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Do you still drink soda?  Or pop, or whatever they call it where you live? Coke and Pepsi and Royal Crown and root beer and orange and grape and all their diet varieties?

I don't think they sell as much of that stuff as they used to, because that's why all of a sudden you see seltzer for sale, and man, do I love seltzer. No calories, no sugar, no sodium, just water with carbonation. You get that bubble-up tickle on the tongue and gullet without all the stuff that Coca-Cola crams in their cans: CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE.

Does anyone ever have LOW fructose corn syrup?

Who needs all that when you can have a seltzer, and for my money, store brand cheapo seltzer is just as good as the high-test brands, where they soak you for water.

Take the LaCroix brand. Never heard of it a few years ago, and now they are selling at the rate of nearly $1 billion a year, and tripling their profits to $149.8 million since 2015.

So of course, here come the lawsuits and the legal mishegas. First came the SEC (and in that case, that means the Securities and Exchange Commission, not the South Eastern Conference.) The SEC wanted to look at the cannery's sales "metrics," even though we are not on the metric system here.

And then came a lawsuit, claiming that LaCroix is fibbing when they say they are "all natural" and that their seltzers are full of “chemical compounds that have been adjudged synthetic and/or artificial by the Food and Drug Administration.” One ingredient, linalool, is “used as a cockroach insecticide,” the lawsuit says.

So that means you won't find a cockroach in your Pamplemousse.

Anyone who watches lawyer shows on television ought to find a new hobby knows that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and anyone can file suit against anyone for any reason.

So just because someone filed a suit does not mean it's valid.

It turns out that the three ingredients mentioned in the lawsuit—linalool, limonene, and linalyl proprionate are derived from natural sources.

Remember, tobacco is a natural substance.

They squeeze Limonene from citrus peels. Some say it fights tumors. Linalool comes from more than 200 different species of plants, and we use it as a spice or scent.

How many times have you walked into someone's house and asked what the delightful aroma was, and they say "Linalool Candles!" ?

And Linalyl proprionate comes from kumquats and is therefore a hilarious word. It also might inhibit prostate cancer, and it's fun to say "kumquat."

The late mayor Rob Ford of Toronto
tried to drink Canada Dry.

So to sum it up, none of those three things are known to be harmful to humans, and while the people who study these things at USC agree that linalool is used as a pesticide, they also remind you that just because it will off a roach doesn't mean it will harm you.

National Beverage, makers of LaCroix, contest the lawsuit’s allegations.  “Natural flavors in LaCroix are derived from the natural essence oils from the named fruit used in each of the flavors,” the company said. “There are no sugars or artificial ingredients contained in, nor added to, those extracted flavors.”

I recall a certain person I know delivering to me a pithy lecture about the snack foods I enjoy and how harmful Cheez Doodles could be. The fact that he was hooving on a Marlboro at the time only added to my amusement.

Have a seltzer and a smile! It's the real thing!