The Soft Drink Industry's Secret Poison or Are You Getting Enough Sodium Benzoate in Your Diet?

Written by Sarah Cain Tuesday, 27 October 2009 00:00

"Should we make diet or regular?"

Okay, so we all know that soft drinks are unhealthy.  You really do not need to hear about that topic anymore, do you?  We have grown tired of the preaching too.  Most of the exhausted retoric comes from the Big Media people, who do a terrible job of pretending to actually care about our health.  Who can blame them for not considering revelations about soft drinks as real news or exciting?  Most reports are enough to make us yawn too.  This brief report is going to break out of that mold.  Stay tuned: this article will provide you with information you have never learned from Big Media, which is largely the result of our not being sponsored by the chemical industry.  We are locking onto a specific ingredient that they carefully side-step mentioning (and for very good reason).  It is the benzine derivative, sodium benzoate, found in processed foods and drinks.  Sodium benzoate is apparently a forbidden topic throughout the news networks, and you will soon learn why.  Expect to be shocked by the time you finish this article.

Diabetes and obesity do not even begin to scratch the surface of the countless problems caused by the consumption of these chemical concoctions.  Ingredients such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup are harmless in comparison to sodium benzoate; a bona fide poison that is intentionally added to drinks.  Countries throughout Europe are currently pressuring the food industry to voluntarily remove sodium benzoate from its products, before less friendly action is taken.

Several (more free and open) media outlets from abroad are calling for an absolute ban on the toxic preservative, due to concerns about children's developmental safety.  The United States Government and Big Media remains silent to no one's surprise.  There has only been complicit silence, lacking any warnings informing parents that recent studies reveal that children are in danger.

Sodium benzoate is made from the sodium salt of benzoic acid, and it is a common preservative in processed foods, and soft drinks.  It has been associated with virtually every type of health problem that we have heard of, in recent years.  Like many other food industry chemicals, it was originally found in an organic form in nature.  Sources for trace amounts of the organic form can be found in blueberries, apples, cranberries, plums, and even in cinnamon.  However, as is usual for such cases, sodium benzoate has no negative effects in its unbastardized, natural, and organic form.  Perhaps the organic form occurs with its own antidote, as is frequently the case with organically-occurring food toxins, or perhaps the organic form really is that different from the stuff made in the chemical laboratory.  Likewise, the natural version does not have any preservative action whatsoever, which demonstrates its clear lack of toxicity.  It is only when sodium benzoate is produced inside a chemical laboratory that the result is a cheap, toxic agent, which performs adequately to poison bacteria, fungus, and us.  The dramatic differences between the two versions of sodium benzoate causes us to question whether they are really the same chemical, and if the chemists are as proficient as they like to believe.

While there are many chemical additives which are hazardous to your health, synthetic sodium benzoate stands out for its ability to switch off vital parts of the D.N.A..  Yes, you did read that right, and you might want to begin making some notes for the sake of your unborn grandchildren.  It is known to actually damage the mitochondria of D.N.A..  The mitochondria uses oxygen to provide energy, and they also control the cell life cycle, and cell growth.  Shutting off the mitochondria has very serious implications for your health, and the health of your children.  The effect of years of exposure to sodium benzoate could be almost anything.  Links have been discovered between sodium benzoate and D.N.A. damage associated with Parkinson's disease, and liver problems -- just to scratch the surface.  This knowledge comes to us at a time when our confused medical science is continually expressing a new-age belief in spontaneous "genetic diseases" that never existed before.

The link to genetic mutations explains why benzene is so incredibly carcinogenic, and it is why radiation is so cancerous; because radiation induces the chemical formation of benzine inside proteins (ie, inside of us).

Nobody knows just how many of the additives that we willfully consume in this era will doom our children, generations from now, to live poorly.

“The food industry will say these compounds have been tested and they are completely safe...  By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate.  Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago.”

-- Peter W. Piper, professor of molecular biology at the University of Sheffield

Believe it or not; it gets even worse.  When sodium benzoate is mixed with Vitamin C, it creates pure benzene.  It is astounding that our chemical industry found a method through which they could make Vitamin C dangerous.  Virtually all soft drinks currently contain synthetic vitamin C in the form of ascorbic acid; since it's so "healthy" to have it in these drinks.  Of course, this leads to the inevitable creation of dangerous benzene.  Benzene causes a decrease in red blood cells, a severe depression of the immune system to produce generalized allergy symptoms, leukemia, various other blood cancers, and pre-cancers of the blood.  This situation is worsened by the fact that the amount of benzene in drinks is never certain.

Benzene content increases in correlation with shelf-life, heat, and light exposure.  A study of diet Orange Crush by Cadbury's in 1990 revealed that benzene levels "off the shelf" were 25 P.P.B. (parts per billion), and rose to 82 P.P.B. after exposure to heat and light.  Federal safety rules limit benzene levels in drinking water to 5 P.P.B.; but amazingly, regulators have made soft drinks immune from these same safety rules.  Some soft drinks have tested at well over 100 P.P.B. at the point of purchase -- a full 20 times past the safety level for human consumption.  By the safety standards for drinking water, a six-pack of Mountain Dew would put the level of benzene in your blood off the scale.  Is that Mountain Dew really worth the risk of a leg-less grandchild, or one having low intelligence?

The clear connections between benzene formation, sodium benzoate, and Vitamin C were discovered in the early 1990's.  The findings were ignored in the United States, and debate about them has been avoided by the soft drink industry.  Sodium benzoate is far from being the safest preservative option, but that toxic sludge is the cheapest.  Coca-A-Cola confirmed that alternatives exist when they reformulated Diet Cokes in the U.K., due specifically to public pressure.  Despite being knowledgeable of the risks involved, public pressure on soft drink manufacturers is not yet great enough for them to reformulate in the United States.  They willingly place you, your children, and your unborn in danger, as a matter of official corporate policy.  They know what this stuff does.  Corporations that immorally seek profit is not anything new, but far more sickening is the way in which the Food and Drug Administration has ignored the dangers of benzene in soft drinks, and has even hidden the studies from the public, according to the Environmental Working Group.

"Once again, the FDA has sided with big food companies and misled consumers about the problem of benzene in beverages, withholding data and issuing public reassurances that are contradicted by their own test results."

-- Richard Wiles, E.W.G.'s senior vice president

The concerns about this obviously dangerous food additive span across the globe, with researchers at Southampton University noting that tests have shown it to lower the I.Q. by up to five points in children.  Britain's Food Standards Agency (F.S.A.) has even warned parents that sodium benzoate is a primary cause of hyperactivity in children, along with artificial colorings.  It is no surprise that similar warnings have never been released in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A).  As long as it is primarily funded by the chemical industry ("regulatory fees" and "registration fees"), we can expect for the F.D.A. to continue suppressing honest health information.

"Sodium benzoate is the most effective preservative currently authorized."

-- Richard Laming, British Soft Drinks Association

A preservative is a chemical suitable for killing germs, bacteria, fungus, and anything else that could live inside a product.  They do not keep foods 'fresh', as marketers contend.  It is through this understanding that we can conclude that sodium benzoate is not just the most effective preservative currently authorized, but it is also the most poisonous one.  Chemical preservatives are meant to destroy life organisms, and consequently; they may destroy your own D.N.A., liver, kidneys, and your brain.

Prologue

The poisoning of your family will not stop until enough pressure is placed on the chemical companies who knowingly poison for profit.  There have been truly natural preservatives available for decades, which include grape seed extract, pine bark extract, stevia, and raw undiluted honey.  There are also old school techniques using vinegar, salt, and smoking, which actually improve flavor.  With the possible exception of salt, none of these pose any harm to health, but they are more expensive.  The Internet has allowed for more public cooperation than ever before, and it is one of the reasons why people such as Rockefeller want it shut down.  Use it to spread the word, and save lives along the way.