Did You Know That Lemonade Has Lemon in It

It was a lovely warm day and I was sitting drinking a glass of generic brand diet lemonade. My mind started to wander, as it does, and my eyes happened to rest upon the bottle sitting on the table. I notice the label that said "Diet Lemonade” with a subtext, “Made with Lemon Juice.”

I wondered why such a statement should need to have been made. What would you expect to have been a drink that was called lemonade? Chocolate bananas? Aardvark mucus? ‘Come on guys,’ I said to myself, ‘why would you feel it necessary to qualify fact that lemonade has lemon in it?

The label, therefore, warranted closer inspection.

This 'Lemonade' contained:

Carbonated water

Lemon juice from concentrate (1%)

Citric Acid

Flavouring

Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrates)

Preservatives (Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate)

Sweeteners (Aspartame Sodium Saccharine)

This had a final sub note of “Contains a source of Phenylalanine.”

Gee, what ARE all these chemicals? Man, this made it feel like a really healthy drink. So the manufacturer found it necessary to mention that there was Lemon juice in it, even though it constituted only 1%.

 Of course, the label had the traffic light system.

It was less than 1% calories (green), trace fat(green), trace saturates(green), less than 1 gram salt (green), and less than 1% trace sugars (green).

So the green ‘traffic lights’ across-the-board on the label made it look healthy.

But it also should have included another element in the traffic light system.

The one red light at the bottom of the list meaning “no nutritional value or any fucking flavour whatsoever.”