A friend of mine insists that:
A) Coca-Cola still contains cocaine. (An old claim, but has any reliable independent testing been done?)
B) Formaldehyde can still be found in American food products.
Any of this bunk been officially debunked? Thanks…
Coca-cola doesn’t contain cocaine, but it still uses “spent” (ie, cocaine alkaloids removed) coca leaves for “flavoring” (although really, the flavor of CC has nothing to do with either coca or kola). At one time, it did contain actual cocaine, although the buzz one would have gotten is debatable. For as long as Coca-Cola has been a mass-produced product, it has never contained a huge amount. Ironically, a tiny amount of cocaine would actually produce milder side-effects than caffeine (although the abuse potential is certainly much greater).
Formaldehyde would never be an additive to a food product, although I suppose trace amounts could be found in some foods. Trace amounts of practically anything can be found in various foods, if you look closely enough.
I can tell you some facts (since this is GQ) about question B.
I’m sure it can be found in american foods. The EPA limit for formaldehyde is 0.2 mg/kg body weight per day. Additionally, formaldehyde occurs naturally in many food products such as fish , fruit, and mushrooms (some types of mushrooms can have surprisingly high formaldehyde levels).
Note also that formaldehyde is much more toxic when inhaled than when ingested (not that I’d want to drink a glass of it).
Any time you see these scare messages, remember that modern detection methods can easily go down to parts per billion (or more) and it is not surprising at all that “[insert substance] can be found in food”. Kind of like the old saccharin cause cancer deal.
As to point A, well I guess I can’t point to any FDA or EPA regulations that spell out acceptable cocaine levels in soft drinks.
I have no doubt that it has been tested and found negative for cocaine at one point. How recently that was or how frequently it is rechecked, I don’t know. Also note that even when there really was cocaine in Coke, the amount was trivial.
Do you really think the federal government would allow a soft drink containing cocaine to be sold in the U.S.?
According to the book For God, Country and Coca Cola by Mark Pendergrast, the Coca Cola company still uses decocainized coca leaves in their recipe. I read the book years ago, and recommend it highly. I don’t know whether Coke still uses Coca leaves - the book was originally published several years ago, and things might have changed since then. The U.S. government has been trying (unsuccessfully) to reduce the amount of coca grown, and might have put pressure on the Coca Cola company to stop using it.
As for the claim about formaldehyde, it’s so broad that it’s hard to evaluate. Which American food products is your friend talking about? What levels of formaldehyde?
Formaldehyde used to be used as a preservative in beer. It’s not anymore. Still, fermentation typically produce small amounts of the stuff, so its probably found in things like bread, pickles, cheese and yoghurt. Nothing to worry about. Google provides many examples of formaldehyde in beer, but the signal to noise ratio is too high to pick out one decent cite.