March 27th, 2007

Now this is hardly a hi-tech subject, but I recently heard a horrible truth about Ribena.

For those of my three readers who don’t know what Ribena is, in the UK Ribena is virtually an institution. A healthy alternative to nasty pops and soda’s which is claimed to be rich in Vitamin C and oh, it’s like the very drops of rain on the finest day on earth.

Oh my it’s so good…

We laboured under the illusion that Ribena would give us healthy teeth and bones… make us strong, and good, and wise…. Oh such joy it was to drink such a wonderful fruity beverage.

It was yummy, and who couldn’t feel good about drinking a soft drink made by a huge chemical giant like Smithkline, or is it Beechams… oh wait, no that’s Smithkline Beecham, ah… merger… it’s GlaxoSmithkline… our good friends… GSK.

Each and every advertisment that I can (casually) remember, reminded me that unlike other drinks, Ribena would be (at the very least) chock full’o goodness (and Vitamin C) … and so, dilligently I have drunk lots. (and lots)

So it was a tremendous, earth shattering shock to find out that, not only are claims that Ribena “contains (over) 3 times as much Vitamin C as a glass of orange juice” are in fact bogus, worse than that, it seems that it contains precisely 5% fruit juice. So not exactly bursting with goodness, just a bunch of sugar and water.