Bottled water that makes you thin, young, and smart; green tea drinks that taste like lemonade; diet soda with “natural” flavors. Foodiness drinks have almost entirely highjacked real hydration.
The latest foodiness drink ready to solve your problems? Neuro: The Operating System for Life. With a tagline that reads, “there’s a Neuro for that”, the product’s claims read like something from Alice in Wonderland: there’s one to make you energetic; one to make you sleepy; one to make you focused; one to make you awake; one to make you relaxed; and one to make you horny. Hear that Alice?
What’s actually in Neuro products? Water, sugar, coloring (or basically anything you’d find in soda) and a host of other ingredients derived from compounds and chemicals that may, or may not, in their natural state have some kind of effect or “benefit”, but claiming those benefits here is as big a stretch as tomato paste on a pizza qualifying as a vegetable.
Neuro takes us so far down the foodiness rabbit hole with its seductive promises of quick fixes for every “that” you’ve got you’d think there must be a Neuro for getting out.
In fact, getting out of the rabbit hole of foodiness drinks – or drinkiness – is probably the easiest among all the foodiness groups. Unlike consuming real eggs or real meat or real fruit, all which can be extremely inconvenient, getting real with beverages is easy: just drink tap water. You don’t have to schlep to the farmer’s water market or know how to decipher labels – all you have to do is mosey over the sink and pour a glass. Consider tap water your get-out-of-foodiness-free card.
Cocktails, however, are another matter…
Additional reporting by Belinda Rodriguez.