Refreshing Glass of Battery Acid, Anyone?

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck! I've always known about the acidity level of soft drinks, but this is just wrong:

http://news.yahoo.com/pepsi-says-mountain-dew-dissolve-mouse-carcasses-213911576.html

It would appear that if a mouse fell into a soda bottle or can during the bottling process, the soda may completely dissolve the mouse before it reaches you. "Our product is essentially a can of battery acid", they say.

 

I don't really think it happened. Not that it couldn't happen. But major brands are often hit with lawsuits like this. There are no shortage of people out there who are keen to go up against a big company - there's been quite a few cases where the company would rather settle out of court than run the gauntlet of bad exposure in the media.

As for the plaintiff's story... puhleeeease.... who pours a glass of soda and doesn't feel something like the remains of a mouse plop down into the cup being poured. I call BS on this story. The 'battery acid' bit is just chucked in there for the shock value of it.

Besides... mice aren't made of steel. It's not all that shocking to think a mouse over a period of time would be dissolved in soda. Not surprising at all. The acidic properties of soda errode dental enamel so why wouldn't they eventually dissolve a mouse? How long to dissolve a mouse? My guess a very long time. It wouldn't be all that hard to test either. You could easily run the test using some feeder mice from your local pet store and container of coke or whatever soda you wanted.

Some info on the topic:

http://www.livescience.com/7198-acids-popular-sodas-erode-tooth-enamel.html

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/acid.asp

 

Yeah, the guy's story was a little...

Pepsi's response was the shocking part. I've known for a long time about what soda can do to a slab of ribs or a can full of nails. And watching soda eat through battery terminal oxidation or windshield bug guts is fun, but thinking about something plopping out of a can you may have taken of sip of is nasty. There'd have to be a flavour.

It's a little bold to come right out and say the food product you're making bank on is essentially a can full of battery acid.

 

Favourite comment was, "the mouse was probably the most nutritious thing in the can"

i would have to agree it isnt likely that a mouse remain intact at all from the factory to the consumer, and that the bloke was going for a settlement.

 

lol @ the "nutritious" comment. A great reason to buy bottled soda! With the battery acid reminder, it's amazing to me that there are people out there who's main fluid intake is soda. And they say they do better in the heat of summer drinking soda than they do with drinking water. I've never understood how that's possible, but to each their own.

 

Yeah, odd choice of words there..
Ive cleaned off a car battery with a bit of coke once, even an old penny i found lol, and im sure most people are aware of those type of things.

But for them to make such a statement as they did in court!
I guess they dont consider it detrimental to their product, the world downs so many litres of the stuff a day its probably of no consequence what they say anyway.

 

Good point. Knowing that customers know it's a can of battery acid and will still buy it anyway reminds me of some sci-fi and fantasy shows where alien races are marketing their secretions in a plot to take over the world, lol. Crazy and very, very ballsy!

 

2(H3PO4) + H2SO4 = ???

I think you to mean baking soda or similar to clean your battery terminals, bro. It takes a base to neutralise an acid.

We always use Pepsi to help with cooking things like a Turkey in the oven. Seems that Pepsi has the most phosphoric acid content of any of 'em.

 

Have you tried soda on oxidized battery terminals? I eats that stuff off in seconds! Works great when getting big, nasty bugs off your windshield after summer roadtrips, too. Old Timer's trick that works wonders.

EDIT: A very important caveat to using this trick! It comes with the Old Timer's warning of not letting it get on, or stay on, your car's paint.

 

I'll have to give that a go. I'm trying to get off the soda - habit now that I'm training - though I think it the high fructose syrup and sugars that do the worse damage, health-wise.

 

Could that be considered as a "Soda Mousse"?

man, that is so "moused up"

 

I tried testing the 'soda-warfare' idea on the field rodents that have moved in to our house some time ago by injecting soda pop ( condensed to yield a higher acid content ) into the walls where they are busy tunneling.

After initial success, Intel reported back that they were in the process of a counter-attack:

 

I am just looking at the Ph levels. It seems that soda isn't anymore acidic than most juices. As long as you balance it out with some vegetables, then there shouldn't be any problems concerning it's acidity.

 

The concentration of acid in soda is actually lower than that of fruit juices. Its more than just the concentration involved. Some acids are very corrosive by nature. You wouldn't want to replace the citric acid in a juice or cola with red-fuming Nitric acid - even in very low concentrations. They behave differently in and out of aqueous solution.

There's different types of acids that are allowable in foods and beverages - Citric (fruits), malic acid ( not quite as sour as citric ), phosphoric ( it inhibits the growth of bacteria and mouldes that would grow out of control in the sugars), then there is carbonic acid found in soda that is the result of a reaction from the carbon dioxide they dissolve in it ( buuuuurrrrrp).

From what I understand, its the phosphoric acid in soda that is the guilty party as far as the number it does on car paint, your teeth and rodent carcasses. Its a much weaker acid than others of its kind like hydrochloric, sulfuric, etc., but its still a corrosive acid.

Feel free to correct the above ^

 

They didn't. That comment was from the writer of the article.

 

Sorry about that, folks. And thanks for catching and clarifying that, StevieB.

 

The lining of the stomach is designed to hold acid, any soda is going to have less acidity than stomach acid will have.

 

That the acids in mountain dew are capable of damaging a dead critter - no surprise.

That a single can contains enough acid to dissolve the ENTIRETY of a mouse (especially as a mouse must take up about a quarter of a can, so there's only 250ml liquid left) is very surprising... I rather wonder if their chemists checked their sums - from experience acids run out rather quickly when attacking solids.

 

Okay, here's some science to consider:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/549173-how-soda-affects-meat/

I guess my dad was pulling my leg somewhat with the ribs story. He claimed he'd seen it done in his science class, but it's possible acid levels in Coke were different back then.

 

Acid levels in Coke different?

hmnnnn