I’ve been hearing bits and pieces recently about how Canada Dry is now selling ginger ale with green tea in it. Yesterday, I heard it advertised on the radio for the first time.
I’m a little baffled. I can see how the flavors of ginger and green tea would go well together (ginger green tea is delightful, I think). And if ginger ale usually tastes more like high fructose corn syrup than ginger (there is in fact no ginger listed in the ingredients), it’s still an interesting thought, an intriguing combination of flavors…
…except that this new product sounds suspiciously like a marketing invention to me. The ad I heard wasn’t talking about the great taste. It was talking about the health benefits, all those great antioxidants and the other legendary properties of tea.
So ginger ale is now… a health food? It’s good for you?
Really?
Ginger ale is still full of sugar (high fructose corn syrup, in this case). It’s still soda. It will still rot your teeth and make you fat, just like other sodas. Only in the marketing world can you take something really bad for you, add a bit of something good for you, and think that the result will be good for you overall. That sounds suspiciously like the apparently widespread belief that organic cookies are healthy. Wishing doesn’t make it so.
So if you want green tea in your ginger ale, go for it, but don’t delude yourself. My advice: if you want the health benefits of green tea, go drink some green tea!