Ginger Ale

My daughter can't seem to beat this bug she picked up somewhere. The BRAT diet of Broth, Rice, Applesauce, & Tea is getting old, so we offer her flattened ginger ale, too.

We've discovered something about the stuff, besides the fact that it's delicious mixed with cranberry juice. Not all ginger ales are the same. Well, they're mostly all the same, except the ginger ale you get at Whole Foods. Which tastes really weird. In a bad way. Too gingery? I don't know if that's it, but the cranberry juice doesn't mask the odd flavor.

Ginger ale consists of carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, sodium benzoate (preservative), and caramel color. The Whole Foods 365 brand doesn't use high fructose corn syrup, though. This ginger ale is sweetened with regular old cane sugar.

Which makes me freak out some more about high fructose corn syrup. What is it, exactly?

My other daughter was more optimistic about the strange ginger ale. She said it will probably start to taste better then the regular stuff after a while. Kind of like natural peanut butter. "You know, it tastes bad at first, but then you get used to it? Now JIF just tastes nasty."