What is soda water?
On the Internet, there are various introductions about soda water: "Soda water is an aqueous solution of sodium bicarbonate, which can be naturally formed by weakly alkaline effervescent tablets, soda effervescent tablets, machines, etc., or it can be artificially generated." "Soda water is weakly alkaline and can be used for external sterilization in medicine." "Natural soda water contains a variety of trace elements except sodium bicarbonate, which is a good drink" ... all these have cast a mysterious veil on soda water.
Soda, is it really "delicious"? To evaluate the quality of a drink, we need to compare it with other drinks.
The word "soda wat er er" comes from the English word "soda water er". In English, it is also called "carbonated water" and "soda or soda". In addition to the feature of "both contain carbon dioxide", there are obvious differences between "soda water" and "soda water".
"Foaming water" can be simply understood as "water that can see bubbles when poured into a cup". The reason why bubbles can be formed is that under natural pressure, the carbon dioxide in water exceeds the saturated concentration, so the convergent bubbles overflow. Some mineral water naturally meets this requirement and is called "natural mineral water with gas". Others are obtained by artificially pressurizing carbon dioxide, which is called "aerated natural mineral water". Carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid in water, which can dissociate hydrogen ions, so such "foam water" is weakly acidic.
Soda water popular in life, especially "sodium bicarbonate solution", is usually emphasized as "weak alkalinity" by merchants. (Editor's Note: The "soda water" mentioned below belongs to this type. )
What effect does soda have on health?
Soda is actually a kind of drink between "carbonated drink" and "pure water". Fundamentally speaking, carbonated drinks are also a kind of soda. But carbonated drinks will add sugar (or sweeteners), phosphoric acid and citric acid. So "soda water" in daily life does not include carbonated drinks.
According to the internet, carbonated drinks such as cola will reduce bone density because of their strong acidity, which will further lead to osteoporosis. Therefore, some consumers infer that drinking soda for a long time can also lead to osteoporosis. This is actually an alarmist. From the scientific basis, carbonated drinks are quite weak even if they have an impact on bones. Moreover, soda water is weaker than carbonated drinks, and its influence on bone mineral density can be ignored.
Patients with gout can be advised to take soda tablets when taking uric acid excretion drugs to prevent uric acid formed by uric acid excretion drugs from depositing in urethra. Many people misunderstand the efficacy of soda tablets as "taking soda tablets can treat gout or excrete uric acid". Because of this, many gout patients will think that soda contains soda, and drinking soda can alleviate gout. In fact, this statement has not been confirmed by scientific experiments.
Others say that drinking soda before meals helps to increase satiety and help to lose weight. In fact, drinking any water before meals can increase satiety. As for whether the "bubbles" in soda can produce a stronger sense of fullness, it needs to be judged according to everyone's physique.
The saying that drinking soda can nourish the stomach and relieve indigestion and constipation is also widely known, but there is no scientific basis. Soda water is alkaline, so it can relieve patients with hyperacidity. This relieving effect is interpreted as "nourishing the stomach", but it is actually a concept of stealing. For people with normal gastric acid secretion, soda water has no "stomach-nourishing" effect. In the same way, the saying that "drinking soda can change the acidic constitution" is just a kind of hype. The theory of "acid-base constitution" is pseudoscience, and it is difficult to change the acid-base balance of human body by drinking water.
How to drink soda?
If you like to drink soda, it is no problem to drink it in moderation, as long as you pay attention to the sodium intake. But if you don't like the taste of soda, there is no need to force it for the sake of so-called health.
Generally speaking, compared with carbonated drinks, soda water is a relatively healthy drink, with no sugar and weak acidity. Compared with pure water, soda water is more delicious and can make drinking water more enjoyable. It can be said that soda water is both healthy and delicious.
However, it should be noted that if there is more sodium bicarbonate in soda, drinking it in large quantities may lead to excessive sodium intake, which will not be worth the candle. (Dr. Yun Orfila, Food Engineering)