Did Coca-Cola really used to be green?

Factual Questions
1

I received one of those forwarded emails today called “Expendable Facts” and one of the facts was that Coca-Cola used to be green. I’ve never heard this before. Does anyone know if this is really true? And if so, why did the Coca-Cola company decide to change the color? It’s hard to imagine anything different than the classic reddish-brown Coca-Cola color.

Oh, and if case anyone is interested, here is the list of “Expendable Facts” – I don’t know about the accuracy, but they are interesting anyway:

"Expendable Facts…

Coca-Cola was originally green.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks
like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.

1/4 of LA is taken up of automobiles

The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

2 out of 5 people live in China or India

Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

The city with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita:

Hong Kong

The most commonly used password on computer systems is “password.”

The youngest pope was 11 years old.

The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments

Q. What separates “60 Minutes,” on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song.

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.

Q. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser
printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. This is the only food that doesn’t spoil.
A. Honey

Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most
ironic?

A. He was allergic to carrots."

2

I was drinking Coke in the 1940’s and it wasn’t green then and I have never heard of it being green. However, back then Coke came in one size bottle and it was green.

3

I was wondering if they may have been thinking of the color of the bottle…but, then again, cokes been around for a really long time. I suppose that it may have been green for it’s first year of production or something.

Another interesting Coca-Cola tidbit:
I DO know that it also used to have an extract of the coco plant - the same plant that you get cocaine from - which is why it is called Coca-cola. Then they replaced the cocaine with caffeine.

4

Snopes (www.snopes.com) says its false.

I happen to live fairly close to Hershey PA. I’ve seen movie images of the original machine, and it did look like it was kissing them, I suppose. The machines they use now don’t operate on the same principle. They are basically put into a mold.

5

Nope.

If they’re referring to the dollar amount, then I wouldn’t be surprised. Monopoly prints 500s, while the Treasury doesn’t print anything above 100.

I believe this is true, but I can’t find a cite right now.

One-fourth of area? Or do they mean that if you count up all the people and cars, 1/4 will be cars? I don’t understand what this one means.

Unemployment in Alaska is above the national average. Cite.

There about 1 billion people in China and another billion in India. There are 6 billion people in the world. Therefore, 1 out of 3 people live in China or India.

Don’t know how to check this.

Don’t know how to check this.

There’s no way they could find this out. People would have to give out their (utterly stupid) passwords to a survey.

Can’t find any evidence of this, but little is known about many of the popes.

The cable cars were designated a “historic landmark” (cite), but I can’t find any evidence they were declared a national monument.

Not every other TV show. Every other prime time TV show. The distinction is important. If you make the distinction, it’s true.

I seriously doubt this. I have very few adult relatives who live anywhere near their birthplace.

Bullet proof vests and windshield wipers were invented by women. However, according to this, the laster printer was invented by Gary Starkweather. I can’t find anything on the inventor of fire escapes.

Well… I think it does (look here). However, sugar does not, so it’s a moot point.

I believe this is true, but I can’t find a cite right now. I heard it on a TV special on Mel Blanc once.

I’ll admit, this was truer than most Internet lists.

-Loopus

6

Ach, I read this as “The highest percentage of people who work.” Please disregard my meaningless answer.

I better go to bed now. :o

-Loopus

7

Loopus:

That is like responding to “2 out of 5 people live in India or China” with “I know very few people from India or China.” I’m not sure that the statistic is correct, but it doesn’t some implausible when you think about the number of people who live in cities - New York only has an area of 321 square miles, so essentially everyone born who doesn’t move away will live within fifty miles of their birthplace. Extend that to every other U.S. city and you end up with a lot of people living within fifty miles of where they were born.

8

Cool - I thought most of these were fairly innaccurate. But, I wasn’t sure how much. I get emails with lists and things like that all the time, and it drives me nuts. They’re usually interesting and all, but they’re also usually full of it. I wonder who starts them??

Thanks for your answers, guys.

9

This one has been covered pretty well before http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=97652&highlight=green+honey+monopoly.

10

The link I just gave only provides some of the answers. This link http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=97652&highlight=green+honey+monopoly adds a few more.

11

Actually, Cocaine comes from the coca plant, not the coco. The coca leaf was (and is?) used to make coca-cola, and coke did used to contain cocaine. The name came from the coca plant and the cola nut(which containes caffiene). So they actually just removed the cocaine, the caffiene was already in there.

12

Honey doesn’t spoil. They packed Alexander the Great’s body in it on his return. There have also been jars of honey found in pharoh’s temples that have provided interesting insights into the climate of Ancient Egypt.

13

Evidently, the flavoring agent found in the coca leaf is still used in Coke.

http://www.snopes2.com/cokelore/formula.htm
Which naturally raises the question: “What on earth does Stepan Co. do with all that extracted cocaine?”

-David

14

SoulFrost, cocaine is still widely used as a topical anasthetic in facial/eye surgery. Cocaine creams and eyedrops would sell pretty well in any area with a large proportion of, say, plastic surgeons.

(Guess what Novacaine is an emulation of? The Andes Wonder Drug has spawned knockoffs! :D)

(topical = applied directly to the area you want to numb)

15

Coca-Cola was originally green.

Not sure. I do know that nowadays it tastes nothing like it did originally

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

no idea
Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks
like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.

Probably
1/4 of LA is taken up of automobiles

An odd one. It doesnt make sense! Think of all the buildings etc that are also in LA. Seems highly unlikely that cars take up a quarter of it.
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

No idea
2 out of 5 people live in China or India

Correct. About 800 million in India and 1.5 billion in China = 2.3 billion. 2.3 divided by 6 = 0.38333 = 38.3333% which is almost 2 fifths.
Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

God knows. Probably.
The city with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita:

Hong Kong

Not sure. I always thought it was some arabic country.
The most commonly used password on computer systems is “password.”

Fuck(can I say that?) knows.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.

Wouldnt surprise me. There was one who died buggering his page boy so anything’s possible.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments

Who cares???
Q. What separates “60 Minutes,” on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song.

Not American so I dont know.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.

Probably.
Q. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser
printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Someone invented fire escapes?
Q. This is the only food that doesn’t spoil.
A. Honey

Probably
Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most
ironic?

A. He was allergic to carrots."

Possibly.

16

The hypocrisy of the U.S. government never ceases to amaze me. It spends billions of dollars destroying the lives of peasants who grow coca as they have for thousands of years, only to turn around and give this corporation a license to import it. Rich pharmaceutical companies are allowed to profit, but poor South American farmers can go to hell.

Sorry for getting off-topic.

17

1.)

No, honey doesn’t spoil, which is one reason it was prized in the ancient world. And it’s true that it will preserve things placed in it. But, unless that item is small enough to be completely engulfed nd saturated by the honey, it won’t do much preserving. Lots of folks in he ancient world were “preserved” wth honey – but only the outsides got preserved. Inside the body, where no honey reached, it still rotted. see Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe and references therein.

2.) Coke looks green under UV light, as I think I pointed out in an earlier thread. Otherwise, it doesn’t and, I believe, never has. See Cunningham’s book For God, Country, and Coca-Cola

18

Really? I am SO going to test this. I do a Display room for the Chem department at school for the university open house, and currently we show that tonic water fluoresces under UV. But no one cares about tonic water. Kids don’t know what it is. But coke…great idea! :slight_smile:

19

I just now tested this myself using my black light as I just happened to be drinking a Coke that had been poured into a clear glass upon reading this post. With the glass close to the light source the liquid does take on sort of a greenish-brown hue. At a distance it appears black. In any case I didn’t see that it really fluoresced.

20

I’ve seen it myself. Maybe it depends on your definition of “spoil.” I translate this instance as meaning as "To become unfit for use or consumption, as from decay. Used especially of perishables, such as food. " (1)

I, personally, have opened a jar of honey and discovered the honey well-permeated with a nasty looking and foul smelling mold-type substance. Admittedly, the honey was at least three years old.

Honey is a significant risk factor for infant Botulism; it is a bad idea to ever feed babies any honey during the first year of life. (2)

Furthermore, I have found mentions of spoiled honey due to fermentation (3) The ancient Romans included a test for spoiled honey in a cookbook (4)

However, I think it may be true that pure, dry, crystallized sucrose (table sugar) does not spoil, in that it’s chemically intert and no known bacteria or mold have yet figured out how to eat it. Honey does appear to have some antibacterial properties which help give it a long shelf life. But it just isn’t in the same league as sugar (or salt, for that matter.)

Interestingly, it appears the stuff may actually help reduce scarring for certain types of wounds in certain circumstances. However, sugar paste may do just as good a wound-healing job as honey. (5,6.)

  1. http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=spoil

  2. http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/peds/pidl/neuro/botulism.htm

  3. http://www.clemson.edu/psamedia/1998REL.DIR/Bee2.txt

  4. http://www.lewis-kappes.com/LK/Pompeiiana/TheRomanCookery/TheCarefulCook_dir/TheCarefulCook_9.htm

  5. J Wound Care 2002 Feb;11(2):53-5 Why do some cavity wounds treated with honey or sugar paste heal without scarring?
    Topham J.

  6. Br J Nurs 2001 Dec;10(22 Suppl):S13-6, S18, S20 The use of honey in the treatment of infected wounds: case studies.
    Kingsley A. North Devon District Hospital, Barnstaple, Devon.
    (and about 100 more on Pubmed)