Un-cool-cola.

My wife drinks a soda once in a while. I personally gave them up quite a few years ago becuase I don't want that much sugar in my diet. I'll occasionally have a Virgil's Root Beer, but prefer the real thing. Upon reading the 7UP can's ingredients, I found that, despite the front of the label claiming that 7UP contains "100% Natural ingredients", the listing shows it's NOT entirely natural (shocking, I know.) I mean, claiming that in first place made little sense to me. This is soda, after all. It's a crappy, sugary drink.

So this is what I'm lead to believe: 7UP, the soda I remember drinking with a few saltines to relieve bouts of indigestion, and a go-to cure a lot of mothers use when their children are flubound, have removed the artifical flavorings and additives from their long running line of soda except for the one that is currently under fire as being a likely contributor to poor nutrition and a wide range of health maladies. I wanted to know more so here's what I found.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is found in a majority of food products around the globe and apparently seemed "natural" enough to remain in 7UP according to Kelli Freeman, marketing vice president for Cadbury-Schweppes. Their current line of television advertisements show farmers plucking 7UP cans from tree branches, washing dirt from the sides of them, and a "natural"-looking woman holding out a handful of cans dangling from their stems in a fashion similar to a bunch of carrots. Please. Who's believing this malarky?

According to a recent ABC News article, by lacking a specific definition by the FDA on what is considered "natural" or not is likely the loophole that allows many food product companies to use the term so liberally. Because of this, the extensive misleading of consumers into believing that so-labeled "natural" products are "more nutritional" than others' is a staggering thought. I'm reminded of the sugary-sweet cereals targeted toward kids in the 1980s which claimed they were "a part of this nutritional breakfast" where the O.J., toast, milk and other parts of the food pyramid surrounded a bowlfull of the product. Just because it's among nutritional items does not make it so as well. 7UP is going to learn this fact as well.

Let's get even simpler on this matter. We all know that soda pop is not a nutritional drink. Hell, fill 7UP with vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and remove all of the artifical additives for all anyone cares... there's simply A LOT OF SUGAR IN 7UP! So, upset with this potential manipulation, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has filed a law suit over the 7up claim that HFCS is a natural ingredient.

What we know for facts concerning HFCS remains controversial. Here's some specific points widely accepted by both sides of the issue:

1. The amount of sugar consumed by people in the United States has increased steadily over the past three decades.

2. Diagnosis of obesity, diabetes melities, and chronic hypertension (high blood presssure) have been increasing steadily across the age groups for the past 25 years.

3. Nutritional labels list their ingredients in percentages to total 100% of all ingredients, and in order of most previlant ingredient to least.

In summary, by starting a new marketing strategy -- likely based on the growing trend to make money on higher-priced, more "natural," "organic", or other terms inferring "wholesome" foods -- 7UP choose to remove artifical flavoring of lemon and lime, ditch the artificial preservative it contained, keep HFCS (considering it from natural sources) and for their trouble and (likely) obfuscation is being sued for misrepresenting itself as truly natural.

People... it's soda. We know it's bad for us. Just don't drink so much of it, so often. Also, 7UP, shame on you for maketing so poorly, espescially when everyone knows that Sprite's been handing you your fannies in marketing and sales for the last few years. Next time, try cane sugar instead of corn-based HFCS, like they do in Europe. Globalization at its best.