Just when you thought Coke and Pepsi only raised your sugar levels (unless in diet form.. and who drinks that), now comes the alleged expose’ that the caramel color causes cancer in lab animals.
- This stuff causes cancer!!??
That’s right… there’s fear of having a cancer warning appear on our fave soft drinks. Can you imagine… the pause that refreshes exposes you to death? Frankly it’s California that’s at it again with another socially liberal restriction sent to the voters who have far too much spare time because they are all rich from making movies and wave surfing and are worried about what other people are doing that offends them.
Apparently the nasty chemical used in the manufacturing process of the caramel color in certain soft drinks in addition to Coke and Pepsi… like Dr. Pepper… contains the chemical 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MI. This stuff ended up on the list of chemicals covered by California‘s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65. It seems high levels of this stuff has caused cancer in lab animals. As usual, according to an independent study by CNN, and the FDA, you’d need to consume vast quantities (something like a thousand cans a day) of Coke and Pepsi to simulate the same results in humans; you’d likely die of complications from diabetes first. But there’s this outfit called, Center for Science in the Public Interest, that apparently has exposed this “health risk”. Now, the FDA says the drinks are quite safe. Yeah.. we’ve heard that before; who trusts them.. right? I’d rather put my health to the California voter.
Thanks goodness the red one's returned!
Well, it turns out, fellow soft drink aficionados, that the soft drink folks are doing their jobs in trying to avoid any PR crisis management later, and have asked their respective caramel-color suppliers to change their ingredient.. and the best part to us as consumers is that it will not change the taste or color of our fave drinks… and we can be relieved that 4-methylimidazole can go by way of Red Dye #2 back in 1976 (which, if you recall, led to M&M’s removing their red M&M’s for ten years when it didn’t really contain Red Dye #2 to begin with but became a PR nightmare).
Aren’t there other things more important going on in California?
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