The law, which goes into force at the start of 2024, defines an energy drink as a beverage containing over 150mg/l of caffeine or taurine, excluding products where those substances occur naturally.
“excluding products where those substances occur naturally.”
That seems like a dumb exception. It’s not like naturally occurring caffeine is somehow better for you. If it’s above that limit, then the law should apply to that as well.
Coffee has its beans dried and roasted, then ground and seeped in water. If you’re going to call that artificial, then you are claiming that literally any cooked food is also artificial.
I’m gonna go with the step you didn’t list which is soaking them in dichloromethane or ethyl acetate for several hours, or submersing them in high pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide, to extract the pure caffeine. Then adding that pure caffeine into a mixture of artificial sugars, preservatives, and food dyes.
But sure, that’s totally the same as something that’s essentially a type of tea.
Coffee beans are dried. Then beans then ungo a Maillard reaction, caramelisation, pyrolysis and decarboxilation to form new organic componds
then ground and seeped in water
Then ground to maximize the surface area. The prouder is then extracted using unpure H2O as solvent. A higher temperature is needed to raise the solubility of the compounds.
Yeah that’s basically the point I try to make. You can’t even say it’s not synthetic since you’re synthezise new compounds in the first step. There really is no real difference artificial and natural.
Let’s take Vanillin (vanilla flavoring) for example: you could extract it from Vanilla, but it’s pretty expensive this way. You could also just synthesize it from wood pulp and get the exact same compound. It’s not even just similar, no, it’s the exact same.
If something is natural or “artifical” doesn’t say anything about how harmful it is.
I would argue that naturally occurring caffeine is much worse than synthetic caffeine because it also contains rest of plant’s toxins and other not so good stuff.
On the other hand not that anyone uses sunthetic caffeine in their drinks. It is expensive as hell.
The article notes what the law applies to.
“excluding products where those substances occur naturally.”
That seems like a dumb exception. It’s not like naturally occurring caffeine is somehow better for you. If it’s above that limit, then the law should apply to that as well.
It’s a lot easier to pass a law banning the sale of artificial drinks to minors than it is to ban coffee sales to minors.
Artificial drinks, not caffeine? Coffee is artificial drink too because it is human-made.
It nearly impossible to define energy-drinks in a way that does not include coffee, but include off-the-shelf drinks.
Coffee has its beans dried and roasted, then ground and seeped in water. If you’re going to call that artificial, then you are claiming that literally any cooked food is also artificial.
And you are correct.
For those who think energy drinks are not the same, please point out at which stage coffee is no longer coffee and why:
I’m gonna go with the step you didn’t list which is soaking them in dichloromethane or ethyl acetate for several hours, or submersing them in high pressure, supercritical carbon dioxide, to extract the pure caffeine. Then adding that pure caffeine into a mixture of artificial sugars, preservatives, and food dyes.
But sure, that’s totally the same as something that’s essentially a type of tea.
Whoa! Didn’t know you can boil in CO2 too.
Nah, too expensive.
You can under high enough pressure
Coffee beans are dried. Then beans then ungo a Maillard reaction, caramelisation, pyrolysis and decarboxilation to form new organic componds
Then ground to maximize the surface area. The prouder is then extracted using unpure H2O as solvent. A higher temperature is needed to raise the solubility of the compounds.
You can describe anything that’s consumed by people with chemical terms and it’s gonna sound unnatural.
You remind me of that old joke site warning people of the dangers of the chemical compound DHMO (dihydrogen monoxide)
Yeah that’s basically the point I try to make. You can’t even say it’s not synthetic since you’re synthezise new compounds in the first step. There really is no real difference artificial and natural.
Let’s take Vanillin (vanilla flavoring) for example: you could extract it from Vanilla, but it’s pretty expensive this way. You could also just synthesize it from wood pulp and get the exact same compound. It’s not even just similar, no, it’s the exact same.
If something is natural or “artifical” doesn’t say anything about how harmful it is.
I would argue that naturally occurring caffeine is much worse than synthetic caffeine because it also contains rest of plant’s toxins and other not so good stuff.
On the other hand not that anyone uses sunthetic caffeine in their drinks. It is expensive as hell.