What is the main ingredient of root beer?

6 responses so far ↓

• 1 denise b // Nov 9, 2008

  SASSAFRAS

• 2 oikos // Nov 9, 2008

  Water

• 3 ANDY B // Nov 9, 2008

  Root beer, also known as sarsaparilla, is a carbonated beverage originally created from sassafras

• 4 fingmeow // Nov 9, 2008

  Carbonated water.

  If your talking about the flavor, it originally was sassafras, but today it varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.

• 5 Cedwick C // Nov 9, 2008

  Sugar and Caffeine

• 6 dangerrang@yahoo.com // Nov 9, 2008

  Up until the 1960’s, the main ingredient in root beer was sassafras root bark. This ingredient formed the basis for root beer all the way back to the 1800’s. But in the 1960’s the FDA banned sassafras for use in food products because it was found that an ingredient in sassafras root bark, safrole, caused cancer in lab rats when used in very large quantities. As a result, commercial root beer makers switched to using wintergreen as the main flavoring in root beer.

  Today, some amateur root beer brewers still use sassafras to make root beer and sassafras tea, because many people like the flavor better. This is somewhat of a risky move, because there is a chance of cancer, but many people consider the risk to be very low if the root beer is not consumed in too large of quantities, or too often.
  *WARNING* sassafras, which has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats and is banned by the FDA for commercial use in food.