Satire: the unauthorized history of Coca-Cola

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Satire: the unauthorized history of Coca-Cola

JoAnn Guest Apr 06, 2005 12:14 PDT

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Wednesday, April 06, 2005

 

Satire: the unauthorized history of Coca-Cola

 

http://www.newstarget.com/003228.html

 

Coca-cola was originally promoted as a drink " offering the virtues of

coca without the vices of alcohol. " Until 1903, a typical serving

contained 60mg of cocaine. Today, it still contains an extract of coca

leaves. The Coca-Cola Company imports eight tons of coca leaf from South

America each year -- a substance that, if carried into the country by

any regular citizen, would result in their arrest and incarceration for

" drug trafficking... "

 

It's no coincidence that the name " Coca-Cola " starts with the name of

the leaf used to manufacture cocaine: the coca leaf. From the late

1800's, Coca-Cola contained varying amounts of cocaine (about 60mg of

cocaine per serving in 1900) all the way up until 1929, when cocaine was

finally removed from its formula. That was when all the doctors and

dentists who were prescribing coke to their patients said, in unison,

" Guess we'll have to start actually addressing their medical problems

instead of sending them home with more cocaine. " Simultaneously,

Coca-Cola executives probably said, " Guess we'll have to find another

ingredient that's highly addictive. " Hence, caffeine. But that's not

until later in this story.

 

 

 

The " Cola " part of the name comes from the " kola " nut -- a nut

containing yet an addictive chemical: caffeine. Combine caffeine and

cocaine and, not surprisingly, you get a powerful drink called

" Coca-Cola " that benefited strongly (from a marketing point of view)

from the addictive traits of the narcotic / caffeine combination. It's

" The Real Thing, " all right, real substance addiction! Hard drugs and

Starbucks, all in the same cup!

 

Not surprisingly, the Coca-Cola company claimed all sorts of health

benefits for their product. Coca-cola was introduced in 1886 as " a

valuable brain-tonic and cure for all nervous afflictions. " Its slogan

in 1900 was, " For headache and exhaustion, drink Coca-Cola, " a slogan

that now seems ridiculous for a beverage perhaps known best for its

ability to cause obesity. A 1904 Coca-Cola slogan claims, " Coca-Cola is

a delightful, palatable, healthful beverage, " and even in recent years,

Coca-Cola has called its product " a wholesome beverage. " In my view,

this is sort of like your neighborhood crack dealer saying, " Yep, this

here crack will cure that cancer in no time! " Of course, Coke finally

took the coke out of their formula, but they're still using coca leaves.

 

 

 

Still Using Coca Leaves

 

If you hike a bag of coca leaves through U.S. customs on your way home

from, say, Peru, you might be arrested for the federal crime of drug

trafficking. Coca-Cola, however, imports nearly eight tons of coca

leaves from South America each year (source: Cocaine.org, which appears

to be an authority on coca leaves, imagine that...), and still uses

those leaves in preparing its soft drinks. The cocaine is, reportedly,

removed from the leaves before the leaves are used in the coca-cola

manufacturing process. I'm just wondering where all that cocaine really

goes. Do they destroy it? Do they sell it out the back door? Does the

cocaine go back to Peru? I actually emailed Coca-Cola and asked them

this every question. So far, I've received no response other than, " Hold

on, we'll reply as soon as we're done snorting... " and I have no idea

what that means.

Anyone who has actually been to Peru, by the way, knows that coca leaves

are frequently chewed by Peruvian natives (and the ancient Incas, of

course) to aid in altitude sickness and enhance stamina. It's what helps

a 110-pound Peruvian male wearing leather sandals sprint up a 14,000

foot mountain carrying the 80-pound pack. I know this because I hired

the guy to carry my pack. Within seconds, he had sprinted up the

mountain with all of my belongings and was out of sight. Hmmm...

 

But getting back to coca leaves, when they are chewed in their natural

form, coca leaves hardly present a drug addiction problem, it's only

when they're refined that they become hard drugs. As an occasional

medicinal herb, the coca leaf actually does have health-enhancing

characteristics, but it seems likely that Coca-Cola was a lot more

interested in its profit characteristics than its health

characteristics.

 

As an example of just how important profits are to Coca-Cola, take a

look at the company's effort to wipe out competing beverages... like

water!

 

 

Coca-Cola Declares War on Water

 

Your body needs water, and lots of it! But if you're drinking water,

according to the way Coca-Cola once thought, you're not drinking a Coke,

and that's bad for business. The solution? Declare war on water.

August, 2001: Coca-Cola announces the launch of an assault against tap

water in restaurants, code-named " H2No. " (No, I'm not making this up...)

They begin with the Olive Garden restaurants, describing customers'

ordering of water as a kind of affliction. From their own site, " Olive

Garden restaurants... were facing a high water incidence rate. "

(emphasis added).

 

A " high water incidence rate? " Sounds bad, doesn't it? Sounds like an

insidious anthrax attack. To combat this threat, they came up with their

" water reduction plan. " This plan involved the re-education of waiters

to suggest a " profitable beverage " in place of water. Olive Garden

restaurants, according to the Coke site, liked the program so much that

they incorporated it into their monthly skills training exercises.

" Here's a new skill, folks, we're going to force all our customer to

order a coke before they die of thirst... "

 

Believe it or not, they even developed an employee incentive contest,

based on how much Coke the restaurant servers could get customers to

drink. The program was called, " Just Say No to H2O " and it's sort of

like a college frat game where you see how much beer you can get the new

pledges to drink in one night, without actually killing them. (Because

if they're dead, you can't force them to clean up the frat house the

next morning...)

 

If it sounds like madness, you're right! Giving consumers a choice of

drinks is considered polite; declaring war on water is something

altogether different. The slogans chosen by Coca-Cola weren't pro-Coke,

they were anti-water. " Just Say No to H2O " sounds sort of like the cry

of a political rally. Just imagine a herd of overweight Coca-cola

executives marching around outside Olive Garden restaurants, holding up

signs and declaring that water is actually BAD for you.

 

As waiters were selling more Coke to customers, profits were flowing

into the restaurants -- and into Coca-Cola's coffers -- but what about

the health cost of drinking soft drinks? It is well known that

consumption of soft drinks is a strong contributing factor in obesity --

a condition that, according to former Surgeon General David Satcher,

causes 300,000 deaths each year and $117 billion in unnecessary health

bills from diseases like diabetes and clogged arteries. Heck, that's

almost as much as Coca-cola spends on advertising and celebrity

endorsements! " Hi, I'm a well known sports celebrity with the brain of a

naked mole rat. And I drink Coke! "

 

Today, there's really no question that soft drink consumption directly

promotes a variety of chronic diseases. For starters, here's evidence of

how soft drink consumption multiplies a person's risk of diabetes. (See

http://www.newstarget.com/001614.html for a summary.)

 

And just this year, new research was published in the American Journal

of Clinical Nutrition (see related ebook on nutrition) linking the

consumption of high-fructose corn syrup (the primary sweetener in soft

drinks) with both diabetes and obesity:

http://www.newstarget.com/001054.html

 

Clearly, soft drinks are a hazard to the health of any individual

(intelligent or otherwise) who chooses to consume them. Some of the

other health effects now being attributed to soft drinks include loss of

bone density, blood acidosis, kidney stress, immune system suppression,

ADHD and even dramatic mood swings -- these are the claims by well-known

health and nutrition authors, including many prominent MDs.

 

As the profits flow into Coca-Cola, who pays the cost for the health

effects caused by Coca-Cola products? You guessed it: you do. The

consumer foots the bill not only for the product, but also for the

doctor, hospital and insurance costs that inevitably appear as a result

of consuming this health-harming beverage. I'm just guessing, but for

every dollar a person spends on soft drinks, there might be as much as

$4 - $5 in long-term costs to society.

 

Not surprisingly, Coca-Cola's " H2No " web pages didn't stay on their site

for very long. They were taken down on August 2, 2001 and haven't

re-appeared since. Apparently, they no longer want to be known as the

" anti-water " company. Because that would be, well, stupid. More

importantly, it would go against their brand spankin' new product

offering -- get this -- water!

 

 

Enter Coca-Cola's Water Product: Dasani

 

Coca-Cola apparently realized they couldn't prevent the entire world

from drinking water, even by brainwashing Olive Garden waiters, and the

next best thing to declaring war on water is, of course, making money

from it. Enter Coca-Cola's water product, " Dasani, " now sold everywhere.

Don't confuse Dasani with spring water. It's just plain old tap water

(that starts out with all the same contaminants you get out of your

kitchen faucet), but filtered and " enhanced " with some minerals.

Once Coca-Cola had a profitable water product in the mix, their message

about water was magically transformed into something a lot more

pro-water. Hooking up with Ideas.com, Coca-Cola solicited water product

branding ideas from consumers, promising a $5,000 award to the best idea

submitted. Their idea solicitation text read, " Many doctors have

suggested that people should drink eight glasses of water a day. What

ideas can you think of, that would make it easier for people to drink

more water? "

 

Where was the " many doctors " attitude when Coca-Cola was pushing the

H2No program? Naturally, it was nowhere to be found. There were profits

to be had, after all! It's amazing how Coca-cola seems to be able to

find doctors to make sweeping statements that support whatever product

is being pushed at the time, even if those statements contradict the

company's former position on the subject... heck, I bet Coke could even

find a doctor that would testify before Congress that, " caffeine is not

addictive! "

 

 

Twisting the truth for profit

 

As you can see from the information presented here so far, Coca-Cola

appears to have a fascinating tendency to twist reality into whatever

distortion supports higher corporate profits. Perhaps the most wildly

humorous example of this reality twisting comes from Coca-Cola's website

right now. If you visit

p://www2.coca-cola.com/contactus/myths_rumors/ingredients_addictive.html

you'll find this astounding statement, which could only have been

authored by an individual who was smoking crack (hey, maybe that's where

all the cocaine goes. They're feeding it to their webmasters!):

" Caffeine is not addictive. "

 

In fact, here's a screen shot of the statement from Coca-Cola, which

calls caffeine addiction a " myth " and " rumor. " Sort of like the Tooth

Fairy or Santa Claus. Come to think of it, I think the Tooth Fairy once

told me that if I drank more coke, I'd earn more money by losing my

teeth...

 

Does this official Coca-Cola statement remind you of anything? Sure it

does: Big Tobacco executives swearing that nicotine is not addictive!

I'm not sure how much mental reprogramming has to take place in the mind

of an individual to be able to state (and believe!) that caffeine is not

addictive, but I'm sure Jim Jones, the cult leader, could have learned a

few tricks.

 

Coca-Cola's " caffeine is not addictive " statement appears as part of the

company's " myth busting " section of the website, where the company has

apparently hired a hypnotist to make statements defending the wholesome

nature of every single ingredient, including aspartame and high-fructose

corn syrup. Apparently, there's NOTHING in Coca-Cola that's bad for you!

Imagine that! And all the coke-drinking fat kids in our public schools

are just coincidentally fat, by the way. It must have something to do

with breathing chalk dust.

 

" ...increased soft-drink consumption is a major factor that contributes

to osteoporosis. " -- Michael T. Murray, N.D., author, the Encyclopedia

of Natural Medicine

 

According to Coca-Cola, all the negative information about Coke is

nothing more than " internet myths. " Coke won't make you fat, it won't

cause diabetes, it won't promote osteoporosis. Heck, it's not even

acidic according to Coca-Cola. You CAN'T use coke as a household

cleaner, they explain. (Never mind that a can of coke fizzes away toilet

scum better than anything else I've seen on the market. It can also

unclog kitchen drains and makes a fairly effective engine degreaser.)

 

This is all covered on the official Coca-Cola website where they

dutifully explain that coke won't dissolve your teeth because it doesn't

spend much time in your mouth. In other words, you swallow the acidic

beverage before it can disintegrate your teeth, and isn't that just

brilliant! I can just imagine two college students standing around with

a bottle of commercial degreaser: " Jeez, man, don't put that in your

mouth. It will dissolve your teeth! " And the other guy says, " Don't

worry, I'm swallowing it before it can do any damage. "

 

I'm not kidding. As of this writing, the official Coca-Cola website

literally says, " People don't hold soft drinks in their mouths for long

periods of time, nor rub their teeth with fabric soaked in soft drinks,

so it doesn't make sense to extend these possible affects to normal use

of the product. "

 

Or, to paraphrase this, Coca-cola apparently believes it is possible to

drink soft drinks without the beverage actually touching your teeth! I'm

not even sure a circus performer could pull that off, although if one

could be found, I'm sure they'd fit right in with coca-cola culture,

which is looking more and more like a circus act with each passing day.

 

" Excessive consumption of soft drinks, which are high in phosphorus, can

deplete you of calcium and increase your chances of osteoporosis. " --

Dr. Earl Mindell, author, Unsafe At Any Meal

 

Given that coke is apparently a wholesome beverage that can't possibly

promote osteoporosis, I suppose Coca-Cola would be shocked to learn that

the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published yet another study

showing that caffeine consumption leads to osteoporosis:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011024073604.htm

 

The study of 96 elderly women showed that caffeine consumption (not even

with tons of sugar, mind you) caused measurable losses of bone mass in

the spine and throughout the skeleton system.

 

I guess Coca-Cola thinks all this research has just been made up as a

grand conspiracy. Maybe the entire world of nutrition researchers is

conspiring to make Coca-Cola look bad by plotting to discredit

high-fructose corn syrup and caffeine. Or maybe, just maybe, Coca-Cola

is getting a little paranoid. Perhaps they've been doing too much of

their own coke, so to speak, and are getting weird visions of public

persecution. And, poof! A miniature translucent devil appears on the

right shoulder of the Coke CEO, saying, " Caffeine is not addictive " and

" Refined sugars don't cause diabetes. " (Along with some prodding from

the miniature devil's fork, too.)

 

 

Coke: the drink of a dumbed-down population

 

All I can say is that the lower your IQ, the more likely you are to

consume large quantities of soft drinks. In my opinion, coke is the

drink of the dumbed-down; the elixir of ignorance, the beverage of

boneheads. Smart people drink far more sophisticated drinks -- like

Starbucks coffee. (And you can tell they're smart by how they happily

pay four bucks for a fifty-cent cup of java.) And the really smart

people in society drink red wine. Did I say smart? I meant snotty.

Regardless, Coca-Cola maintains a prominent place in American history.

It's pure Americana. After all, what could better describe American

culture than a heavily marketed beverage originally based on hard drugs

that now contributes to the diabetes and obesity of an entire nation?

It's the classic American saga: a lean, healthy immigrant comes to

America, settles down in the Bronx, starts buying soft drinks, and

pretty soon gives birth to an entire generation of overweight children

who chug coke and occasionally get outside to participate in the " Walk

for the Diabetes Cure, " also sponsored by coke.

 

What could be more American than that?