Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis
foodscienceinstitute.com
foodscienceinstitute.com
It also made for some socially awkward situations where, when visiting friends, they would want to have drinks on hand that their guests like and would go out of their way to get some DDP for me, not checking the date, and then serve out of date soda which tasted horrible.
Not surprising the rate of hydrolysis is temperature dependent so if you keep things refrigerated they last longer, but if you leave them out on the back porch in the summer where they get warm they go 'non-sweet' relatively quickly.
I switched to water (or tea if I want caffeine) with diet sweetener in packets (which doesn't go bad because no pesky water to 'unzip' it). I wrote to the Dr. Pepper company once and suggested they design their beverage so that the sweetener was dry and only released when you opened it (I got the idea from the way the Guinness folks started selling Guinness in cans with a gizmo to put a head on it when opened. Alas, nobody at the company was interested in "fixing" a non-problem, they responded (nicely) that I should just be sure to check the date and included a coupon for a free six pack. Of course at that time (and is still true around Reno) the bottler doesn't use an easily readable date code so it isn't much of a solution.
[1] And by "great" I mean the nerds all are fascinated by it and the non-nerds were nominally repulsed that someone could have such familiarity with the hydrolysis profile as to call it out by taste.
>I switched to water (or tea if I want caffeine) with diet sweetener in packets
One of the more interesting ideas (and also impractical) are the "mini-syrups" that are used in the multi-beverage dispensers with the touch screen at places like Movie Theaters. Good luck getting hold of those. I briefly had a line on getting them from a local AMC because I knew the manager who wasn't averse to re-selling them to me at cost but she changed jobs when the pandemic made theaters non-viable. The existing Coke branded dispensers are so loaded up with various DRM/telemetry that even if you can get one at auction (which you normally can't since they are leased, not sold) it would be quite the reverse engineering process to get it to work "disconnected" from the Coke network.
[1] Funny story about how I spent four months trying to buy Diet Dr. Pepper syrup at the "restaurant" rate (which was about 1/4th the "retail" rate) elided.
In practice if you wanted some kind of home setup, you'd be much better off just buying the normal box of syrup like they use in fast-food restaurants, gas stations, etc.
You can make it more automated if you'd like with some sort of automatic agitation to dissolve the CO2, but it hasn't been too big of a bother for me to manually shake it yet.
[0] https://www.seriouseats.com/pros-cons-diy-carbonation-rig
We've also tried carbonating blueberries, which was really interesting. It didn't work great, but we noticed the fizziness and it'll probably be something I try again soon - perhaps using a chamber with a bigger opening than a 2L's.
https://www.grohe.us/kitchen/design-trends/chilled-sparkling...
I'm not even kidding. That incidental silliness is valuable. A year later, you run across a problem where a customer explains a problem you don't understand, and then you have a flashback to that time when you did a blind taste test. You look at your colleague and whisper "Hey, remember that blind taste test we did that time?" and their eyes light up.
An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not.
Another case where off is unpaired: "off-kilter".
To me (BrE), 'gone off' is like 'has developed off-flavours', which is like off-course & on-course but also off-side & near-side.
"Off" can also mean "away", though. If you "go off", you can "come back."
Have heard people from Great Britain say things like "x is on" before with roughly the opposite meaning as how we use "y is off".
And they deteriorate a lot slower at cold temperatures. Hydrolysis practically stops if you freeze it.
I woke to a strange sound. The bottle had blown the fridge door open, a large gash down the side of the bottle, soda slush everywhere.
It took me an hour to clean the fridge.
Sounds like the time I woke to what sounded like a gun shot in my apartment. I had accidentally left a can of frozen orange juice concentrate on top of my fridge about a week prior. It had started to ferment, and eventually, bang. Like you, it took me ages to clean up that mess.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, right next to the fridge, when a 750 ml glass bottle of ginger beer exploded. It took out another bottle along with the tempered glass shelf it had been sitting on.
Not only did it take more than an hour to clean up, the replacement shelf my wife ordered was the wrong one, so she had to order yet another replacement. It took ages to arrive.
I have not yet been allowed to make more home-made ginger beer, which is a shame because it's very tasty and is excellent for making cocktails in the summer.
About the only diet sweeteners that taste sweet to me are xylitol and saccharin, and they're hard to find outside their niches (gum/mints and coffee sweetener). Kinda sucks tbh.
For me it's an on-/off relationship over the years.
I usually am fine with the Diet Coke at McDonald's in Germany (it's cold), but not a fan of the stuff I buy in plastic bottles. I do like Diet Pepsi but not Max (I find it tastes very artificial). Coke Zero is so-so.
And the weirdest thing is that we have Fanta Tangerine, which they switched from sugar to only-as-diet a while ago and now I can't drink it because it tastes so horrible.
TLDR: Either my sense of taste is just broken or they're actually switching the recipes every few years. Or it is actually this phenomenon here.
I suspected it was an effect of sunlight on sugar, but had no way to know for sure. Nobody would admit that the bottles were transported or stored in inadequate conditions either.
Then I quit regular coke and later diet coke too, so no idea if it's still a problem.
Then something happened: Coca Cola launched Zero and after a few iterations it tasted good! Meanwhile Pepsi Max always yaste stale now since the start of the pandemic or something.
I don't really know what happened and it could just be my taste changing but I don't think so.
Haven't notice anything with the Swedish Pepsi max and I'm drinking _a lot_ of it. Didn't get the flu yet so my taste buds should be good! Coke zero got a lot better after the new recipe if you ask me but still a Pepsi guy :)
Recently I have only tried the ones from Norway since the border has been closed for so long && local shops have reduced prices to Swedish levels for now, but the Pepsi Max I get here all tastes stale now across all shops and all bottle sizes I have tested.
(Sweden)
- sometimes a brewery changes the taster/mixer master
- other times I suspect they start cheaping on ingredients
- in one particular case I almost expect the brewery did it on purpose: A particular brewery here in Norway produced a very tasty low-alcoholic beer that was sold durt cheap in one particular chain 8f grocery stores. Then at some point around 2008-2009 that particular beer changed to taste like the smell of a fox farm (I grew up next to one so I know that smell). I checked back a number of times but the quality didn't recover until years later. One possible explanation would be that they had an extremely bad deal and was actively sabotaging this product to sell less of it at loss.
In any case, you might be right in this instance.
The quotas on isoglucose have been lifted a few years ago in the EU, so that might become more common. But I think it's really meant for export, especially considering sugar is meant lower in manufactured products anyway.
Normally purifying things like pharmaceuticals can be challenging, but as long as impurities are under 0.5%, generally they are acceptable (some have lower limits).
But with aspartame it had to be much cleaner since small impurities would ruin the taste. So it had nothing to do with safety but more quality of the final product.
He banged his head against the wall until they came up with a process that consistently have high quality product as measured by taste.
Thanks for explaining why!
Was not really something I previously thought of as really expiring in any meaningful sense.
Personally I'm not worried about aspartame. I consume it in small amounts and am not overly concerned, but this statement goes beyond the facts I'm aware of.
Update: I found a source, the FDA says that: https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/additional...
I had heard that about. Msg, but not aspartame. Til!
Not exactly. I agree the term is racist, and that racist sentiment may way spur disinformation on MSG. But the fear actually began in 1968, during the beginnings of the modern 'health food' movement, with a letter written in the New England Journal of Medicine by a man named Robert Ho Man Kwok describing his supposed symptoms from eating MSG. The body of follow up research showing no such effects is much less interesting to people than the scary story that started it all.
[0] https://news.colgate.edu/magazine/2019/02/06/the-strange-cas...
MSG should be used as sparingly as possible (a pinch or less) and there are many kinds for specific ingredients, such as the original one made by Ajinomoto and more specialized ones for meats or vegetables only.
Frequent diet soft drink consumption was uniquely associated with white race, former smoking, hypertension, elevated blood sugar, lower HDL, elevated triglycerides, increased waist circumference, BMI, peripheral vascular disease, previous cardiac disease, and the metabolic syndrome. Frequent regular soft drink consumption was uniquely associated with male sex, black race, current smoking, carbohydrate consumption, greater diastolic BP, and lower prevalences of diabetes and hypercholesterolemia.
On the other hand, it was published in 2012 and the study was conducted in America, so almost all non-diet sodas were sweetened with either 100% HFCS or cane sugar/HFCS mix. It's harder to replicate today considering that most non-diet sodas has also added aspartame (or other high-intensity sweeteners) to the sweetener mix.
Intuitively, it would make sense that the introduction of such an artificial and alien chemical into the diet would have some kind of negative effect, for whatever that's worth. I say that as a fairly heavy user of sweeteners.
Also, artificial sweeteners help people who have obesity problems, being obese will reduce your life expectancy by up to 15 years, drinking diet soda hasn't killed anyone.
Diet Coke mythology You can’t discuss diet sodas for very long before someone brings up the old saw the diet sodas cause weight gain. The theory was that the sweetness induces hunger and you eat more actual food to satisfy it.
In 2008 Fowler and Williams[5] published a paper noting a correlation between obesity and diet soda consumption. A correlation, not causation. But in 2009, Chen and Appel [6] monitored 810 adults for 18 months, recording their beverage intake. They found weight gain from sugar sweetened beverages and but no weight gain from artificially sweetened beverages.
Finally, in 2012, Maersk and Belza [7] compared satiety scores for milk, sugar sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened beverages, and found no evidence that artificially sweetened beverages increased appetite or energy intake, concluding that “diet colas had effects similar to water.”
Regarding unfounded rumors that artificially sweetened beverages had some neurological effect, a panel of 10 experts examined all the current literature [8] and concluded:
The data from the extensive investigations into the possibility of neurotoxic effects of aspartame, in general, do not support the hypothesis that aspartame in the human diet will affect nervous system function, learning or behavior. Epidemiological studies on aspartame include several case-control studies and one well-conducted prospective epidemiological study with a large cohort, in which the consumption of aspartame was measured. The studies provide no evidence to support an association between aspartame and cancer in any tissue. The weight of existing evidence is that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a nonnutritive sweetener.
So aspartame is safe before and after it degrades into the component amino acids, but for the best taste, you should check each package’s expiration date.
They do taste amazing but I'm skeptical to anything unnatural.
Safety aside, I read some research once which indicated artificial sweeteners impact the body’s own insulin response and suppress the feeling of being full. This resonated with me because when I have diet sodas I always feel like eating. Nowadays I stick to water or if I want to treat myself, soda with real sugar.
I'm somewhat surprised nobody has commented on this yet, so let me point it out: methanol is not harmless! It causes blindness or death.
(I don't say diet soda is harmful, only that methanol is.)
As for the toxicology limit. If the maximum amount of methanol has been created by all of the aspartame "unzipping" even if you consumed the whole can your does will be lower than the amount needed to create harmful effects. Additionally, sodas in this state taste like crap, so unless you have no taste sensors at all you won't drink more than a gulp which lowers the dosage still further.
But that there can be methanol in an out of date soda has been the go to reason a friend of mine never drinks sugar free soda. And frankly I can respect that choice.
Still I felt a warning was in order when someone calls methanol a harmless compound because that is absolutely not true.
The FDA considers 0.5mg/kg/day of methanol to be unlikely to cause deleterious effects for a person's lifetime. For a 70kg person that would be 35mg per day. For comparison: a can of diet soda has less than 200mg of aspartame. Assuming 100% of the aspartame breaks down into phenylethylamine, aspartic acid, and methanol, then less than 10% of that mass would be methanol, or less than 20mg. So even if you drank an entire can of disgusting old diet soda every day, you'd still be below the FDA's threshold for cumulative damage and you'd be nowhere near the threshold for acute methanol poisoning.
Is it possible that the aspartame hydrolizes in our guts after we drank it? "Disgusting drink check" wouldn't help then.
To give you another bit of data: The metabolite of methanol that actually causes damage (formic acid) is a common food additive and is naturally present in many fruits, honey, and of course ant venom. If tiny amounts caused issues, we'd know by now.
(No, I'm not complaining. I can't cash out HN karma points in Norwegian banks so to me it is just a bit puzzling because I wonder what triggered those, somewhat amusing and mildly scary.)
I also have a sore knee after an incident relating to solid DHMO at my childrens hockey training in the weekend (my bad, I should have learned to use proper protection my now.)
That said, there is a large difference between DHMO where in its liquid form it will have a median LD50 of around 90,000 mg/kg and methanol who has a median LD50 of 810 mg/kg.
Someone else already responded to you and provided a much better explanation.
There is always something that rubs me the wrong way about these studies that set out to prove that artificial sweeteners are bad. It's intuitively appealing: it seems too easy that we can just replace sugar with these harmless chemicals and then it tastes mostly the same but without the calories or bad metabolic effects of sugar. But artificial sweeteners have been studied for decades, especially Aspartame, and as far as I know they appear to be harmless, outside of the Gwyneth Paltrow universe. So it seems to me that some people still have an axe to grind with these artificial sweeteners, and try to bend science to their will.
For the life of me, I can't find any references I stumbled upon when I searched about it, but has any of you had the same symptoms?
I’ve seen some people say that they have an insulin response to artificial sweeteners but I don’t know if there’s any medical literature to confirm/quantify it.
Stop drinking this garbage :). Drink water and tea.
I think we've allowed our society to become addict to sugar, and I don't think Aspartame is our savior.
Yup. Stopped drinking anything else than water (sometimes with syrup), sparkling water, and tea.
From my understanding it is different compounds that cause the bad taste for each sweetener, but I suppose people might be sensitive to some more than others. I wonder why it is that only sugar does not produce the bad flavor.
I've found this is difficult for me. It's much easier to not eat those foods at all than to hope to only eat "a little".
A mitigation is only buying very small packs, but that's not always practical.
My theory: diet soda has no high fructose corn syrup, so it feels thinner (less viscous and sticky).
But this is the whole difficulty about it. It's very hard to stick to a diet when there is so much temptation in the world. If you can have your aspartame cake and eat it, why wouldn't you?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
Almost every advancement in dietary knowledge I have see over my life has indicated more and more that excess sugar (and carbs in general) is by far the biggest problem all over the world. And it is trivial to consume excess carbs with a modern lifestyle in a developed country.
https://www.thespoof.com/spoof-news/science-technology/11213...
There is no evidence of aspartame being harmful to ants. Dust them with some black pepper and see what happens.
Everyone is quick to hand wave "doesn't cause cancer" blah blah but what they hop and skip over is it definitely changes gut microbe for the worse.
Certainly not 'definitely' true.
"To our knowledge, there are no data on the potential influences of aspartame on the human gut microbiome. It is hard to understand how aspartame influences the gut microbiota because this NNS is rapidly hydrolyzed in the small intestine. In fact, even with the ingestion of very high doses of aspartame (>200 mg/kg), no aspartame is found in the blood because of its rapid breakdown. Upon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol and their components, which are readily absorbed so that they do not reach the large bowel."
Effects of Sweeteners on the Gut Microbiota: A Review of Experimental Studies and Clinical Trials: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363527/
As an example, if I have a mild sore throat, carbonated drinks sooth it much more than non.
Carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages induces ghrelin release and increased food consumption in male rats: Implications on the onset of obesity
Apparently some association to low bone density in women.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/consumer-products/new-sugar-...
I wonder if there's a way to retrain sensory organs, to shape your perception of flavor, perhaps the way that oenophiles teach someone to taste wine more sensitively and meaningfully. Can one learn to deconvolute the the signals of taste?
Also suggested that we should try to give the kids lots of different tastes, textures, temperatures etc. I guess to “train” the sense again? I don’t know. Seems a bit unscientific. But who knows.
https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/38/5/379/360864?logi...
It's related to why some people taste Cilantro as soap too.
For me, it's also a timely discussion in that a short while ago (from my records on August 19 2019) I was looking at the Wikipedia article on aspartame when I realized that there was a significant error on the page. The skeletal formula was correct but the ball-and-stick model was incorrect in that it had an extra hydrogen tacked onto the aspartic acid group—the NH2 was misrepresented as NH3.
Being somewhat surprised at the error—as one would have thought that both representations would have been generated in the same software, Avogadro etc., thus the error should have occurred in both or not at all—so I dug a little deeper. I recalled that I had previously visited Wiki's Aspartame page some years back so I went looking to see if I had kept a copy of the page and sure enough I had saved it (it's not unusual for me to save Wiki pages).
Anyway, upon reexamination of the earlier page, I found that the ball-and-stick formula was also incorrect therein. Clearly, I'd not noticed the error back then.
The date of that earlier viewing was April 5, 2012, so the Wikipedia page has had that blatant error present for over 9 years—it could be much longer as I never checked when the page was originally posted! Given both its notoriety and controversy, how could such a large mistake exist in this Aspartame page for so long without anyone noticing it?
I then tried to correct the error. I attempted to edit the page only to be informed that my domain was unacceptable and so I could not do so. I then resorted to contacting Wiki by other means and informing them of the error and they corrected fault within hours.
If anyone has a reasonable explanation for why this error could exist so long on Wiki without being corrected then I'd love to know. Moreover, why would only the balls-and-stick be in error when it is normal for both representations to be generated on a common piece of software?
Second Matter:
"Searle patented this product, naming it Nutrisweet and Equal. Officially, aspartame has a half-life of about 300 days in solution at about pH 4, about the pH of soft drinks, but half life means that half if it as gone by that time. And if the cans are exposed to a hot storeroom or stored in a warm summer garage, they may deteriorate faster."
I'd rarely have the opportunity to drink 'old' artificially sweetened drinks of this sort. First I don't drink many of them, and second, I only buy them in the supermarket where there's a very fast turnover of stock.
That said, I find Diet Coca Cola unbearably sweet and almost undrinkable when its chilled and completely undrinkable when warm, the others, Zero etc., I find so sweet that they're undrinkable under any conditions.
Could it be that drink manufactures are actually increasing sweetness past the so-called 'bliss point' to allow for the deterioration/aging of aspartame? Perhaps they're aiming for some 'ideal' or average date past manufacture where the maximum number of punters would likely be consuming the stuff.
Does anyone know or have factual information about such matters?
I am sure you meant well, but as far as I can see, the original ball-and-stick model was indeed correct--and the current edited version is wrong. Amino acids, as well as most things made from amino acids, exist as zwitter ions in solid form as well as in aqueous solution. The carboxyl groups are comparatively strong acids, the amino groups are comparatively strong bases, so there is a proton transferred to NH2, making it NH3+. That proton is missing from the carboxyl group resulting in a carboxylate group (COO-). The positive and negative charges cancel each other and the result is a zwitter ion with two charged atoms/groups, but no charge overall. The newer version still has a carboxylate group (COO-), but no NH3+ group, making it negatively charged. That probably exists, at high pH values.
I've yet to check Wiki as of today, so I don't know if the site has changed since last August or not. I will check momentarily.
I acknowledge what you say and I'm not necessarily disputing your points. If this is the result of another of the many nomenclature problems that plague and beset chemistry then I'm damn-well sick of it (and I'm certainly not alone).
It's about time that someone—some authoritative body, most specifically IUPAC et al, sorted this mess out.
PS: you haven't really answered why both the skeletal and ball-and-stick would be different. Moreover, the skeletal outline in the story is also the usual default (i.e.: the same as in both versions of Wiki and in ChemSpider).
So why did Wiki make the change when I pointed the matter out if it is incorrect?
I'd now suggest you get it corrected.
Edit: also tell Wiki that it shouldn't post inconsistent information as it only confuses (similarly ChemSpider).
Edit 2: 'aspartame is a trivial name'. Very true, but aspartame is not known to the world by its IUPAC name, even at best it still means that a nomenclature problem exists.
>That type of problem is found throughout chemistry but usually an accepted nomenclature applies (when it doesn't is when we get into troubles).
>So why did Wiki make the change when I pointed the matter out if it is incorrect?
>I'd now suggest you get it corrected.
>Very true, but aspartame is not known to the world by its IUPAC name
No offense intended.
2. You have failed to realize the significance of being consistent in presentation especially when stuff is presented in encyclopedic form. To do so in any other way is misleading.
That means that the skeletal and ball-and-stick depictions should be consistent with each other (otherwise it's confusingly - except for geniuses such as yourself of course).
Can't you understand that many people compare both models and that they expect them to match? (It's common practice to count the hydrogens on both to cross reference the chemical formula, etc., etc. - that's a common teaching practice where I come from.)
3. I never said that I disagreed with your assessment of the chemistry and I still don't. In fact, I do understand what you are talking about but (a) it's irrelevant if I do or don't in this instance and (b) expressing the more 'complex' state of molecules isn't normal practice in encyclopedic references. Yes, I'd agree that in textbooks such detail is normal but not here.
If you want to be precise to the nth degree and grind things superfine AND also be consistent across chemistry (i.e.: have common and consistant [standard] nomenclature to describe things) then you could not describe water as just 'H2O'.
OK: now where do we start for a proper formulaic description of water?
We would have to add in hydronium - or should that be hydroxonium (I learned the latter but I'm happy with both). Or should we refer to that as 'oxonium' only? Or should we start the description with something as confusing as:
Water = H20+H3O+ +... . ('water' + oxonium-type ion and then some extras)
How do we describe the protonation in its fullest form (as a formula)?
As you ought to know, this gets even more complicated, should we add in all known cations (Zundel, etc.) for a basic description of water just to ensure the formula is complete in all circumstances (cover all states/conditions)? (And then add a footnote that we may still not have them all as others may still be there - yet to be discovered).
Of course not. It's ridiculous.
Any chemist who works at that level already knows this stuff so it's unnecessary to describe the 'basic' molecule - dare I say it - in anything other than in its simplest (basic) form.
>1. You still haven't answered why other more authorative sites such as ChemSpider also display ball-and-stick as per the later Wiki version. (If more than one authorative site does so then there must be some reason for it - for this common consistency.)
>2. You have failed to realize the significance of being consistent in presentation especially when stuff is presented in encyclopedic form. >except for geniuses such as yourself of courseI'll accept an apology, but please stop being this obtuse.
I accept your point. As I said earlier, I'm not arguing the chemistry, it's just the issues aren't the same (from my perspective anyway).
This is horrifying.
It's not exactly only coca cola's problem, but it adds up.
Phosphorus is been added everywhere - from Sausages (e.g. the one in hot dogs. Or, The one's intended to be grilled like the GERMAN SAUSAGE) to muffins. I think, it's called sometimes backing soda - the powder you add to make cakes or croissants fluffy. Not to compare with the Natrium bicarbonate which is ok ..
So the phosphorus is needed for every living cell. Essential for the live developed.
The problem:
We need phosphorus to build our bones. Phosphorus reacts with Calcium and they build up salt difficult to dissolve back to calcium and phosphorus. Usually, that will be incorporated into our bones and makes the bone's structure and fillings.
The problem starts when you grew older and your kidneys worsen. It still can be enough to clean your blood, but give a possibility for phosphorus to accumulate slowly in your blood.
With too much phosphorus in your blood, your body tries to regulate that - as your kidneys can't do the work properly anymore, there's is just one way:
going through the Calcium-phosphate-double-circle-regulation.
That means, if one is having to much phosphorus in the blood, your body start to produce a hormone that stimulates releasing more calcium into your blood to bind that phosphorus. The calcium comes out of the Bones. They get easy broken like glass. and.. the bound phosphorus and calcium are in your blood vessels. Difficult to dissolve back. Cluttering the vessels.
That's one of the reasons for arteriosclerosis and insults. But also for the elder getting blind (Makula degenerative illness) and deaf (I think). A lot of people have that.
So. I stopped consuming anything with added phosphate contents.
Thank me later.
> backing soda - the powder you add to make cakes or croissants fluffy
Baking. And there is none of this in croissants, it's mostly regular butter and flour. Baking soda is usually just sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). No phosphorous at all. Unless you are talking about something else, but please source your claims before making them here.
Being vague and not able to source just show you are not a subject-matter expert, and likely repeating rumors. There might be some truth to it, but you make bold claims, and I can at least pick a few wrong ones, which does not bode well for the rest. You make also some weird connections.
"A typical formulation (by weight) could call for 30% sodium bicarbonate, 5–12% monocalcium phosphate, and 21–26% sodium aluminium sulfate. Alternately, a commercial baking powder might use sodium acid pyrophosphate as one of the two acidic components instead of sodium aluminium sulfate. Another typical acid in such formulations is cream of tartar (KC4H5O6), a derivative of tartaric acid."
You're right if you have acidic ingredients, you can take bicarbonate only. If you don't, then you need an acidic agent which is a -Phosphate.
Croissant made by your french neighborhood may be are made of plane butter and flour.. but in an industrial and home production adding a little bit of backing powder make them more fluffy. There is no conspiracy to that... just a quick googling: https://www.todaysparent.com/recipe/picnic-recipes/quickie-c...
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Makes 12 servings..
For the other one, the One gave Google and put just one link into the database:
That's a really strong claim, that someone would mix up the label of baking soda (it literally has "soda" in the name, aka sodium aka natrium if you're not English) with phosphoric acid.
As for the rest of this, it's the sort of thing that might have some truth to it, but it should really have data backing it, because human biochemisty is really complex and often acts counter-intuitively.
If you having a sour-acidic ingredient like "vinegar" or Orange juice, the reaction starts at once even before you can put it in the oven.
If you want to start the reaction after some time and at an higher temperature, there is no way to do it without an agent. It breaks apart to acid at certain temperature. The agents used are 99% of times phosphates -> phosphorus. The baking powder free of phosphorus is quite of a seldom taste imo
They also may end up in your kidneys, as kidney stones. I'm told that they are excruciatingly painful.
Otherwise... If you're on dialysis, you have 200% sure high levels of phosphorus
Supplement of calcium could Help as to much of Calcium in blood will also induce the counter reaction by pulling to much of the phosphorus into the bones. They will get to dense. Also an effect you don't want
However, my reason for drinking diet Coke is that sometimes I feel like drinking soda, but if I can limit the damage done (by sugar, since I'm trying to lose weight), might as well do it.
Sure, no soda at all is best, but I think this is one of those cases which aren't all black or all white.
I hate beer and also have some sort of allergic reaction to it (I don't mind, since I don't like it anyway).
Water has no taste, so unless I'm drinking merely to quench my thirst, it's not what I want.
Juice is too much work and many juices "out of the fruit" without added sugar are also bad for you, e.g. orange juice. Most dentists and nutritionists now do not recommend drinking orange juice except very occasionally (then again, of course they don't recommend soda drinks either).
I love espresso and drink it way too often, but it's not a refreshing drink like Diet Coke is, and also it's not good for you either (in excess). I probably drink way too much espresso and Diet Coke.