Mountain Dew Will Dissolve Rats On Contact
If you like soft drinks the way I do, that is, looking like my conception of nuclear waste, this is really good news. From the Smoking Gun:
Defending itself from a lawsuit claiming that an Illinois man found a dead mouse inside a can of Mountain Dew, PepsiCo contends that a rodent would have disintegrated and been transformed into a “jelly-like” substance between the time of the soft drink’s bottling and the day the plaintiff reportedly purchased the soda from a vending machine at his office.
In a court response to a motion filed by Ronald Ball–who claims to have found the dead mouse in a Mountain Dew can about three years ago–PepsiCo filed a fascinating/revolting affidavit from Lawrence McGill, a veterinarian who noted that he was “familiar with the effects an acidic fluid, such as common soda drinks including Mountain Dew, will have on mice and other animals.”
According to McGill, if…
Pepsi Getting Heat for Use of Aborted Fetal Cells in Flavor Research
David Bohon writes in the New American:
Shareholders of PepsiCo have filed a resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to force the company to stop contracting with a research firm that uses cells from aborted babies in its process of producing artificial flavor enhancers. According to LifeNews.com, Pepsi has “ignored concerns and criticism from dozens of pro-life groups and tens of thousands of pro-life people who voiced their opposition to PepsiCo contracting with biotech company Senomyx even after it was found to be testing their food additives using fetal cells from abortions.”
On its website Senomyx explains that its flavor research programs “focus on the discovery and development of savory, sweet and salt flavor ingredients that are intended to allow for the reduction of MSG, sugar and salt in food and beverage products. Using isolated human taste receptors, we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical…
A Tax On Unhealthy Foods?
Source: New York Times
The New York Times‘ Mark Bittman proposes a tax on junk food. What do you think – is he right?
What will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)
Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.
And — not inconsequential during the current struggle over deficits and spending — a sane diet could save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.
Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are…
One Quarter Of American Teens Drink Soda Every Day
For those of you wondering why America’s greatest threat is obesity, this is at least part of the answer, although the CDC is spinning it as good news. From AP via Yahoo News:
A new study shows one in four high school students drink soda every day — a sign fewer teens are downing the sugary drinks… That’s less than in the past. In the 1990s and early 2000s, more than three-quarters of teens were having a sugary drink each day, according to earlier research.
The CDC reported the figures Thursday, based on a national survey last year of more than 11,000 high school students. They appear in one of the federal agency’s publications, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Consumption of sugary drinks is considered a big public health problem, and has been linked to the U.S. explosion in childhood obesity. One study of Massachusetts schoolchildren found that for each additional sweet drink…
Only In America: Purchase A Giant Pepsi To Raise Money For Diabetes Research
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has confirmed that this is a real promotion occurring now at KFCs across the country. Gulp down a “mega jug” of Pepsi — that’s a half gallon containing 56 spoonfuls of sugar — and one whole dollar will go towards finding a cure for the terrible disease that the drink will give you. Via Grist:
I honestly didn’t believe this one was for real at first. No way even KFC, purveyors of a sandwich that uses fried meat as a delivery mechanism for fried meat, would seriously market a soda size called the “mega jug.” And even if they did, they’d never have the chutzpah to donate “mega jug” dollars to juvenile diabetes research.
Sadly, I had totally underestimated KFC’s capacity for irony. The mega jug is a half gallon of soda, and this is a real local promotion. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation defends it thus: “JDRF…
Pepsi Unveils Plastic Bottle Made Entirely From Plants
Pepsi is trumpeting its creation of a plastic bottle made entirely from plant matter. Great — now we’ll be filling our landfills with plastic forever, even after we run out of oil. Via Gizmodo:
Soda’s bad for you, but plastics—especially the petroleum-based PET plastics used widely for bottles—are bad for everyone. Thankfully, after millions of dollars and years of research, Pepsi thinks it’s cracked the code on a 100% plant-based PET bottle.
It looks…just like the old bottle. “It’s indistinguishable,” says Rocco Papalia, PepsiCo’s senior vice president of advanced research. But instead of drawing from our planet’s diminishing supply of petroleum, it’s made entirely from plant waste—currently switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and eventually incorporating orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other materials leftover from its food business.
Pepsi’s going to test the bottle with a run of a few hundred thousand in 2012, and if all goes well they plan…
Osama Was Crazy About American Soft Drinks, Apparently
A nugget from a Bloomberg article — Abbottabad shopkeepers say that the men revealed to be bin Laden’s aides would regularly purchase bulk quantities of both Pepsi and Coke. It seems his hatred for the infidels was matched only by his love for our sweet, sweet carbonated colas.
The two polite Pakistanis who helped Osama bin Laden hide in the shadow of their country’s army bought bulk food orders, chose major brands and equally favored Pepsi and Coke, neighbors and a local shopkeeper said.
The men called themselves Akbar and Rashid Khan and they owned the fortified home where U.S. commandos killed bin Laden in an early morning raid May 2. They did the daily shopping in the Pashtu-language accents of Waziristan, a region on the Afghan border, said grocer Anjum Qaisar, 27, who works 150 meters from the compound.
“I was curious about why they bought so much food, but I did not…
Caramel Coloring In Coke Causes Cancer
Photo Credit: Jorge Bach, CSPI
A few days ago it was revealed that diet soda can trigger strokes in regular drinkers of the sweet fizzy beverages. Now the Center for Science in the Public Interest is petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prohibit what it says is carcinogenic “caramel coloring” (that is, not real caramel but synthetic, chemical “caramel”):
The “caramel coloring” used in Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other foods is contaminated with two cancer-causing chemicals and should be banned, according to a regulatory petition filed today by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown coloring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulfites under high pressure and temperatures. Chemical reactions result in the formation of 2-methylimidazole and 4 methylimidazole, which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver,…
Coca-Cola’s Secret Recipe Finally Revealed
Well, no surprise there’s no cocaine in it (it hasn’t had that “health elixir” for quite some time) but interesting to note there’s one ingredient only Coca-Cola can get — fluid extract of coca (the leaves stripped of cocaine) — due to a deal with the DEA. Casey Chan writes on Gizmodo:
The secret recipe of Coke has been hidden and locked down for 125 years. But apparently, not anymore. This American Life says they’ve found the ingredients that make up the delicious bubbly cola and have revealed it to our delight.
The story starts with John Pemberton, a Civil War veteran who’s credited with inventing Coca-Cola. His original recipe was written down in a recipe book of various ointments and medicines that was passed down from generation to generation.
A photograph of that recipe, from that very recipe book, was taken in the Feb. 18, 1979, edition of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and only…
Drinking Diet Soda Increases Risk Of Stroke
No matter what new chemical concoctions the corporate food companies put in “diet” (i.e. low calorie) carbonated beverages (variously known as soda, pop or other terms depending on where you live) to replace sugar, it’s not natural and it’s not good for you. Just think of the various health risks later discovered from saccharin and aspartame. Now it turns out that stroke is another of the health hazards. Stick to sugar — in moderation! From the South Asia Mail:
New research is raising fresh worries about diet soft drinks, noting that people who drink them every day have a higher risk for strokes and heart attacks compared to those who drink no pop at all.
But the researchers are quick to point out that their study does not prove that diet soft drinks cause heart attacks or strokes. They note there could be other aspects about diet pop drinkers that accounts for…
“Canna Cola” Brings Marijuana To The Soda Industry
ABC News reports on another weed-infused fizzy drink (see this story for a previous initiative):
Canna Cola is the new spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
The beverage combines soda and THC, a psychoactive ingredient found in marijuana, to create a drink that co-brand-developer Clay Butler calls “medibles,” edible medicine.
“A lot of people simply don’t want to smoke,” says co-brand developer Clay Butler. “It’s very easy to take your medication in the form of a cookie, soda or brownie and you can do that without drawing attention to yourself.”…
Marijuana Soda? Medicinal Users Now Have Smoke-Free Option
Allie Townsend writes on TIME:
Thirsty? Why not open an ice-cold bottle of pot-infused root beer?
A new line of pot-infused beverages masquerading behind soda flavors are now available to patients with a prescription for medical marijuana. Made by Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs, the carbonated drinks are marketed to medicinal-marijuana patients who wish to avoid “weed culture” stigmas.
Study Links Soda and Pancreatic Cancer
Many of us know that consumption of sugar (or more likely corn syrup)-laden carbonated drinks is a major cause of the obesity epidemic (see the disinformation® documentary Killer At Large for more on that), but now it seems that they can lead to pancreatic cancer too. Reported by Reuters via RAW Story:
People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.
People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.
Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.
“The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth,” Pereira said in a statement.
Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.
Sweetened Soda Drinks Increase Risk Of Pancreatic Cancer
Many of us know that consumption of sugar (or more likely corn syrup) -laden carbonated drinks is a major cause of the obesity epidemic (see the disinformation® documentary Killer At Large for more on that), but now it seems that they can lead to pancreatic cancer too. From Minnesota Public Radio News:
Minneapolis — A University of Minnesota study shows that consuming a lot of soft drinks appears to increase a person’s risk of pancreatic cancer.
The findings are based on the dietary habits of more than 60,000 Chinese people who were observed for 14 years.
The study found a nearly two-fold increase in the risk of pancreatic cancer among people who consumed at least two carbonated, sugar-sweetened beverages per week compared to those who did not consume soft drinks.
U of M Researcher Mark Pereira said people who drink soda release a jolt of insulin into their pancreas, which may overwhelm the organ.
“They’re pretty…
