To flip or not to flip, that is the question.

In this day and age, it’s hard to remember a time without the Internet. Seriously, what did we used to do without it? Where did we get our fill of memes and cute cat videos and instant answers to all of life’s questions?

But for all of the good it’s brought to our world, there are a number of downsides. For one, the endless access to information. While access to information is a positive thing on the surface, with so much of it flying around it’s difficult to tell what is real and what is not.

Take, for example, a tweet that was shared recently by Japanese Twitter user @orangecake, of a flier from a local grocery co-op explaining how to keep your unfinished carbonated drinks fizzy for longer.

https://twitter.com/orangecake/status/887454531352539137

The flier reads:

“The cap of a plastic bottle does not create a complete seal. Over time, the carbonation escapes a little at a time. But flipping it upside down to store it complete seals in the gasses and can suppress the amount of carbon dioxide in the liquid that would turn into gas. Give it a try next time you store your unfinished drink.”

While @orangecake was just sharing what they thought to be helpful information, and there were a few people who seemed impressed by the information, most commenters were quick to show their distrust of it. Some were sarcastically skeptical:

“There’s a 50/50 change that the cap will disfigure and break so give it a try!”
“If you do this, when you open it the carbonation will burst out and your hands will get messy.”
“If you really really think about it, the bottle is likely to explode.”
“This is Shonen Jump-level science.”

While others offered a more serious rebuttal:

“This is terrible fake information. Air passes through the bottle itself so it doesn’t matter what you do… “Storing it that way is outside of its ‘intended use’ so there’s no telling what sort of accident could happen.” “Even the cardboard boxes they’re transported in specify which way should be facing up.””

Admittedly, upon first reading it myself I found myself thinking, “Well that’s clever!” However, in looking into it further, turns out this “hack” has been around for a while, and that there is really no evidence backing up the claim that storing cola bottles upside down will keep the drink fizzy. There also seems to be no real danger in it either, despite the concerns of some commenters.

Lesson learned? Research is important. And if you want your carbonated drink to be fizzy, you’ll just have to drink it up in one sitting.

Source, featured image: Twitter/@orangecake