Make 7...

If you've been watching television recently, you've probably seen ads for 7-Up in which they proclaim the soda to be "all natural" and containing "just five ingredients." After this marketing campaign, I had to see what all the hype (at least from the company itself) was all about.

First the "five" all "natural" ingredients: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, potassium citrate. First off, let's deal with numbers. You can't really say that there are five ingredients when one of your ingredients is plural. Listing natural flavors implies that there are at least two distinct flavoring agents used, bringing the total to a minimum of six. What about 100% natural. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are using naturally carbonated water rather than doing it themselves (I'd love for the 7-up company to tell us the location of the spring giving them this water). I'll even concede that using very broad definitions, the ingredients on the label are natural. I will not, however, agree that the ingredients fit the definition of natural as implied by the advertising campaign. Look, nobody is going to go pick high fructose corn syrup off a tree in the orchard. Hopefully there weren't any Diet 7-Up trees there, because that's full of Splenda which can't pass for natural under any definition.

Uh oh. Get ready for a tangential rant. I'll try to keep it brief.

Ok, speaking of Splenda and intentionally misinforming or ambiguous ad campaigns
I hate: "Splenda. Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar." This is the most
ridiculous advertising campaign ever. No matter how hard they try to make
everyone think it's sugar, sucralose is not now, nor will it ever be sugar. It
is made from sugar, but the sugar has been chlorinated in three locations, making it
no longer usable to the body. Using the same theme as the original slogan,
couldn't we also say "Splenda. Made from chlorine so it tastes like chlorine."
Or if we weren't thinking about sucralose itself, but Splenda which is mostly
maltodextrin as a bulk agent to carry the sucralose, we could have the slogan
"Splenda. Mostly maltodextrin, so it tastes like cornstarch." Look, I've got
nothing against sucralose or Splenda, but it's not sugar. Don't try to call it
sugar or make people think that it's just the same as sugar.

Side rant over. Sorry about that.


After establishing just what made 7-Up 100% natural and what those five ingredients (actually four ingredients and a category) were, I decided to give it a taste. I have to applaud the 7-Up company for converting to a 100% natural formula and still making a drink that tastes like crushed up SweeTarts in stagnant water. Good stuff.