Who Can You Trust?

I recently received an email from someone defending soda companies, using the line, "I trust companies like Pepsi and Coca-cola...". I'm not sure where this trust comes from but it brings to light that it's difficult to know what information you should trust these days.

Concerning this, there was a recent article about a class action suit against some soft drink manufacturers over benzine in their soft drinks:

This battle stinks to high heaven, on both sides of the account. Certainly, the legal side of it seems to be one of those suits out there chasing the most money using fairly shoddy research. But they are the 'good guys'.

The soft drink companies are defending themselves using language like, "Benzene is ubiquitous to the environment. It's in the air. It's in dozens of foods, including bananas, meat and eggs," when, in fact, benzene forms naturally in forest fires, gasoline and cigarette smoke, among other things, and it's widely used industrially to make plastics, rubber, detergents, drugs and pesticides--a pretty healthy sounding line-up to me. Gee, where can I get some?

My point here is that, at some point, we need to become more educated because we can only really trust ourselves and our own feelings and instincts. The marketplace has made companies so beholden to shareholders and their beloved 'bottom line' that it's very hard to blindly trust anyone who is trying to make a profit. As I've shown earlier, money can fund mock science and poor research. Our only recourse is to become better educated and, fer chrissakes, use some common sense. Nickle and diming in a lawsuit over benzene in soft drinks shouldn't even be an issue. If we were educated, we wouldn't be consuming stuff that "forms naturally in forest fires, gasoline and cigarette smoke, among other things, and it's widely used industrially to make plastics, rubber, detergents, drugs and pesticides" in the first place.