All soft drinks that you ingest are artificial. They contain an array of synthetic added products. Do you really know what sh*t you are drinking?

A new report by the EPA (U. S. Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to be published in the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, investigated the presence of benzene, a powerful cancer-causing chemical, in common beverages.

Just 9 % of the 199 sampled beverage presented benzene levels above the approved limit of 5 parts per billion (ppb).
"Products containing benzene above the EPA level were reformulated by the manufacturers to minimize or eliminate benzene and one product was discontinued", wrote the authors.

In the new formula, benzene levels scored 1.1 ppb or less. The same value was found in approximatively 71 % of the sampled beverages. Due to the results of the survey and the reformulation of the beverages formula, FDA admitted that the benzene amounts in the beverages did not represent a safety concern.

The investigation made by a team led by Patricia Nyman of the FDA revealed that benzene emerged at ppb levels in beverages comprising food preservatives, like benzoate salt, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). About 15 years ago, the U.S. beverage industry detected benzene in some beverages and those formulas were quickly changed.

"In 2005, the substance again was found in some beverages, likely because new manufacturers were unaware of the problem", wrote the authors.

In many beverages, extra vitamin C is added due to increasing demand for healthier products, but it seems that this comes with a double edge (in the end, fruits and vegetables remain a more viable solution).

The benzene amount was determined by a combination of factors, besides the liquid's formula, like shelf-life, and storage conditions. The report also provides an in-house validation of FDA's analytical method for assessing the presence of benzene in liquids.