The healthy food world is filled with buzzwords. Over the past year, the newest in-demand concept has been “functional beverages.” Brands like Olipop and Poppi have advertised themselves as prebiotic sodas guaranteed to improve your gut health — but these miracle claims led to a recent lawsuit. All the controversy surrounding these brands begs the question: Is ‘healthy’ soda truly healthy? And most importantly, can it cause harm?
Sugar to Prebiotic Pipeline
For the first 50 years, soda was essentially tinctures and tonics labeled as miracle cures. Coca-Cola famously contained cocaine, Pepsi had pepsin, and 7-Up contained lithium as a mood stabilizer. These beverages were fairly accepted until the 1910s when food and drink became regulated. Rather than labeled as a ‘healthy’ drink, soda was accepted for what it truly was – a tasty and sugary beverage. This lasted for over 100 years until a massive decline in the 2010s. People became more conscious of their sugar intake with the diabetes epidemic in America. Among teenagers, soda consumption dropped over 60%.
Companies became attuned to this apprehension of sugar and accommodated by releasing sugar-free options. Nonetheless, people soon learned that a lack of sugar does not imply health. If anything, sugar was replaced by harmful chemicals like aspartame, whose empty calories are possibly far worse than sugar. Sugar-free seltzers like La Croix were on the market, yet to many, their slightly sweetened taste would not hold a candle to soda. All this hoopla left an empty space in the beverage industry.
What are Probiotics and Prebiotics, Really?
Kombucha was the first “healthy drink” to be stocked on shelves and reach mainstream popularity. Kombucha is made by the fermentation of the live organisms known as probiotics. These live organisms make the drink fizzy and offer a vague promise of gut health as bacteria ferments and multiplies, preventing bad bacteria from attaching to cells. The beverage has a vinegary, sour taste that many people enjoy, but some find unpleasant. Renee Clerkin, IBS and Gut Dietition, who goes by @the.healthy.gut.dietitian on Instagram, has some expert advice for Just N Life readers who are considering the pros and cons of drinking kombucha.
“Kombucha is fermented – meaning it contains live beneficial bacteria – but can still be a sugar bomb,” Clerkin said. “The amount of sugar varies greatly between brands and even flavors within a brand. Also, kombucha can irritate gut symptoms in some individuals. However, if you like kombucha (and can tolerate it) then I would recommend opting for one with a lower sugar amount (or make your own). Kombucha can be a great source of beneficial live bacteria in your diet that can support gut health. Studies show that a regular intake of fermented foods, such as kombucha, can improve gut microbiome diversity and lower inflammatory markers.”
Kombucha can be a great source of beneficial live bacteria in your diet that can support gut health.
Renee Clerkin
The key relationship between consuming probiotics and prebiotics is balance. As simplified by Clerkin, “Prebiotics feed probiotics. They are specific types of fiber that the live bacteria eat. Probiotics are live bacteria that offer benefits to the host (us). We need both of them. The prebiotics feed the probiotics. The probiotics benefit us. For example, think about feeding a plant (plant food = prebiotics) so the plant (plant = probiotics) will grow (provide benefits to us).”
The prebiotic brand Olipop was founded in 2018 by Ben Goodwin and David Lester and marketed as a prebiotic soda brand that made up for the downfalls of kombucha; its flavors replicated popular soda brand flavors like Coca-Cola and root beer, AND they promised benefits to your gut health. The company has since reached hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. But what not many people know is that Olipop was their second conquest.
Before Olipop, Goodwin and Lester first developed Obi – a probiotic soda that failed in the market. They rebranded in 2018 with Olipop and marketed this time as a prebiotic soda, which spoke to a real health problem in America: a lack of fiber. Olipop’s labels are filled with niche, natural ingredients like Chicory Root, Jerusalem Artichoke, Nopal Cactus, Calendula Flower, and Marshmallow Root. Most notably, 9g of fiber is listed on the nutrition label, which offers almost 30% of the recommended daily intake.
Another competing prebiotic soda is Poppi, which carries the slogans, “Be Gut Happy. Be Gut Healthy,” and “For a Healthy Gut,” with 2g of fiber in every can. Theoretically, this offer of fiber sounded like an intriguing fix to a rising health problem. All this fiber comes from inulin, an agave plant; however, the controversy began when it was revealed that there is no real research to indicate that inulin is good for your gut or can improve your gut health. This meant the marketing of gut health was misleading and false. The “functional beverage” went full circle: cocaine was simply replaced by natural mushrooms.
Lawsuit Takeaways
In the lawsuit, a former customer of Poppi accused the brand of false marketing, since one can alone does not have nearly enough fiber to offer benefits to gut health. The FDA carries no regulations about ‘gut healthy’ products and ‘probiotics’ given their relatively new popularity. Furthermore, these recent lawsuits are determined on a case-by-case basis. Researchers are looking into the side effects of too much inulin in a diet but no concrete answers have been revealed. The lawsuit continues, but the likely outcome will be rebranding ‘healthy soda’ brands with more honest messages.
Renee doubled down on all the misconceptions surrounding the lawsuit and what outcome we can derive from the controversy.
“I think the bigger issue is realizing that a single product alone will not provide everything your body needs for optimal gut health,” she said. “Maintaining health is about consuming a variety of different fibers in a variety of different forms. Opting to get your fiber naturally through foods will also ensure you are getting a variety of fiber without the additional load of sugars and additives. Drinking prebiotics on occasion can definitely be part of a healthy lifestyle but relying on them entirely for their prebiotic content is not. And, while they do contain healthy prebiotics, they also contain added sugar so be aware of your overall intake. Plus, certain prebiotics in gut sensitive individuals can actually make gut symptoms worse, not better.”
A single product alone will not provide everything your body needs for optimal gut health.
Renee Clerkin
Soda brands like Poppi and Olipop do not serve as sufficient replacements for natural sources of fiber and proper nutrition. Rather, they are simply a better alternative to soda. When the lawsuit was publicized, many people feared the drink and its potentially harmful ingredients. The only problem with these brands, however, was with the false marketing. Brands like Poppi and Olipop are more than safe to drink (and tasty ones at that). But it’s a safe rule to assume that consuming a processed soft drink is probably not going to offer many real benefits to your overall health. ‘Healthy soda’ is somewhat of a paradox. Source your nutrition from food, and let your fizzy drinks simply be a fun addition to your meals. Like anything, consume in moderation and all will be well. Not everything you consume needs to have a physical benefit – sometimes pure joy is sufficient.
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