Mountain Dew: The top five don'ts

Mountain Dew is back in the news, after America's beloved acidic beverage helped Indiana truck-driver Jason Pede survive three days in an SUV stuck in a southern Colorado snowbank. And how does the state honor this drink's heroism? On March 1, it will start taxing sales of Mountain Dew, which was previously exempt (as were all other brands of soda pop).

But then, Mountain Dew has quite an unhealthy reputation to live down. The top five Mountain Dew don'ts:

1. According to urban myth, the food coloring Yellow Dye No. 5. will lower your sperm count if you drink too much Mountain Dew. Just think: Back in high school, instead of meekly asking for condoms from the local pharmacist at Safeway, you could've gotten a six-pack of the Dew and called it a night.

2. Then again, during the '90s a rumor spread that Mountain Dew would cause your testes to shrink - because the Dew contained so much caffeine, compared to other soft drinks.

3. When you drink the Dew, you're actually ingesting a form of vegetable oil that could be toxic to the body. Brominated vegetable oil is used in citrus-flavored drinks to keep fat-soluble flavorings suspended in the liquid. But drinking too much can lead to such maladies as convulsions, sweating and blurred vision.

4. Another result of drinking too much Mountain Dew is "Mountain Dew Mouth." Edwin Smith, a dentist in the Appalachian Mountains, invested 150k of his own money in a mobile dentistry shop so that he could fix this tear in the fabric of society, treating two-year-olds with up to twelve cavities because cheap soda is supposedly more accessible than cheap milk.

5. Jordan Miles, an eighteen-year-old student in Pittsburgh who plays the violin - was arrested by Pittsburgh police and charged with resisting arrest and assault. Miles says he fought with the officers because they never identified themselves and he thought they were trying to abduct him. The policemen though the heavy object in Miles's coat was a gun - but it turned out to be a two-liter bottle of his fave beverage, Mountain Dew. Miles was so badly injured in the scuffle that he's been hospitalized twice, and the undercover officers are now on paid leave.