A rant about soda pop.

Yep. We've all had it. I grew up, in fact, in a house were it was slightly revered even; hidden in secret places in the house by my father. We always knew where they were, of course and raided his stash all the time. He used to pop a wee bit of rum in it after a long day of work.

It's addictive, because it gets you high. They took the cocaine out almost a hundred years ago. You know why? It was superfluous. In other words - what with all the sugar and caffeine it wasn't necessary to have a similar effect.

10 teaspoons of sugar hit your blood stream 10 minutes after you drink a pop. One can has all of the daily recommended sugar. Now, try to remember that there is sugar in a lot of what we consume in a day and can be found in surprising places... start reading your labels my little angels.

Did you know that you would immediately vomit from the amount of sugar, but because phosphoric acid cuts the sweetness so you can keep it in (and this substance is p.H. 2.8. This is the substance which will dissolve a nail in 4 days... that's comforting).

After about 20 minutes, your blood sugar (not surprisingly) shoots sky high. So your liver goes into overtime and turns any sugar it can into fat. Oooh yes and it also has ethylene glycol in it, which is also used in anti-freeze.

All of your organs receive an undue amount of stress attempting to process this lovely bevvie. Undue stress can injure or scar your organs - which results in them working less effectively in your old age.

After 40 minutes, it is completely into your system. Your pupils dilate and your blood pressure shoots up.

And here's where it gets interesting....45 minutes after drinking your pop, your body ups your dopamine production. Dopamine stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain. Heroin does the same thing. Bet most of us didn't know that.

After an hour, all that delicious phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine. Then you pee it out - all of it including any water in the pop. Then comes the sugar crash. When you feel tired. Followed about an hour or so later by a caffeine crash.. but the good news is... if you have another Coke, it’ll make you feel right as rain.

It can also dehydrate you even though it is a "beverage, and that can lead to Chronic Cellular Dehydration thereby weakening your immune system. If you drink one can of cola, you will need to drink 8 glasses of water to replace the water loss.

AND - that stuff you are putting into your bloodstream is actually used to dissolve blood off of the road at accident scenes. Comforting.

And that's not just coke kids, it's all pop. And sweeteners? Don't get me started on those...