This Is Your Tooth On Pepsi

Goodbye Teeth, What’s left of Em’s tooth after 48 hours soaking in a Pepsi soda (one can), photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

This has been a rough week as far as Em’s concerned. First we had to tell her that there is no tooth fairy and that, in fact, we had in our possession all the teeth she ever contributed to the making of new stars in the sky (that’s what tooth fairies do with teeth, you know). Second, she had to take two of those teeth and set up a science fair project to look at the Big Question: Which will dissolve a tooth faster — Mtn Dew or Pepsi? And third, she had to watch before her very own eyes as one of her teeth dissolved within two days in a can of Pepsi (something she used to be supremely fond of drinking whenever we let her).

(She also had to get her teeth cleaned last week, but the dentist and his staff were so excited about her science experiment — the doc predicted that Pepsi would dissolve the teeth faster than Mtn Dew — that they paid her oodles of attention and gave her extra stuff from the goody chest.)

Em started with two almost equal-sized teeth of hers that she had to get pulled a few years ago due to crowding (not because of tooth decay).

 

The Pepsi tooth after the first or second check, still pretty much intact.

 

The Pepsi tooth after about half a day of soaking.

 

The Pepsi tooth cracked and broke into two pieces after about 24 hours of soaking.

So, I’m giving up my occasional Pepsi or Coke, plus every other carbonated drink, for that matter. (Shoot, I was just starting to like Arizona Iced Teas!) I hate to be such a goodie-two-shoes, but that little floating string of a tooth, the one that resembles goldfish poop…well…it’s grossing me out more than you can imagine. (It grossed out Em so much that she didn’t even take a photo of it to include on her science fair project board.)

Jim says that during this week’s Science Fair, all the parents will be dragging their kids over to see Em’s project and all the kids are going to glare at Em for doing it.

I don’t know. I don’t think it will have much an effect on anyone’s drinking habits. Now, if we printed a few wallet-sized prints of that stringy tooth, that might make a person think twice before drinking a soda.

How ’bout you? Still gonna pop the top?




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Postscript: Over a week after the Pepsi tooth dissolved, the Mtn Dew tooth was still intact. We finally threw it out but took this last photo for posterity.

I guess the moral of the science project is: If you must drink a soda, go for Mtn Dew instead of Pepsi. Less wear and tear on the teeth. 🙂  (Wish I had a smiley face icon with a missing tooth.)

Mtn Dew tooth, Em's tooth after almost two weeks soaking in a can of Mtn Dew, still going strong.

 

-related to post Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle

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Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle

Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle, outside the Birchwood Cafe, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

I had planned a post on writing for this sunny Friday afternoon. But the day felt like Summer, and I ran out of steam. So with fans blazing across the studio, and windows still open at 9pm, I’ve opted for something simpler.

I was running back through the photographic archives when this little gem of a bench caught my attention. It reminds me of days gone by, times when we ran slip sliding through the sprinkler, guzzled soft drinks, drank gallons of Kool-Aid, and even flavored garden hose water — anything to keep the sweltering Southern heat at bay.

Did you have a favorite childhood soft drink? You can’t be from Georgia and not love Coca-Cola (I’m a big Coke Zero fan). My other favorite was RC Cola (Royal Crown). In 1905, Claude Hatcher, a young graduate pharmacist from Columbus, Georgia, began creating soft drinks in the basement of his family’s wholesale grocery business. RC Cola was born (I used to love their jingles).

Diet Rite (an RC product) came along in 1958 and was the first diet soda ever to be sold (in limited quantities). In 1962, Diet Rite Cola was introduced nationwide and rose to #4 in 18 months. Thus began America’s love affair with the diet soft drink.

The weathered bench in the photograph that boasts “Diet-Rite — Less Than 1 Calorie Per Bottle” is outside the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis. Remember cyclamate and saccharin (my grandmother used to sweeten her coffee with it)? Well, all that’s changed; Diet Rite is now sweetened with 21st Century low-cal Splenda.

Diet-Rite and RC Cola, along with Coca-Cola, remind me of my childhood in Georgia. We used to drop Planters Peanuts into a frosty blue-green bottle of Co-Cola (Southern dialect shortens the word) from the metal vending machine at my Granddaddy’s shop. Forget the can; you haven’t tasted cola until you’ve taken a long cold swig from a glass bottle. I still buy them once in a while during seasonal appearances on the grocery store shelf.

So what’s your favorite summer soft drink memory? Shasta, Bubba Cola, RC, Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Clicquot Club, Schweppe’s, Fanta, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush? Or maybe your parents didn’t let you drink soda. What was their replacement (or their “no sugar” bribe)?

Oh, by the way, (here comes the healthy part of this post) you won’t want to miss the food at the Birchwood, a cool cafe with great ice cream and a wide range of natural and organic foods. The Birchwood was established in 1926 by the Bursch family; the cafe was originally a dairy. It’s not quite Summer yet, but I bet the tables outside the Birchwood were hopping with Good Real Food (and a few natural colas) on this shiny April day!

           

Good Real Food, Izzy’s At The Birchwood, Orange Crush, Drink Clicquot Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, all photos © 2007-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, April 3rd, 2008

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