Another reason to stop drinking soda

A few months ago I started using stevia in my tea and coffee insted of artificial sweeteners, in an attempt to try to remove as much artificial crap from my diet as possible. Giving up soda has been more difficult, however; for once you get used to having that sweet taste at meals, it's hard to give it up.

The time may be here, forever, because I'm not sure my sweets addiction is worth filling my body full of benzene:

Cancer-causing benzene has been found in soft drinks at levels above the limit considered safe for drinking water, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged Wednesday.

Even so, the FDA still believes there are no safety concerns about benzene in soft drinks, or sodas, said Laura Tarantino, the agency's director of food additive safety.

"We haven't changed our view that right now, there is not a safety concern, not a public health concern," she said. "But what we need to do is understand how benzene forms and to ensure the industry is doing everything to avoid those circumstances."

The admission contradicted statements last week, when officials said FDA found insignificant levels of benzene.

In fact, a different study found benzene at four times the tap water limit, on average, in 19 of 24 samples of diet soda.

I don't know about you, but I don't trust the FDA to release anything that isn't utter horseshit. So it's back to water for me. Of course the water is full of crap too, but at least I don't have to pay a buck a bottle for it....