An item from NPR's foodie column "The Salt," goes into considerable detail about the urgent need to purge cola soft drinks of the chemical 4-methylimidazole — 4-MEI — that is listed as a carcinogen by the state of California (but few other places.)
Coke, fearing even the hint of a possible slight blowback from ignorant consumers, had bent its knee before the holy altar of the organatroids. But evil Pepsi had failed to toe the line. Call in NPR!
To the column's credit, it does quote info from the FDA and the American Beverage Association that challenges the fearful claims of the hazards posed by 4-MEI. But hey, who believes Big Beverage? Here's some perspective on this "crisis."
US FDA spokesperson Doug Karas stated, "[a] person would have to drink more than a thousand cans of soda in a day to match the doses administered in studies that showed links to cancer in rodents.” [10]
And James Coughlin, a toxicologist who studies animal carcinogens, says the risk posed by 4-MEI is even smaller than this government estimate suggests. In order for humans to reach the equivalent of even the lowest cancer-causing dose in mice, a woman would have to drink 37,000 cans (12 oz) a day for the rest of her life, and a man would have to drink 95,000 cans a day.
That's a lot of fizzy stuff. And about that column name...isn't salt bad for us too?
Coke vs Water
But wait, there's more. This ridiculous meme was passed around recently among my Facebook friends.
It lists a bunch of wonderful benefits of drinking water, then lists a bunch of things that allegedly can be eaten by the acids in your can of Coke. Blood can be cleansed from highway crashes. Steaks melt in a bowl of the stuff. Etc.
Turns out, this silly list has already been shot down. In 2011 by snopes.com. Think about it people. Coca-Cola has sold billions of cans of its product, and not one person has melted. People should keep snopes.com open on a regular basis. If they did, the world would be a far more rational place.
Some of those alleged benefits from water drinking also have been exaggerated by this list of junk "facts." This story in the HuffPost (another Bible for many liberal-leaning folks) is one of many to shoot the 8-glasses-of-water-a-day canard out of the sky.
Sadly, unlike vampires, repeated stakes to the heart cannot kill the chemo-paranoia monster. Me? I think I shall pop open a refreshing Diet Coke. Cheers!