Illuminated Manuscript Ingredients in Electrolyte Drinks. Yummy!

We call these electrolytes. They carry electricity across cell membranes and are found in are found in the body fluid, tissue, and blood. These are the major electrolytes: Sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-), calcium (Ca2+),magnesium (Mg2+), bicarbonate (HCO3-), phosphate (PO42-), sulfate (SO42-).

Food Banks and Governments and Agencies Who Provide Food Need Nutritional Education

The food bank handed out an "electrolyte" drink, and it was the idea for this article. Here were the ingredients, and gum arabic was among them and it has many non-food uses. If you have ever licked a stamp, you have licked gum arabic:

Water, Sucrose, Dextrose, Citric acid, Natural flavor, Salt, Sodium citrate, Monopotassium phosphate, Gum arabic (derived from the sap of trees in Sudan.)

So, the question is, why was the gum arabic in an electrolyte drink?

Gum arabic, a common ingredient in pop, has actually quite a history, and not all of its uses are in the food industry. Gum arabic can be used in the glue for postage stamps. In the Middle Ages, gum arabic was used to gild the illuminated letters in manuscripts. Gum arabic was used by Turkish scribes for making lamp black ink.
It is used in binding media of paints, can be used in watercolor paints and inks.

Gum arabic's properties: It is colorless, tasteless, and odorless. It is extremely soluble in water. It can be used to thicken things. If added to food or beverages, it can be done so incognito, without changing the taste.

Gum arabic is derived from trees in Sudan, and farmers eke out a bare minimum existence farming these trees. Gaping cuts are made in the acacia trees that will not heal for four years and the tree sap is left to ooze and harden. Out of this comes gum arabic. Warehouse women sift through the collected acacia gum to remove dirt, sand, bark, twigs, and any debris that came in with it, just like packing houses sort apples and remove some on an assembly line.

Gum arabic is used as a food stabilizer and in inks and textiles. It can smoothen textures, hold flavoring, bind food substances. It could be in anything from watercolor paints, to jelly beans, from soft drink syrups to marshmallows.

Critical thinking for the consumer: just because something comes from something in nature, such as a tree, does that make it edible, just because it has certain properties such as being able to thicken things?

Investigation of other ingredients in this drink:

Sucrose.

According to Wikipedia, "Sucrose is the organic compound commonly known as table sugar and sometimes called saccharose."

Dextrose.

According to Wikipedia, "D-glucose is often referred to as dextrose, especially in the food industry. The term dextrose is derived from dextrorotatory glucose."

Citric acid.

According to Wikipedia, "Citric acid is a weak organic acid. It is a natural preservative and is also used to add an acidic, or sour, taste to foods and soft drinks. "

Natural Flavor.

What is a natural flavor, and is it "natural" or is that just an umbrella term?

Here is what VegSource.com states as a reference:

The exact definition of natural flavorings & flavors from Title 21, Section 101, part 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations is as follows:

"The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional."

So, to the consumer, this label of "natural flavoring" perfectly explains why the drink tastes like orange, when in fact, it is advertised as having no fruit in it. If the flavor is so natural, where is the proof? Did it come from an orange? It couldn't have. So, was it an extractive of some exotic food, and then distilled in a vat? When you take something and extract it out of a food, it may not be healthy for you any more, especially if you isolate and change its properties through chemical processing.

Salt.

It's common knowledge. Many consumers are not lacking in salt. Most doctors recommend cutting back on the salt to avoid hypertension. My personal electrolyte disorder was reflective of low potassium, not low sodium.

Sodium Citrate.

According to Wikipedia, "Monosodium citrate, or sodium dihydrogen citrate, is an acid salt with the chemical formula NaH2C6H5O7, or C3H4OH(COOH)2COONa."

Monopotassium phosphate.

According to Wikipedia, "Monopotassium phosphate (also potassium dihydrogen phosphate, KDP, or monobasic potassium phosphate, MKP) -- KH2PO4 -- is a soluble salt which is used as a fertilizer, a food additive and a fungicide. It is a source of phosphorus and potassium. It is also a buffering agent. When used in fertilizer mixtures with urea and ammonium phosphates, it minimizes escape of ammonia by keeping the pH at a relatively low level."

The components of this electrolyte drink. It couldn't be yummier, whether or not you should be consuming it:

Bleed some acacia trees with wounds that won't heal for 4 years, harden their sap, pick the debris out and put the gum arabic in soft drinks around the world, toss in some table sugar, some table salt, and some acidified salt, a soluble salt which can be used as fertilizer,

To be certain that the consumer won't think that they are paying for sugar and salt water with some derivatives of electrolytes mixed in, or just for water all-together, it is flavored and colored.

Yellow No. 6.

This artificial food coloring can be cancer-causing when fed to animals.

Summary

And there you have it one neat little package about 6 inches tall: an electrolyte drink which has hardly any electrolytes in it, is potentially cancer-causing, and has the carrier of the water which you can get out of the tap or out of your water purifier. If it hadn't been flavored and colored, the consumer might actually accuse the manufacturer of selling water. Major electrolytes are: sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-), calcium (Ca2+),magnesium (Mg2+), bicarbonate (HCO3-), phosphate (PO42-), sulfate (SO42-).

And to add insult to injury, you have to pay to throw the bottle away. It then ends up in the landfill and contaminates the air when the garbage dump burns the waste. Moreover, the fake ingredients stay around in your body, screwing up your cellular function, and when you get deathly ill or age and get decrepit, it's the fault of genetics or "aging", never the fault of consumer choice, industrial "foods" and "beverages" and ignorance over food ingredients. Let the consumer be informed, and the industries will change over time. They follow the money.

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SOURCES:

"What are Electrolytes?" Health.HowStuffWorks.com.

"Studies on Dyes." Feingold.org.

"What is Gum Arabic?" WiseGeek.com.

"Gum Arabic." Includes photo. Saudiaramcoworld.com.

"Material Name: Gum Arabic." Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Cameo.MFA.org.

Acacia and Gum Arabic Profile. Mountainroseherbs.com.

"Sudan Taps into Arabic Gum Growth." BBC News.

Citric Acid. Wikipedia.

Sucrose. Wikipedia.

Dextrose. Wikipedia.

Monosodium Citrate. Wikipedia.

Danger! Additives at Work. London Food Commission. London 1985. Referenced at Feingold.org.

Electrolyte Imbalance Overview. NephrologyChannels.com.