH of 6.5.

Acid/alkaline balance is a pH of 6.5 to 7. Mountain Dew has a pH of 3.3.

With a decent diet, we don’t have to worry about having the style and grace we need to do the pH tango and make our bodies happy, but a 3.3 blows away any idea of balance.

Mountain Dew is a bad idea.

Even without “gelatinous matter.”

God is good,
Bette Dowdell
http://TooPoopedToParticipate.com