Poppin’ a Top

By Jim Hagarty
2012

I am just now drinking a bottle of lime pop. Tastes OK. I haven’t had one in many years.

I wonder how much lime is in it. The ingredients are listed according to the amount with the biggest amounts at the start, dwindling down to the smaller ones. No surprise, carbonated water forms the biggest part of this drink. Second, of course, is sugar/glucose-fructose. Third is citric acid. “Citric” might be lime, but I don’t know. Then comes “natural flavour.” I wonder what that is. Then modified corn starch. Sounds reasonable. After that, sodium benzoate. I’m guessing salt. Acacia gum? Then we leave the fairway and are into the rough: sucrose acetate isobutyrate, glycerol ester of wood rosin (there’s wood in my drink?), brominated vegetable oil, colour and guar gum. What is ester, what is brominated, what is guar?

Point is, nowhere in the ingredients is the word “lime” listed.

How can you make a lime drink without any actual lime being included?

But what would I know? Somewhere there is a lime pop tycoon tooling around his mansion, probably sucking back a drink of freshly squeezed real lime. Probably wouldn’t drink this pop on the threat of death.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.