British Soft Drinks Association

The predictable How do you make soft drinks is readily answered with some publicity material. In the UK there is some excellent published material available from the British Soft Drinks Association but responding to more advanced queries can be time-consuming. Examples of more complex questions are ... 

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, a few more validated methods for the analysis of soft drinks ingredients have been documented. When the first edition was published in 1998, only a handful of methods for the analysis of soft drinks ingredients had been collaboratively tested in the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) official methods manual, and only two of these were modern HPLC approaches. At that time, no methods could be found in the British Standards catalogue. Inspection of the British Standards website (http //www.bsi-global.com) now shows that there are two standardised approaches for the analysis of high-intensity sweeteners in soft drinks, both of which use HPLC. This overall lack of standardisation of methods is probably because a soft drink s matrix is relatively straightforward, without many of the problems associated with other areas of food analysis, and so the industry has not felt the need to standardise the test methods. 

Folklore The French name for this herb is Pissenlit , which is self-explanatory. The herb is regarded as a good diuretic to help purify the system by removing toxins. For some time now the roots have been roasted and then extracted to make a caffeine-free dandelion coffee. Dandelion has also been used in root beers and soft drinks such as Dandelion and Burdock (Bown, 2003 British Herbal Medicine Association, 1983 Gruenwald et al, 2002 Hutchens, 1973 Shealy, 1998 Tierra, 1998). 

Folklore Although there are steroidal compounds present in sarsaparilla, the rumoured presence of testosterone, which made it of interest to body-builders, has not been substantiated. The root has been used in soft drinks and root beers. Sarsaparilla was introduced into Europe following the Spanish colonization of South America. It was regarded as a cure-all and was established in pharmacopoeias until the early twentieth century (Bown, 2003 British Herbal Medicine Association, 1983 Giuenwald et al, 2002 Tierra, 1998). 

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