Tuesday, 19 October 2021

An Eco Friendly Caffeine Drink?

I appreciate that people selling beverages have to make their product sound as tasty as possible. Now, they also seem to have to cite environmental issues. Tenzing is marketed as 'Natural Energy: Purely From Plants'. It makes a virtue of being made using 'natural caffeine' from 'nature's most powerful plants'. Caffeine is a legal stimulant. Artificial caffeine can be made in the laboratory, using urea and chloroacetic acid as ingredients. Having said that, cocoa, coffee and tea are all potent and relatively cheap sources of 'natural caffeine'. It would actually be unusual for a manufacturer to opt to use the synthetic version. It seems a fairly innocuous drink but describing it, as the result of a 'botanical quest', is perhaps, pushing its 'green' credentials too far. Describing the can's contents as 'Energy good for mind, body and planet' also appears to be a bit over the top. It's basically a mix of carbonated water, green tea and lemon juice, with a pinch of Himalayan rock salt (hence the name?) and some beet sugar. It is certainly likely to be better for the drinker than many of the current 'energy drinks'.

1 comment:

Paul Brain said...

Don't get me wrong. I am more than happy to accept that the ingredients of Tenzing make it a much healthier option than the big name caffeine-based 'energy drinks' like Red Bull. However, caffeine is a stimulant. It may make you feel more energetic but it doesn't provide any energy. The sugars in drinks are the energy sources but they often produce reactive hypoglycaemia (available energy is lowered by stimulating insulin release). Interestingly, reactive hypoglyaemia produces negative mood changes, as the brain has no glucose stores.

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