If you’re a soda drinker, you probably have no illusions about your health habits. Go ahead and pop a can of Pepsi Wild Cherry. Fill a tankard with Fanta at the AMC and add a shot of Blue Razz Pop Rocks for good measure. Might as well guzzle a limited-edition Oreo Coke while supplies last. You could check the label for sugar, dietary fiber, or protein, but who are we kidding?
That said, doesn’t everyone have a sliver of guilt, a voice in their head saying, “Do better”? That voice has also been whispering in the ears of the multi-national soft-drink conglomerates as soda consumption has fallen over the past two decades. Come on, big fellas; do better.
Sodas went from being a sugary, bubbly nectar of the gods to a sugary, bubbly devil’s brew. They became so vilified that some experts started saying things such as “Soda is the new smoking.” Or even “You might as well drink arsenic,” as a friend was told when she ordered a Diet Coke at a bar. Nice. And santé.
For a while, formulators believed that stripping away sodas’ vices and replacing them with other vices (instead of sugar, aspartame, for example) was enough to redeem them. Now, the aim is to deliver virtue in every sip.
There’s “a new kind of soda,” according to Olipop’s tagline. It joins the growing collection of soft drinks—Poppi, Driftwell, Simply Pop, Soulboost, Recess, and, in the U.K., Fhirst—swooping onto the scene wearing a halo and a cape, if only to mix metaphors as they boast of actual health benefits. Poppi’s slogan, “Be Gut Happy. Be Gut Healthy,” isn’t exactly “Have a Coke and a smile,” but it speaks to a time when gut happiness is a seductive proposition.
Dana James, a certified dietician, nutritionist, and author of The Archetype Diet, has seen the shift “from soda to better soda to functional sodas,” and she doesn’t hate it. One insider in the soft-drink business tells me triumphantly, “Soda is back.”
Poppi is the leader of this pack of upstarts, grabbing attention with its $8 million Super Bowl ads and its controversial influencer program. (The company sent expensive vending machines to TikTok taste-makers and was pilloried on social media for the lavish campaign.) PepsiCo just announced its acquisition of Poppi for a sweet $1.95 billion.
It was about time for soda’s glow-up. “Sugary sodas are implicated in metabolic issues, cardiovascular disease, and fatty-liver disease,” says Supriya Rao, M.D., a gastroenterologist and obesity specialist with Integrated Gastroenterology Consultants, in Massachusetts. “They’re really bad for your gut health.” Diet and zero sodas solve the sugar problem but bring their own issues. “The artificial sweeteners in them can cause bloating and diarrhea. If you drink a lot of them, you can develop kidney stones.”
As consumers became wise to these shortcomings and soft-drink sales declined, manufacturers started pumping their research-and-development budgets first into mildly flavored sparkling water, such as Spindrift and Bubly, and then into these souped-up alternatives. With each iteration comes more promising ingredients, including prebiotics, L-theanine, vitamin C, zinc, and magnesium—all with the hope of capturing the Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia generation.
The stars of these enhanced drinks are prebiotics, “which is another word for fiber,” says James. “That’s what the bacteria in the gut uses to proliferate.” Poppi and Olipop achieve this with inulin, a fiber that also adds sweetness. Olipop’s comes from chicory root, cassava root, and Jerusalem artichoke to deliver nine grams of fiber versus Poppi’s two grams from agave. Many of these drinks also combine fruit juice with stevia to blunt the bitterness of the latter, bringing their calorie counts to between 25 and 60 per can. Fhirst encapsulates its prebiotics so they can bypass the stomach acid and reach the large colon, which may give them an edge, says James.
“If you’re the type of person who loves soda and doesn’t eat a lot of fiber, this is a way to get it,” she adds. “These drinks can take the place of supplements, particularly when you’re having them on a consistent basis.”
That line of thinking landed Poppi in hot water last year when a class-action lawsuit accused the brand, with its suggestion of improving gut health, of false and misleading advertising. Last month, it settled the lawsuit for $8.9 million.
It was only a matter of time before these new drinks started addressing mental health. Recess, for one, offers blends with different effects on mood: there’s CBD to calm and ginseng to support energy and focus; magnesium to relax muscles and help with sleep; and L-theanine, an amino acid that’s a precursor to GABA, which is a soothing neurotransmitter, says James.
As an alternative to regular soda, the drinks have their admirers. Still, Rao prefers to consume her fiber in broccoli form and get her nutrients from a Mediterranean diet.
Meanwhile, before you start feeling sorry for ordinary, vitamin-bereft soda, Diet Coke would like to have a word. Kate Moss was appointed its creative director in 2022 and announced at a press conference, “I’ve always loved coke,” which got a good laugh.
And now, that beverage beloved only by female boomers, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk seems to be riding a MAGA wave. The minute Trump returned to office, he had the red Diet Coke button re-installed on the desk in the Oval Office, summoning the beverage up to 12 times a day. Musk has posted photographs of his bedside table littered with cans (and, in one image, a gun).
What if it really is poison?
Linda Wells is the Editor at Air Mail Look
