Juices, Soft Drinks...

The human body needs at least 1.5 to 2 litres of liquid per day. Apart from water, milk, tea and coffee there are many other liquids:

Pure Fruit Juices

Consist of 100% liquid fruits and do not contain colouring or preserving agents. It is allowed to add up to 15 g of sugar per litre, but only if the fruits do not contain enough sugar themselves because of weather conditions. Multivitamin juices are an exception, as various vitamins are added. The label from concentrate or pure juice tells you something about the method of production. Pure juice is directly made from fresh fruits straight to the product. In fruit juices made from concentrate, the water is removed first and then added again before bottling.

Other Fruit Juices:

Since some fruits, such as black currants, morello cherries, apricots, bananas and maracujas contain a lot of acid or pulp by nature, they have to be sweetened with sugar or diluted with water before they are enjoyable. The minimal fruit content has to be between 25 and 50%, depending on the kind of fruit.

Soft Drinks

Are alcohol-free, carbonated drinks. Over the last 50 years, the consumption of soft drinks has risen by 500%. Coca-Cola, for example, produces approx. 90000 million litres of soft drinks per year. The name is derived from the ingredients used in this drink, namely coca leafs and cola nuts. Additionally, it contains water, sugar, caffeine and phosphoric acid, which may damage the dental enamel when consumed excessively. It is estimated that the average teenager takes in 15 to 20 teaspoons of sugar per day through soft drinks alone.

Energy Drinks

Contain sugar for the most part and several other additives, which are said to have a positive effect on the performance, according to the ads. However, for most ingredients these claims are not verified scientifically. The energising effect is due to caffeine, taurine and/or guarana. Taurine: The taurine used in energy drinks is an amino acid, which is synthesised from ox bile. In the body, taurine is used for the production of gallic acid and may serve as a messenger in the brain. It is also believed that taurine intensifies the energising effects of caffeine.

Guarana: In contrast to the caffeine from coffee, the caffeine from guarana is released very slowly and gently into the body, due to high quantities of fibres. Therefore, guarana has a long lasting and coffee only a short-term effect. Guarana, the red fruit of a liana plant, was already discovered by the Indians of the Amazon River hundreds of years ago. They dried the kernels and ground them to powder on the rough tongue of the Piracucu fish. Dissolved in water, this powder made a refreshing drink for their hunting expeditions.