The New Fat-Blocking Soda – Will It Work?
Is it true? You can drink soda all day long and prevent fat storage?
Pepsi is releasing its latest soda Pepsi Special in Japan before it comes to the United States. But why Japan first? Pepsi is basing its fat-blocking claim, in part on a Japanese study that came out in 2006 by Japan’s National Institute of Health. This study found that rats that ate Dextrin, absorbed less fat from their food essentially due to the food moving through the rats.
Wheat dextrin, the fiber component in the Pepsi Special, is the active ingredient in Benefiber. Yes dextrin does have health benefits such as: “may increase micronutrient absorption, stabilize[s] blood glucose, lower[s] serum lipids, may prevent several gastrointestinal disorders, and ha[s] an accepted role in prevention of cardiovascular disease.”
However, Pepsi Special is being reported and marketed as a fat blocking soda…with sugar. Yes, you heard that right. Sugar is responsible for weight gain. When you ingest sugar, with or without fiber (and sugar is not fat), you trigger insulin and guess what? Insulin is your fat storage hormone…and likes to keep it there.
This is alarming and dangerous as it will only lead to more sugary soda consumption (which is sky-rocketing as I write this blog) in the name of “healthy.” For example, the average American ingests 156 lbs of sugar a year! This statistic is before people get that hot bottle of Pepsi Special in their hands, in the name of health.
Pepsi is hoping that consumers will believe what they say.
By the way, there isn’t fat in Pepsi Special – healthy fat does not make you fat. The last time I looked. I wasn’t a rat.
~Lori
Best-selling author of ‘Fire-Up Your Fat Burn!’