Mouse Melting in Mountain Dew Has the Ick Factor – But That’s Just the Start of What’s Wrong with It.

The thought of a mouse dissolving in a bottle of Mountain Dew certainly has the Ick! factor. But, does it really matter? The fact is that it’s fairly meaningless—but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to drink Mountain Dew.

There’s plenty of genuine ick factor in the ingredients. First, though, let’s discuss why the acidity of Mountain Dew simply is not a big deal, whether it melts mice or not.

pH Values

So, why doesn’t it matter if a mouse could dissolve in a bottle of Mountain Dew? It’s a matter of pH, the measure of a substance’s acidity. The lower the pH, the higher the acid.

The first thing to know is that your stomach’s acid is, or should be, stronger than what’s in a car battery. Its pH is somewhere between  1 and 2.

What’s the pH of Mountain Dew? 3.1 or 3.22, depending on the variety. So, even if the acid content of Mountain Dew could melt a mouse, why should you care? Let’s compare Mountain Dew’s acidity with some other common drinks:

Drink	pH
Lemon Juice:	2.00
Vinegar (White):	2.40
Gatorade Clear:	2.40
Coke Classic:	2.53
Welch’s White Grape Juice:	2.80
Dr. Pepper:	2.92
Grapefruit Juice:	3.00
Vinegar (Cider):	3.10
Snapple Tea:	3.20
Mountain Dew:	3.22
Orange Juice:	3.30
Prune Juice:	3.95
A&W Root Beer:	4.50

 

Obviously, whether a mouse could or couldn’t dissolve in Mountain Dew is irrelevant to whether the drink is harmful! If that were true, then you’d need to avoid grapefruit or lemon juice, but both of them are noted for being particularly healthful. Does that mean it’s okay to drink Mountain Dew? No, of course not! And for more than one reason.

The Real Horrors of Mountain Dew (and Bunches of Other Soft Drinks)

Here’s a list of the ingredients in regular Mountain Dew:

• Carbonated water
• High fructose corn syrup
• Concentrated orange juice
• Citric acid
• Natural flavors
• Sodium benzoate
• Caffeine
• Sodium citrate
• Erythorbic acid
• Gum arabic
• Calcium disodium EDTA
• Brominated vegetable oils
• Yellow 5

We’ll ignore some of the ingredients because, in the total picture, the amount of harm they might do is relatively minor. However, others are downright demonic in the harm they can do.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is often billed as the same thing as sugar. While it sweetens similarly, it’s metabolized completely differently, and that difference is critical. The liver metabolizes both sugar (glucose) and fructose, but it handles them differently.

Sugar may be metabolized for energy or it may be stored as fat. Fructose, though, is not used for energy. It’s metabolized into fat and triglycerides. HFCS is also a hormone disruptor, interfering with leptin and insulin.

This results in two nasty problems. One is that the blood signal telling your brain that you’re full doesn’t get set, so you continue to crave food. Decreases in leptin and insulin signals lead directly to diabetes.

As if all that isn’t bad enough, HFCS also causes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which causes liver scarring and cirrhosis.

That’s not the end of the damage HFCS can do. It binds with necessary minerals, thus preventing them from their normal functions—such as regulating the heart.

And one last issue with HFCS: It’s nearly always made from genetically modified corn.

Mercola has a good discussion on HFCS here.

Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, and Erythorbic Acid

These three chemicals must be taken as a group. It’s the interactions that cause problems—and, wouldn’t you know it, Mountain Dew has the worst possible combo here.

Sodium benzoate contains the carcinogen benzene. Even in tiny amounts, measured in parts per billion, benzene can cause cancer. Sodium benzoate is used in foods as a preservative. As far as we know, it’s harmless unless the sodium is separated from the benzene. That is, as long as the benzene remains compounded with sodium, there’s no harm. However, in the presence of certain chemicals, benzene is easily separated.

The question, of course, is what interacts with sodium benzoate to strip out the benzene. The standard answer is ascorbic acid, purified Vitamin C. But, that isn’t an ingredient in Mountain Dew. Nonetheless, we’re not home free yet.

Citric acid is chemically very close to ascorbic acid, and it differs only by having one more oxygen atom. That leaves it able to combine with sodium benzoate, though more slowly. Of course, when something is known to cause cancer at a couple of parts in a billion, even that’s too much.

Worse, though, is erythorbic acid (also called erythorbate). It’s even more like ascorbic acid than citric acid. In fact, the atoms that make it up are identical, and the only difference is the spacing of the atoms.

Erythorbic acid is every bit as bad as ascorbic acid in reacting with sodium benzoate to form the deadly compound, benzene!

The likelihood of finding benzene in Mountain Dew is high because it includes not just one, but two substances known to react with sodium benzoate.

Brominated Vegetable Oils

Endocrine disruptors are among the most insidious chemicals, as they interfere with hormones, which can disrupt the body’s homeostatic balance, leading to severe ill health. Bromine is a significant endocrine disruptor that’s commonly found in fire retardants. It goes to the very heart of metabolic processes by competing with the same receptors that utilize iodine, a necessary nutrient.

The health results of contact with bromine are serious enough, but when it’s also in food … well, you get the idea. Mountain Dew contains brominated vegetable oil because it helps keep that fake citrus-like flavor from floating to the surface of the drink. However Environmental Health News reports that it can give you skin lesions, memory loss, nerve disorders, and damage your thyroid. It’s also known to cause reproductive and behavioral problems in large doses applied to laboratory mice.

In the EU, you won’t see an E-number for brominated vegetable oil because it’s banned. For that reason, you won’t find regular Mountain Dew on European store shelves, though you will find other Mountain Dew products that don’t contain it.

Calcium Disodium EDTA

The FDA hasn’t yet bothered to do the studies that they’ve said they’ll do on calcium disodium EDTA. That alone should be worrisome, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s already known to be dangerous. It’s used as a chelating agent that comes with an FDA-required box warning:

WARNINGS: Calcium Disodium Versenate is capable of producing toxic effects which can be fatal. Lead encephalopathy is relatively rare in adults, but occurs more often in pediatric patients in whom it may be incipient and thus overlooked. The mortality rate in pediatric patients has been high. Patients with lead encephalopathy and cerebral edema may experience a lethal increase in intracranial pressure following, intravenous infusion; the intramuscular route is preferred for these patients. In cases where the intravenous route is necessary, avoid rapid infusion. The dosage schedule should be followed and at no time should the recommended daily dose be exceeded.

Because it’s used to chelate lead, it may be worth the risks to use it in chelation. However, one must wonder how it’s justified in soft drinks and other foods.

Calcium disodium EDTA is known to cause a wide range of nasty effects, including hypotension, irregular heartbeat, liver and kidney damage, tremors, headache, numbness & tingling, gastrointestinal problems, allergic responses, zinc deficiency, and excess calcium. Drugs.com has more on it here.

By the way, the EU has no problem with calcium disodium EDTA in food. It has its own E-number, E385.

Totality of Wrongs with Mountain Dew

It’s commonly known that Mountain Dew contains a high dose of caffeine, but frankly, that’s minor in the total picture of its harmful ingredients. Natural flavors, one of the ingredients, can disguise a host of nasties, but we’ll leave that alone in this article.

Though the thought of a mouse melting in it may be icky, that’s really not a serious concern. The acidity of Mountain Dew is certainly low enough not to be considered a problem—though you wouldn’t want it to sit on your teeth for too long, but most people swallow it, rather than hold it in their mouths.

However, Mountain Dew contains some of the worst ingredients known in soft drinks.  HFCS, calcium disodium EDTA, brominated vegetable oils, and the combination of sodium benzoate with both citric and erythorbic acids can lead to an incredible array of health problems. These include cancer, neurological problems, nonalcoholic liver fatty liver disease, skin lesions, memory loss, cardiac disease, and more.

Should you worry about a mouse dissolving? Not really. Should you ever let Mountain Dew touch your lips? Not if you value your health!

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