A long time ago all colas were sold as medicine. I suspect that giving kids with a upset stomach cola is a faint cultural echo of those times, with each parent teaching their kids that soda is a cure for upset stomachs even though they took out the cocaine that might do something a century ago. Interestingly in my house the drink used for this was ginger ale.

That being said, the placebo effect is strong. When I was a little kid, I was only allowed to move from bed to the couch once I’d turned the corner on my illness but wasn’t yet ready to go back to school. To this day I move to the couch when sick, and it makes me feel better even though the only plausible mechanism is my own head. I bet a lot of colas given for upset stomachs are in the same category.

Ginger actually does have noted positive effects on nausea and stomach upset, so ginger ale could presumably help.

The common ginger ale brands contain no ginger.

Are you sure about that? What do you consider the common brands? The one that most immediately comes to mind for me is Canada Dry, which does contain ginger extract.

Out of curiosity I checked, and Canada Dry is about 2% ginger extract. I’m not sure what the ideal percentage of ginger should be, but that seems kind of low. Given that they’ve been sued over this before, I suspect that this might be just enough extract to cover their behinds.

My go to brand, Seagram’s, contains “natural flavors”. Content and concentration unspecified.

The ginger extract is in the "less than 2% of" category. I found this:

"They do buy actual ginger, but then what they do is they boil it in ethanol, and that essentially destroys any nutritional or medicinal benefits," Mark Canofari said, adding that Canada Dry uses a ginger concentrate. "One drop fills 70 cans [...] and a drop is .05 ml. So that's how little, even of the concentrate, is actually in one drink."

https://www.foodandwine.com/news/ginger-ale-canada-dry-medic...

thats why i brew my own lacto fermented ginger beer/ale from scratch. the flavor is way better than anything in the store. I particularly like brewing ginger ale/ginger beers with molasses. it taste like gingersnaps.

Saltines for substance, 7-up for sugar and bubbles. Easy filler, energy and helps you burp out the bad feels.

As a kid in the 70's growing up in Scotland we were given Lucozade (long before the "energy drink" fad) and quite often Ferguzade (a similar product but made in Scotland) when we were ill. Both had pretty odd tastes back then, almost salty if I remember.

I don't remember Lucozade being anything _but_ a drink for recovery from illness. (Remember the yellow cellophane wrapped bottles?!) I have no idea how it attained this reputation.

These days, Lucozade Sport (in multiple flavours) has taken over, but being "isotonic", presumably has various salts.

Same here (as a kid growing up in the 80s) - it was always a drink for when you were ill. Lucozade also had a reputation as being even more sugary than other fizzy drinks. I'm sure it was even marketed back then as an 'energy' drink.

I see that nowdays even the sugar-free lucozade is advertised as an energy drink, I'm not sure quite how that works, though!

Caffeine, probably!

7-up doesn’t contain phosphoric acid.

Neither does Sprite

7-up is lemon/lime flavored, easy to digest, and colorless so it doesn't stain when you spill it or throw it up again. I don't know whether its acidity or carbonation help, though lemons and limes are also anti-nausea remedies (limes are also delicious and prevent scurvy!)

However, in my experience Coke/Pepsi (phosphoric acid) and ginger beer/ale (ginger extract) may work better as anti-nausea medicines.

Canada Dry was sued for their Ginger Ale not containing "real ginger" (as per the label), but I think it still contains something like ginger extract. The anti-nausea effects may be one reason airlines serve ginger ale as an in-flight beverage.

Bicarbonate of soda used to be a very popular remedy for upset stomach. People might associate coke with that.