I am just now drinking a bottle of lime pop. Tastes okay. I haven’t had one in many years. I wonder how much lime is in it.
The ingredients are listed according to the amount with the biggest amounts at the start, dwindling down to the smaller ones. No surprise, carbonated water forms the biggest part of this drink. Second, of course, is sugar/glucose-fructose. Third is citric acid. “Citric” might be lime, but I don’t know.
Then comes “natural flavour.” I wonder what that is. Then modified corn starch. Sounds reasonable. After that, sodium benzoate. I’m guessing salt.
Acacia gum?
Then we leave the fairway and are into the rough: sucrose acetate isobutyrate, glycerol ester of wood rosin (there’s wood in my drink?), brominated vegetable oil, colour and guar gum.
What is ester, what is brominated, what is guar? When I was young, I would go into pubs and emerge a few hours later inebriated. Never did I ever get brominated, at least I don’t think I did.
The point is, nowhere in the ingredients is the word “lime” listed. How can you make a lime drink without any actual lime being included? But what would I know?
Somewhere there is a lime pop tycoon tooling around his mansion, probably sucking back a drink of freshly squeezed real lime. Probably wouldn’t drink this pop I am holding in my hand on the threat of death.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
