I don't know if you remember but a while back farmers in India started to use Coke as insecticide as an experiment, since they couldn't afford the prices of the normal insecticides (I think that was how the story went) and lo and behold, they said all colas not just Coke really worked great with protecting their crops.    It was a big surprize, how using soft drinks work better than the old chemicals they used to use.

Here's a link to the story in the Guardian, Nov 2004:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0 … 54,00.html

Yet, uh, I guess, Coke is big.  Huge.  Worldwide.  To me, Coke is a dense curiosity--drinking Coke, to me, makes about as much sense as drinking a glass of water with a cup of sugar dissolved in it.  To me it seems like something somebody would only do on a dare.  Or to get high.  Yet, to many, it's so normal it's not even done ritually like drinkers at a bar ritually do shots with little songs.

It's amazing, the level of physical and emotional addiction that certain clandestine chemicals will do to the human being.  What may actually be worse are the chemical elements which are not in there to produce addiction, but to serve other 'clandestine' purposes that we could only guess about.

I'm pretty sure the 2 uber-executives that know the 'secret', if in fact they do exist, are vastly more concerned about PR issues when people find out what's really in their products... rather than other competing companies stealing their oh so happy formula.

If it were only a soft drink with no other crap in it which isn't on the label.... that would simply not make sense in this context.  How big of a deal could it possibly be to figure out how to mix high-fructose corn syrup and carbonated water.

http://members.tripod.com/~Barefoot_Lass/cola.html

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My favorite:

The revolutionary side of me hopes that the Coke company will freefall into a PR shitstorm and that millions will begin questioning the adverse health effects of sodas.  Oh, and that the lid on aspartame will be blown off. 

The main trouble with the second scenario is that Coke simply has more resources and more footsoldiers than any trailblazing journalist or even government health panel.

...Of course, there are far less exotic and shocking reasons to quit drinking Coke than because of the possibility that it has unsafe levels of insect poison.

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...I haven't heard about the Indian farmers using Coke for insecticide.  Cool.  I once used a Coke to clean my toilet.  It worked well.

That much pesticide in corn syrup (I think that's the only food-like thing in Coke, though I obviously don't know the recipe)?  Sure doesn't seem add up.

Yeeech!!!

So I believe that's how this all started.   Ever since that first farmer who used cola on his crops, the govt started to wonder why it worked so well.... and now you have the big mystery of what's in Coke and Pepsi.   It does make you pause... what's up with this stuff.

PH

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, … 63,00.html

Government food testers in India, apparently, found unacceptably high levels of pesticides in Coke and are now demanding Coke to reveal their recipe--or face a ban. 

Personally, I find this story laughable.  I haven't drank soda since high school.  I gave it up because I easily get sugar headaches and because I'm a little hypoglycemic.  And I haven't been tempted whatsoever in all these years--the smell of soda pop is noxious to me. 

So it's laughable that there are men somewhere guarding the recipe of Coke, and have been at it for 120 years!  To me, it's like hearing that there are men somewhere guarding the knowledge of a combination of foods one can eat to make one's farts smell like skunk. 

Yet, uh, I guess, Coke is big.  Huge.  Worldwide.  To me, Coke is a dense curiosity--drinking Coke, to me, makes about as much sense as drinking a glass of water with a cup of sugar dissolved in it.  To me it seems like something somebody would only do on a dare.  Or to get high.  Yet, to many, it's so normal it's not even done ritually like drinkers at a bar ritually do shots with little songs.

ANYWHO...the article says that samples of Pepsi and Coke contain 25 to 30 times the amounts of pesticides that they contained three years ago!  Why the jump?  Is it because pesticides are being increasingly used?  Or is Coke using pesticides--or chemicals very similar to pesticides--as an ingredient?  I mean, WTF?