Lemonade

Food · Drink · Food, Typed Supps

The soft drink people order when they’re avoiding soft drink.

Stage by stage

Acid (Enamel): Carbonic and citric acid give a low pH — the erosion risk is like any soft drink.
Nothing to slow it (Stomach): No fibre, no protein, no fat: the sugar arrives as fast as the liquid does.
Free sugar (Circulation): 8.8 g per 100 g — a 375 mL can is around 33 g.
Fructose (Liver): Sucrose splits half to fructose, which the liver handles separately.

Timing

With a meal the glycaemic rise is blunted. For teeth, the worst pattern is sipping slowly, because it extends the acid contact.

Time to effect

15–30 min: Glycaemic peak.
Years: Erosion and metabolic risk accumulate with habitual intake.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Keto, Low-FODMAP.

Environmental footprint

0.4 kg CO2e and 83 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Citrus fruit" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Sugar

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 34
Carbohydrate: 8.8g
of which sugars: 8.8g
Sodium: 14mg

Food vs. supplement

Liquid calories are compensated for poorly: people do not eat less later to account for a sugary drink in the way they partly do for solid food. That, rather than the sugar itself, is the mechanism most often invoked to explain why soft drinks track with weight gain.

Kitchen tip

Soda water and a wedge of lemon is the closest thing that actually is the lighter option — the fizz and the sourness were most of what you wanted.

Common myth

“Lemonade is the lighter choice — it’s clear, and there’s no caffeine.” In reality: Clear and caffeine-free, yes. Lighter, barely: 8.8 g of sugar per 100 g against cola’s 12.3 g. A can still carries around 33 g of free sugar, more than the WHO conditional daily limit for most adults. Australian lemonade also contains no lemon at all, so there is nothing behind the fruit association either.