Talk:Ginger ale

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Spelling consistency

A few months back an anonymous editor changed a couple of spellings of "flavour" and "colour" to the American "flavor" and "color", under the mistaken impression they were typos. Sbishop then made the change to USA spelling consistent throughout the article, except that they missed the Other flavours subsection or it later reverted. WP policy prefers consistent spelling style within an article, so in honour of Canadian John J. McLaughlin, the inventor, and following the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Press Style Guide, I am reverting the whole article to the original Canadian spelling in "-our". D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 22:55, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Preservation

I doubt very much that salicylic acid is used in "most" or any commercial ginger ales, in view of its bitter taste and toxicity, The curious idea that it might be so used apparently comes from a very old home-brew recipe book from 1888. I will remove this misleading and possibly dangerous sentence altogether. I also doubt the common use of pasteurization by steam, which also comes from the 1888 book. Finally, the pH of Canada Dry being 2.82 (a suspiciously precise number) comes from a single 2016 Journal of the American Dental Association paper, which tested an arbitrary selection of beverages, all purchased in a single location, Birmingham Alabama. That is not sufficient validation for a generalized statement in Wikipedia. So the whole section vanishes. Since the whole area of preserving techniques and chemicals is proprietary, and ginger ale (as opposed to ginger beer) is very seldom prepared at home, I am deleting the section. If anyone has other relevant info on preservation to add with reliable cites it can go in the Processing section.

I am also deleting the accompanying picture of Japanese sterilized bottles, canada.dry.japan.jpg, from the article. If anyone knows how to remove it from the database (if not used elsewhere), please do. If glass bottles are still used for ginger ale anywhere in the modern world, I trust they are sterilized; we don't need a picture. D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 01:23, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

'As a stomach pain palliative'

This section of the article suggests that ginger ale is consumed by many for its health benefits - mainly to relieve some kind of stomach pain. I would like to balance this information out by adding a line that this could simply be a placebo effect.

Since this is both a medical and social matter, the alleged health benefits of ginger ale, and information suggesting otherwise, appears far more on news outlets than it does in medical journals. Wikipedia:MEDPOP seems to suggest that in uncontroversial cases (such as this) the use of a news outlet could be deemed permissibl:::e.

Nevertheless, if academic sources are required, a June 2025 article from the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science titled 'Production and characterization of a natural cultural drink - ginger ale' notes the potential benefits of ginger ale since it is a fermented product. A 1984 entry in the British Medical Journal Vol. 289 questions the efficacy of ginger ale as treatment for motion sickness.

I'm raising this on the talk page because my edits have been reverted twice so I'd like to gauge the intuition of other editors. I appreciate that news outlets do not match the rigour of Wikipedia:MEDRES, however, it would be a shame to let the claim that ginger ale can act as a stomach pain palliative go unchallenged simply because of this. Surely balance is key here?

This section also cites 'Food in Canada' as one of its sources which makes me think that previous contributors of this section would have also deemed the uses of ginger ale to be a social matter as much as it is medical, for which the scope for worthy sources need not be as limited.

Katiedevi (talk) 19:21, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would the 1984 entry of the British Medical Journal be an appropriate source for this matter? This would replace the news outlet sources I had added previously. Katiedevi (talk) 20:22, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that the section was poorly sourced and sufficiently dubious to delete with Special:Diff/1294616289. Zefr (talk) 20:26, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning Special:Diff/1294666725: a) this source doesn't mention ginger ale, and is in a journal which is not MEDLINE-indexed (meaning it's unreliable); b) the National Geographic source is unreliable for the implied uses and effects, and is unnecessary - we do not need to mention every quackery remedy; c) Yahoo/Chowhound is not a reliable scientific source - if it needed validation, the original scientific publication should be used. Zefr (talk) 04:10, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That source was there to support the statement that ginger is effective for treatment of nausea. I'm not sure about your claim that not being MEDLINE-indexed means the source is unreliable. The source is a review article in a scientific journal published by a major publisher. It is certainly a reliable source. WP:MEDRS says only that lack of listing on MEDLINE may be an indication that a journal is not reliable, not that it is a requirement.

More broadly, I disagree with the wholesale removal of information about historical use of ginger ale as a home remedy. The fact that it has been used as such does not require WP:MEDRS sourcing; standard reliable sources are sufficient to document historical or traditional use of a substance as a remedy. We need a medical source to discuss whether such a remedy is effective. The Nat Geo source is certainly sufficent in this case.

The Yahoo reference was used only to support the statement that modern commercial ginger ale is likely not effective as a remedy. I would have thought that statement was sufficiently uncontroversial to remain without a better reference, but since you objected I'll be happy to restore the properly sourced material without that statement.--Srleffler (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the comment about "quackery", we do cover fringe science and quack remedies, when they are notable and covered in reliable sources. "Quackery" is also not a fair description in this case. Early ginger ale made from actual ginger was likely an effective remedy for nausea and indigestion. Its use as a remedy in the 19th century was not "quackery".--Srleffler (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]