Enough about me, let's get straight into it. French research has shown that Coca Cola and Pepsi contain alcohol. Yes, you read correctly. What they don't emphasise is that it's "trace" amounts of alcohol. Virtually negligible. Before we even look at the actual topic, let us ask a few questions:
1. Do we trust the French? (Yes, I had to put it in there and for those that don't know me yet, it was a joke)
2. How do we know that it wasn't just the French products that had alcohol?
3. Whether it be French/English/American/South Africa, who actually cares about this?
4. Why did they even consider testing for it?
5. Wait, what type of alcohol was testing for? Alcohol as we know in your typical beer or wine, is actually more technically known as ethanol. How do we know that it wasn't methanol or propanol?
6. And why oh why did that money /resources not go into something important? Like a cure for one of the dreaded terminal diseases, like Cancer / AIDS / ignorance. Oh wait, scratch the last one. People don't want to be cured of that (it's bliss after all)
Sadly, these questions now don't change anything. It happened and all we are left with is knowing that the worlds most well known soft drinks may contain a minuscule amount of alcohol. This of course is going to cause a certain level of hype (even havoc) amongst the exceptionally religious / health fanatics / alcohol opposers and so forth.
The most obvious religion affected (as mentioned in the article) is the Muslims. Technically, the Quran (muslim holy book) states that one should not consume anything that negatively alters ones mental state. Yes, alcohol (especially in volumes) does usually cause a negative mental state. Usually, believing you can sing, dance, fight and that most people become more attractive (the latter is probably the most dangerous). Anyway, additionally over time it generally causes depression (one of the leading causes actually). Then we get into the physical: destroys liver, brain cells, etc etc...
Therefore it is quite obvious alcohol is bad. In most cases it is (and before we get too technical, I'm referring to human consumption and not really industrial use). There are certain medical uses (kinda) and it's stated that a class of red wine every evening is good for your heart / cholesterol. Yet, the key to all of the above is quantity. To get to the claimed maximum drink and drive limit in the USA of 0.08 (which as most drinkers believe is far from even tipsy) is one glass of wine (+/- 140 grams) which contains about 16.8grams of alcohol. So at about 10mg for every litre, to get "drunk" one would have to drink about 17 litres of cola in a short period of time (before the body starts processing / removing the alcohol).
As you can imagine, this is exceptionally unlikely as the body is not designed to handle so much fluid at once. Additionally at +/- 30 teaspoons of sugar per litre (over 500 teaspoons altogether) and over 1500mg of caffeine, if that doesn't kill you (don't worry, it takes about 10000mg of caffeine and more sugar than one can usually consume in one day to kill you normally. However, a combination and the potential of shock), anyway as I was saying, if it doesn't kill you, the side effects and lasting effects, will be exceptionally unpleasant.
Caffeine is a drug. Sugar uses the same neurological paths as cocaine. They are both known to be addictive. Anyone who has consumed large amounts of these knows the potential negative affects of these, especially the "crash" when coming down. From a religious and health perspective, I guarantee you all, you will not be affected by the alcohol content. For the alcohol opposers, you probably have your reasons and most people probably wont care. Everyone just chill and do something useful with your time and money please.
As for me, it's more worrying that most mass produced food/beverage products are legally allowed a certain amount of foreign organic debris in their product. And yes, I mean bugs. And yes, it happens.
Enjoy.
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