jaw@ames.UUCP (James A. Woods) (07/23/85)
# When a woman loses her mystery, she is finished forever.
-- Yves St. Laurent, "Opium" debut celebration, 1979
Madagascar's vanilla bean economy almost collapsed a few weeks back
because of the formula switch, according to Wall Street Journal's continuing
excellent coverage of the cola wars. An inference can be made here. See the
Wed. July 17 reportage. (check out the article on Mexican fireaters, too --
WSJ's human interest pieces are what net.bizarre should aspire to.)
Oh, and the blurb below is a reprint of what I posted to net.rumor
over a year ago. The only savvy reply to this (most were sidetrips to
the beaten-to-death issue of cocaine additives) -- was a comment that
perhaps there would be reports in New England J. Medicine about little
kids being detoxed in emergency wards if it were true.
=====
Probably recycling an oldie here, but I understand that the
"active ingredient" of Coca Cola is NICOTINE, supplied via tobacco juice,
and thus categorizable as a "natural flavoring." As such, I don't believe
we are dealing with an FDA Class 2 substance, though I do wonder about
regulations which might govern its use. Since nicotine toxicity is in
the milligram range, this speculation gives rise to the question of
a human LD-50 for this popular beverage.
=====
-- James A. Woods (ames!jaw)david@infopro.UUCP (David Fiedler) (07/25/85)
>> Probably recycling an oldie here, but I understand that the >>"active ingredient" of Coca Cola is NICOTINE, supplied via tobacco juice, >> -- James A. Woods (ames!jaw) Now THAT would explain "throat burn"!! (:-) -- Dave Fiedler {harpo,astrovax,whuxcc,clyde}!infopro!dave People Phone: (201) 989-0570 USMail: InfoPro Systems, 3108 Route 10, Denville, NJ 07834 Caldwell Tower, this is 16 Lima inbound for Runway 4 with information Idiot...
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (07/25/85)
> Probably recycling an oldie here, but I understand that the "active > ingredient" of Coca Cola is NICOTINE, supplied via tobacco juice, and thus > categorizable as a "natural flavoring." It would be a lot easier to guess the "11 Herbs and Spices" in Kentucky Fried Chicken than to guess the ingredients in Coke, since at least you know how many are in KFC. In the recent issue of Scientific American that contained an article on cocaine, it stated that at the time of that article Coca Cola contained an extract of coca leaves (an extract other than cocaine, of course). It surprised me that this was stated as fact, with no doubt implied, but SA is a very objective publication, in general, and thus I tend to belive it. So far, all the ingredients that have been discovered to be in Coca Cola have one thing in common -- which is obvious if you think about it, but otherwise isn't. Specifically: if Coke contains a Coca leaf extract, a Cola nut extract, Vanilla, and lemon ... well, these are all very common, "down home" ingredients of the late 1800s. And this leads one to think a little more... Coke's original formula (which almost certainly has been revised since this happened, but probably only to eliminate ingredients that were discovered to be pharmacologically risky to use) was developed by an apothecary. Well, it probably was made from common items in an apothecary shop of the period, because what's in common with all the above ingredients is that I can remember seeing them in the museum at the pharmacy school where my father taught when I was growing up, in which they indeed had every common item an apothecary of the period had (because it was used in a course on old-fashioned apothecary methods, which I think is called "pharmacognocy" (I don't know how to spell it).) The point of this: a good heuristic for guessing Coca Cola ingredients would be to (a) identify items of the above types that are now known not to have harmful side effects, and are appetizing [many of the items were things like a kind of green winged bug, castor beans, frankincense, myrrh, beeswax, various types of mustard seeds, gelatin, etc, as well as many kinds of seeds now known to have bad side effects], or (b) given an hypothesis obtained by a method other than (a) that some item is in the product, see if it was common in an apothecary shop of the period. Tobacco leaves may fit (b) (though they definitely were not in the museum I knew, in which I spent many hours as a child), but they almost certainly violate (a), since nicotine is known to have significant side effects. You could also test the hypothesis on a smoker (one who smoked relatively few cigarettes per day), by seeing whether or not coke satisfied his or her craving for nicotine. (This wouldn't be a good test in itself, since the caffeine, etc. might also influence it... I am not sure; also, if it didn't work, your test smoker would be climbing the walls with frustration trying to get a cigarette... :-)) -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642
bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) (07/28/85)
In article <1375@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: >You could also test the hypothesis on a smoker (one who smoked relatively >few cigarettes per day), by seeing whether or not coke satisfied his or her >craving for nicotine. (This wouldn't be a good test in itself, since the >caffeine, etc. might also influence it... I am not sure; also, if it didn't >work, your test smoker would be climbing the walls with frustration trying >to get a cigarette... :-)) As a relatively recent (3 months) ex-smoker I can assure you that coke in any of its various incarnations does *nothing* to assuage the craving from nicotine. Even so, I doubt the test is a useful one. As it turns out I use bubble gum to chase away the nicotine heebie jeebies to good effect. I don't think bubble gum has nicotine in it.... -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
mojo@micropro.UUCP (Morris Jones) (07/29/85)
Fan authority ollowup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: MicroPro Int'l Corp., San Rafael, CA
Keywords:
Summary: Haitian Lime Oil, too?
A columnist in The Sacramento Bee quoted a local authority ... a chemist
perhaps? ... just before the rollout of the New Coke.
Coke, he said, contained Haitian Lime Oil, which had multiplied in price
several times over in the past few years. New Coke was missing this
ingredient. He offered this as one of the reasons for Coke's changing
forumla.
Mojo
...is Morris Jones at MicroPro Product Development
{dual,hplabs,ptsfa,apple}!well!micropro!kepler!mojo