Antioxidant Capacity of Soft Drinks

Drinking is essential to life as we know it. Originally tasteless, water can be made more pleasant to the taste in many ways. An important group of beverages can be defined as “soft drinks” and it is composed by beverages without alcohol and usually with the addition of carbon dioxide. Billions of litres of such beverages in many different flavours are consumed every year. Soft drinks are roughly divided in two main categories based on the added ingredients like caramel, an artificial coloured flavour, and natural fruit juice. Both contain in different amounts compounds that can act as antioxidant, like caramel, caffeine or the particular polyphenolics present in the used fruit juice. The group of beverages commonly known as “Energy drinks” is a particular group of soft drinks which contains mostly caffeine, taurine and group B vitamins. They can however be better defined as liquid dietary supplements.