UltraJam: Pimp Juice, Whoop Ass and Kickbutt Amped Energy Balls

Energy drinks, they're everywhere. I continue to resist peer pressure at work to 'just drink one already'. I'm holding the line, but I might just cave soon. My coworkers love them, as do many of my friends. Around two in the afternoon, the tops pop, the satisfied "aaahhhs" are audible and a faint citrussy sweetness infuses the air. So what's not to like?

I'm afraid of them. I think they might be canned heart attacks. I think they're loaded with caffeine, weird bull amino acids and spoonfuls of sugar. Sigh. I can no longer support my argument on assumptions. Fact-finding is in order. In fact, I think it's time for a... 'jammigation'. Yes, that's right. I'm inventing words here on UltraJam because, well, because I can.

Anyway, I researched and discovered some surprises, including a fondness for the industry's naming convention - It's totally unconventional! There are some hilarious names out there, whether or not they're intended to be funny is a different matter. Back on point. Here's my list of fears and facts. (I found a great deal of info on www.energyfiend.com, linked repeatedly below)

They're lethal caffeine bombs - No. A 16 oz. Starbucks coffee has more at 372 mg than an average like-sized e-drink at 344 mg. Many of the e-drinks have higher caffeine concentrations of mg/oz, but even those don't approach the tall Starbucks coffee.

They might jack up my heart and kill me - Negative. Thinking they contained obscene levels of caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant, I logically concluded I might vapor lock my system. And I take blood pressure pills. It seems I'd need to drink about 98 cans of Monster at once to do so. Check out the 'death by caffeine' meter for your own demise. Still, some researchers claim that e-drinks stack the deck by not extracting the caffeine found in guarana, another common ingredient, on the nutrition label. And then there's the matter of 245 cases of "caffeine abuse" reported to the Chicago Poison Control Center in three years. The average age of the patient was 21, and most of the cases involved e-drinks taken with alcohol or other drug stimulants.

They contain strange bull mojo - True, to a point. Most contain taurine, an amino acid used to make bile for aiding digestion. Rumors have it that taurine is extracted from bull urine and testicles. Not. But then there's that whole "Red Bull" name thing. Well, it was first isolated from bull (Bos taurus) bile in 1827 by Austrian scientists and named after the Greek word for bull, or 'taurus'. In people, taurine results from synthesis in the liver. As for how taurine gets in the e-drink cans, rumor also had it that it was extracted from bull intestines and added to the e-drinks by manufacturers. Gulp. The most definite answer I could find was on Wikipedia. Taurine is sometimes extracted from the intestines of cattle, but many food industry sources, including Red Bull, make efforts to use synthesized sources that are vegetarian friendly. Danger! "Make efforts" to me sounds like there could be squirts of bull intestine taurine in e-drinks. Granted, I've likely eaten worse in a hot dog, but still...

In all fairness to taurine, it's not a stimulant. It might be added to e-drinks to actually reduce the effects of high caffeine dosage, if that makes any sense. It can also reduce muscle fatigue. It's used in some contacts solution and cats need it for good health. Most e-drinks contain anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 mg of taurine. I'm thinking 5,000 mg of anything is not a good idea.

E-drinks seem less risky than I formerly thought. I don't know, though. Call me old-fashioned, but I think I'll pick my poison and stick with coffee.

Now the best part, the wacky e-drink names. With over 500 brands competing last year alone, companies are trying to stand out. Many are inventing provocative names to do so. Here are are few faves:

Kronik, Swing Juice, Cocaine, Crunk, Who's Your Daddy?, Pimp Juice, Whoop Ass and Kickbutt Amped Energy Balls.

7-11 stores banned Cocaine e-drink. What's next? Crystal Meth breath mints? Cha-ching. Oh, and if you can't tell, I'm not a medical professional. Please don't take any of this information to be sound medical advice.