What are the Ingredients in Soft Drinks?

Soft Drinks can be created home, requiring from inexperienced users only bare minimum of kitchen knowledge and few bas ingredients such as water, sugar, flavoring and carbon dioxide in form its solid form (commonly known as “dry ice”). However, modern soft drinks that can be purchased in stores have much more sophisticated mixture of ingredients. Here they are:

Water – The most crucial ingredient of any soft drink is of course water, which usually constitutes up to 94% of material in your glass. To preserve purity of water, it has to be cleaned from almost all impurities, and set into most optimal pH levels that will be in perfect balance with other ingredients that can change pH levels and adjust taste of drink.

Sugar – Sugar in soft drinks can be used both in dry or liquid form, often being responsible for 7-12% of the contents of the soft drink. Its presence increases not only sweetness of the drink, but also balances acids and flavors. Artificial sweeteners can have different taste than natural sugar or sweet extracts of fruits, which forces manufacturers to add more artificial flavors to balance the taste.

Carbon Dioxide – The core component of soft drink is of course ingredients that “make it boil”. This harmless gas is added to provide sparkle, while simultaneously acting as a mild preservative. It is inert, and will not react with other ingredients in the mixture.

Flavorings – Flavorings are commonly present in soft drinks. They are either artificial (used to boost or balance of taste that is created by other ingredients) or natural (in powder of jelly form).

Additives – Additives are usually used in very small quantities, effectively enhancing appearance (emulsions), aroma and mouth feel. In the last few decades, additives are almost always of natural origin.

Preservatives – Added both to prevent appearance and growth of microorganisms and to ensure longer shelf life of drink (to prevent deterioration of drink ingredients).