Coca-Cola

 

Disclaimer: Expressed or implied views/opinions are strictly mine and may not conform with reader's views.

Ingredients. CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE.

Regular consumption of these ingredients in the high quantities you find in Coke can lead to higher blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Suffering from an indigestible mass trapped in the digestive system, also known as a gastric phytobezoar? Drink some Coke. The soft drink has been shown to effectively treat the condition.

Coke is slightly acidic, so over time it’ll break down organic substances, like teeth and flies. However, the myth that Coke’s ingredients are so corrosive that it can dissolve a tooth or housefly overnight is nothing but an urban legend.

Avoiding a Coke will help you have fewer cravings for junk food. Drinking less Coca-Cola, you’ll be consuming less sugar and caffeine. You will sleep better and will have a more balanced energy level throughout the day too.

There are a few more good things about Coke. During 70s and 80s water available for consumption was not clean and safe at many places of my visits as a part of my business trips. I took to drinking Coca-Cola as it provided safety from the water borne infections. In places like Markapur where I had to stay overnight and many other places of my visits in Prakasam district, there was no protected drinking water supply. At many places water was supplied in big wooden barrels placed on wheeled human pulled carts. Water was collected from sources like ponds, small lakes where cattle were washed.

Considering all this, do you blame anyone if he even brushed teeth using Coke? Not daring to use water in Markapur Lodges for bathing, I showered myself on the train (the first class compartments used to have shower heads for bathing) while travelling to places like Cumbum, Giddalur before arriving there for my work. From the base town Markapur, I had to travel to these towns for my work (meeting doctors there to promote use of our Company medicines) How lucky were people in Proddatur (a town in Cuddapah District and one of the oldest municipalities of Madras Presidency) who were blessed with a visionary like Sri Vasantha Rao garu as its first civic head who provided Safe Protected Drinking Water way back in the early years of Twentieth Century! 

Used to drinking safe water since birth in Proddatur, I had to make do with Coca-Cola instead of water because I could not find clean water while on my work linked travel to places like Markapur.

Trivia about Coca-Cola:

The name Coca-Cola is derived from two primary ingredients: the coca leaf and the kola nut. Extract of the coca leaf was essentially cocaine, and the kola nut provided caffeine. That's how you felt a little pep in your step after savouring it. Coca-Cola was invented as a patent medicine by John Pemberton, and once contained actual cocaine. He set out in search of an opium-free substitute, and the end result, served as the prototype for Coca-Cola’s recipe; he called it a “brain tonic and intellectual beverage.” Pemberton died less than two years after inventing the drink, he sold the rights to the formula to a businessman named Asa Candler. It was Candler who founded the Coca-Cola Company and turned the drink into the phenomenon it is today due to aggressive and trail blazing marketing.