At OLIPOP, we’re looking to change the future by reflecting on the past. We’ve taken a drink that's been dominated for decades by highly-refined sugar and artificial ingredients and made it into a nutritious and tasty experience. That’s because we know that life is too short to load up on unnecessary sugar and drink a soda with zero nutrition. But it’s also too short not to satisfy your sweet cravings!

Although, you may be wondering why the price of a can of OLIPOP is more expensive than a can of traditional soda. There’s a simple answer: OLIPOP contains ingredients that can help you live a healthier life, while cheaper sodas only fill you up with empty calories that may have detrimental effects on your health.

Keep reading to find out more about why you should value OLIPOP more than those other sugar bomb sodas.

What Is OLIPOP?

OLIPOP tastes just like the soda you grew up sipping, but with the added benefit of microbiome and digestive health support. That’s why we call it a “new kind of soda.” One that reminds you of summer days lounging by the pool or nights sitting around the dinner table with friends and family.

We’re still that bubbly beverage you know and love, with all the flavors you’ve come to enjoy. But our pop is made with scientifically-backed ingredients that can support a healthy lifestyle (unlike traditional soda!).

Why Is Regular Soda Cheap?

When you buy a can of soda, the reason you pay so little is because you’re getting so little. Soda is essentially water, sugar, preservatives, and flavoring. However, there’s more to the story behind why soft drinks cost so little.

1. The Low Cost of High Fructose Corn Syrup

It’s not cheap to use real fruit juice to sweeten soda like OLIPOP does. In fact, the price of sweeteners is a huge factor in the overall cost of a can of soda—especially considering that the main ingredient in most soda (after water) is some sort of sugar, whether that’s high fructose corn syrup or refined cane sugar.

To increase profit margins, many soda companies try to cut corners with their ingredients as much as they can, and that starts with their sweetener of choice.

When it was first produced, manufacturers sweetened their soda with refined cane or beet sugar. However, due to tariffs, import quotas, and other economic factors over the years, refined sugar grew increasingly expensive in the United States.

In 1981, a law increasing tariffs on imported sugar raised the domestic price of sugar to twice its price on global markets.¹ As a result, the big soda brands started to use more and more high fructose corn syrup — which was a cheaper and sweeter alternative to cane sugar — in their formulas to cut down on costs. With corn subsidized by the U.S. government, this sugary syrup became a more affordable option for beverage companies.²

In November 1984, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi agreed that sugar prices were getting out of hand. So they decided to join forces and simultaneously announced that they would be replacing all the cane sugar in their formulas with high fructose corn syrup.^{3 4} Following this announcement, the prevalence of corn syrup in our food supply skyrocketed. For the first time since the USDA Economic Research Service started tracking sweetener availability in 1970, corn sweetener availability exceeded that of refined sugar in 1985.⁵

High fructose corn syrup was by far the cheapest sweetener available for soft drink companies to use. On the other hand, OLIPOP uses real fruit juice, cassava root syrup, and stevia leaf extract to sweeten our sodas. These ingredients may be more costly, but they’re also linked to much more favorable outcomes for your health.

High fructose corn syrup consumption, particularly when used in soft drinks, could lead to numerous health issues that range from metabolic disorder to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease to obesity.⁶ Instead, OLIPOP uses stevia, a natural, zero-calorie sweetener derived from the leaves of the Stevia Rebaudiana plant.

Stevia is not stored in the body like high fructose corn syrup is, which means that it doesn't affect blood sugar nor is it ever stored as fat on the body. In fact, preliminary research suggests that there may even be benefits to using stevia beyond it being a zero-calorie alternative to highly-caloric refined sugar.⁷

2. Natural vs. Artificial Flavors

As you probably know, sodas get their taste from either (or both) natural and artificial flavors. These flavors help make soda taste more appealing and interesting, and not just like the sugar that they’re mostly made of.

These flavor extracts are chemical compounds or mixtures of compounds that are either derived from natural sources (“natural” flavors) or artificially synthesized in a lab without the need of any plant material (“artificial” flavors). While it’s possible for natural and artificial flavors to have the exact same chemical composition, the difference is that artificial flavors don’t require natural, more expensive sources to produce, making the end product cheaper.⁸

For instance, let's take a look at natural vanilla flavor, one of the flavors we use in our Classic Root Beer. Natural vanilla flavor is often derived from vanilla beans. And you can only get these beans from hand-pollinated flowering orchids in a small selection of tropical areas. Artificial vanilla, on the other hand, is chemically synthesized in a lab at mass scale. Both methods result in the flavor compound vanillin, which is the vanilla taste you know and love, but the artificial method is much cheaper to use.⁹

3. Lack Of Health-Supporting Ingredients

Most soda has no redeeming nutritional qualities, which is another reason why it’s so cheap. By contrast, OLIPOP is a new kind of soda that can actually support your health goals. We do that by adding ingredients to our delicious sodas that research indicates benefit your health.

For example, OLIPOP features OLISMART: our proprietary blend of unique botanicals, plant fibers, and prebiotics (the primo food source for the beneficial bacteria that live in your gut microbiome). Each ingredient is hand-picked for their distinct biome-supporting benefits. We worked alongside leading microbiome researchers, such as Dr. Stephen Lindemann and Dr. Robert Britton, to select these ingredients to deliver a microbiome-supporting bang in every can.

Ingredients in OLIPOP vs Regular Soda

Here is a breakdown of the ingredients in a can of Orange Squeeze vs. a can of Fanta:

What Ingredients Are In Regular Soda?

What are you putting in your body every time you sip on a can of regular soda? Let’s take a look at the ingredient list of a can of A&W Rootbeer:

• Carbonated water
• High fructose corn syrup
• Caramel color
• Sodium benzoate
• Natural and artificial flavors
• Quillaia extract

As you can see, most of these ingredients are highly-processed sugars, preservatives, and artificial flavors—yuck.

What Ingredients Are In OLIPOP?

Looking at the nutrition panel of a can of OLIPOP is vastly different. Let’s take our Classic Root Beer as an example:

• Carbonated Water
• OLISMART (a unique blend of botanicals, plant fibers, and prebiotics)
• Cassava Root Syrup
• Apple Juice Concentrate
• Organic Natural Root Beer Flavor
• Lemon Juice
• Burdock Root
• Stevia Leaf
• Himalayan Pink Salt
• Natural Vanilla Flavor
• Sweet Birch

Ahh, that’s better. As you can see, you’ll never see high fructose corn syrup or artificial flavors and preservatives in our cans. Instead, all our flavors contain no more than 5g of added sugar per can. They are high-fiber and use natural sweeteners like cassava root syrup, real fruit juice, and stevia.

Functions of OLIPOP vs Regular Soda

Drinks can do more for your body than hydrate it—in both positive and negative ways. Certain beverages, like OLIPOP, may support your health goals, while other drinks, like regular or diet soda, can do more harm than good.

Besides being a refreshing, thirst-quenching addition to your day, here are all the ways that an OLIPOP prebiotic soda can support a healthy lifestyle.

1. OLIPOP Supports Your Microbiome

There are very few systems in the body that affect as many parts of your health as the microbiome does. From regulating hormones to impacting your mood, the gut microbiome (a community of microbes, bacteria, fungi, and viruses that colonize your digestive tract) is central to human health and the prevention of chronic diseases. Essentially—tending to your microbiome is key to helping you feel good, both physically and mentally.

One of the best ways to nourish your microbiome is by eating more prebiotic fiber.⁠ These prebiotic fibers are what feed the good probiotic bacteria that live in your gut, playing an essential role in helping them do their job.

So what makes OLIPOP stand out from the crowd? We use several different prebiotic fibers in our recipe, such as Jerusalem artichoke, chicory root, and cassava root. And not only that, but our sodas contain research-backed amounts of prebiotic fiber that are substantial enough to actually make a difference.¹⁰ Just take a look at our nutrition label! 

2. OLIPOP is High Fiber

Speaking of fiber, diets rich in high-fiber foods support optimal digestive health. And studies show they also could help reduce your risk of developing some chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease.¹¹ Not bad, right?

There’s just one problem: 95% of American adults aren’t consuming enough fiber.¹² They average American eats 16g of fiber per day, while the FDA recommends 28g per day.¹³ That massive deficiency is what nutritionists call the “fiber gap.”

OLIPOP is on a mission to help close the fiber gap. This is why every can of OLIPOP is considered high-fiber, thanks to our proprietary blend of prebiotic fibers.

3. OLIPOP Is Lower in Sugar Than Soda

We think you’re sweet as can be, so your soda doesn’t have to be. There are 39 grams of sugar in a can of Coca-Cola and 140 calories — all from high fructose corn syrup. Yuck! The maximum amount of added sugar the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends you consume on a daily basis is 24 grams.¹⁴ A single can of Coke exceeds that number by 15 grams.¹⁵

OLIPOP is much (much) lower in sugar than conventional sodas. Our Vintage Cola has only 2 grams of sugar, or 95% less sugar than a can of Coke. You won’t find any more than 5g of sugar in any flavor of OLIPOP—we promise.

4. OLIPOP Supports Healthy Digestion

Having tummy troubles? You’re not alone. 61% of Americans suffer from digestive issues.¹⁶ A large chunk of this is due to a lack of fiber in the Standard American Diet (SAD).

The SAD contains saturated fats, sugars, and sodium—not exactly the best foods for the probiotics in your gut. A malnourished gut can't break down and distribute nutrients throughout the body like it's meant to. ⁠

That's why increasing fiber and lowering sugar is our mission here at OLIPOP. And we're the best choice for nurturing your gut microbiome back to health.

5. OLIPOP Enhances Immune Health

Squeeze away the sniffles! Our Orange Squeeze flavor packs in 160% DV of immune-supporting vitamin C thanks to the addition of real fruit like mandarin juice and clementine juice. No artificials here!

Functions of Regular Soda

There are no redeeming qualities when it comes to the ingredients in regular soda, as they are almost entirely made up of water and added sugars. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There's a long list of negative health effects associated with regular soft drinks.

Drinking soda could increase your risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic disease, depression, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, shortened lifespan, and more.^{17 18 19}

So, Why Is OLIPOP More Expensive?

OLIPOP may taste like the nostalgic sodas you’ve been sipping on your entire life, but it's a completely new kind of soda. One that supports a healthy lifestyle rather than putting you at risk of chronic diseases like regular soda does.

You would have to consume around 2 apples, 1.5 bowls of oatmeal, or 2 servings of almonds to get the same amount of fiber as a can of OLIPOP. And not all of that fiber is prebiotic.

Plus, by swapping your typical can of soda out for a can of OLIPOP you’re doubly supporting your health by removing a detrimental drink from your diet while replacing it with a beneficial one. Can you really put a price on your health?

Want to learn more about all the reasons why OLIPOP can be your healthier soda alternative? Check out OLIPOP Digest for all the latest resources, research, and information.

Sources

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