Jonathan Szeto

The Superfood Company’s diverse selection of probiotic drinks includes both familiar and exotic options. The company’s product lineup includes kombucha and kefir soda in flavors like Peaches and Cream, Signature Seven and Agave Lime.

In the past few years, drinks claiming to improve gut health like Olipop and Poppi have appeared all over social media, offering an alternative to unhealthy sodas and carbonated beverages. But while these often include less sugar and more fiber than typical soft drinks, simply replacing beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi with probiotic and prebiotic sodas fails to make up for an unbalanced diet or unhealthy lifestyle choices.

Probiotic drinks include live bacteria that occur in fermented foods and drinking them directly introduces beneficial microorganisms into the intestines. On the other hand, prebiotic beverages contain ingredients like sugars and fibers to promote bacteria growth and activity. Manufacturers of these drinks claim that by balancing microbes, the beverages offer benefits to gastrointestinal health, like reduced inflammation, improved digestion and enhanced immunity.

Both types of gut healthy sodas start with a water as a base as opposed to kombucha, which is tea-based. While prebiotic sodas can be made through the combination of fibers like inulin from chicory roots with carbonation and flavouring, probiotic sodas begin with the preparation of a starter culture. 

Chief Executive Officer of The Superfood Company Ben Krysiak specializes in producing non-dairy kefir soda that relies on fermented kefir grains.

“It all starts with the kefir. It’s a living probiotic, and so it takes some delicate care to keep it healthy and robust,” Krysiak said. “We always have to maintain our mother stock of kefir, and reinoculate the next batch. You go to the mother [stock], add a new tank and feed the kefir. It needs sugars of all types. We use an organic cane-based sugar while it’s growing and waiting to be mixed into a drink.”

Besides containing ingredients to promote gut health, most probiotic and prebiotic sodas utilize fruit juice instead of corn syrup. Compared to typical sodas like Coca-Cola and Sprite, they contain more fiber and less sugar and artificial flavors. The soda undergoes carbonation and fermentation after flavoring is added to probiotics. Fermentation methods vary, but often differ from the traditional two-phase procedure used to make kombucha, making probiotic sodas lighter and less sour.

Despite the theoretical benefits of probiotics and prebiotic sodas, limited evidence of their effects exist. Mayo Clinic states research into the impacts of prebiotics and probiotics is still in process and lacks definite conclusions. 

Prebiotic soda drinker Sofia Shah (11), who first learned about the beverages through social media trends, pointed out the lack of physical changes in her body since, including the beverages in her diet.

“I initially heard prebiotic sodas were supposed to help with your gut health and that especially if you get bloated easily, that they can really calm that down,” Sofia said. “After having quite a lot of them, I don’t think that there is really any benefit. I think that it’s more the placebo effect. I feel better after drinking them, but in reality, something like a Poppi just tastes good to me. I at least feel better about myself instead of having a worse alternative.”

However, drinking prebiotics and probiotics entails potential risk. Excessive consumption can result in bloating and stomach discomfort and pose threats to individuals with health issues, like a weakened immune system or Crohn’s disease. 

“Probiotics have potential negative effects because there’s concerns that some strains will transfer antibiotic resistant genes to other bacteria in the gut,” Medical Club social media manager Mindy Truong (11) said. “That’s bad because if you have a bacterial infection and you have antibiotics to kill it off, then it’ll be worse for you.”

Although prebiotic and probiotic beverages offer improvements in sugar and fiber content over regular sodas, they should not be viewed as a replacement for traditional methods to improve gut health, like yogurt, sauerkraut, garlic and bananas. These drinks lack nutrient density and diversity in prebiotics and probiotics, and the fiber and sugar will not make up for an unbalanced diet.

“[Probiotic sodas] should just be a side factor,” Mindy said. “It shouldn’t be your main source of probiotics, because it’s not the most natural or healthiest thing. It just has added benefits to it, but it hasn’t been researched that much. Sticking to other foods as your main resource and having this as an extra can be the best way to fit it in the diet.”