The Coca Cola Conspiracy: The secret cause for the U.S. obesity epidemic

Originally posted by tide88

Originally posted by randomname
the real coca cola conspiracy is the amount of coca leaves they import to manufacture their product.

they are the only company that are legally allowed to import literally tonnes of coca leaves into the united states.

of course they claim to extract all the coc aine from the leaves.

but that leaves the question, what do they do with the coc aine solution. the process is already 3/4 done.

the last step is the relatively simple task of crystallizing the solution. do they just flush away potentially billions of dollars of coc aine down the drain.

imagine the amount of coca leaves needed to flavor every can and bottle of coke around the globe.
do they get every amount of coc aine out of their product. it doesn't seem like it.

First off. Coca-Cola does not import and process the leaves, the Stepan Company does. Also, the extracted coc aine is sent to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical firm.

Coca-Cola includes as an ingredient a coca leaf extract prepared by a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey.[2] The facility, which had been known as the Maywood Chemical Works, was purchased by Stepan in 1959.[3] The plant is the only commercial entity in the USA authorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to import coca leaves, which come primarily from Peru. Approximately 100 metric tons of dried coca leaf are imported each year. The coc aine-free leaves are sold to The Coca Cola Company, while the active ingredient is sold to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical firm, for medicinal purposes.[4]

How the Coca leaves in Coke are processed

Some years ago, I interviewed on tape, a top official of the firm that makes the secret Coca-Cola base. That is Stepan Chemical, headquartered in the north suburb of Chicago, Northfield, and with plants elsewhere. They are the largest importer in the western world of coca leaves, used for Coke's base. A by-product, as admitted by the Stepan boss, is coc aine sold by them to the pharmaceutical industry. Does any of it also slip by as contraband? In the 1970s, some alternative journalists began heckling coc aine-linked Stepan Chemical. He said he was aware of the criticism of Stepan regarding coc aine. He could not go into it too far, he said, because of reasons of "national security". Or did he really mean, "Stepan security"? The bosses of Stepan have always been close to the Daley family that since the mid-1950s, with just a short hiatus, runs Chicago's city hall machine. Early on in their history, The Coca-Cola Company assisted the U.S. in espionage. When the company set up bottling plants and distribution facilities in a new country, sent in were spy operatives. The place to hang their hat was the offices and plants, worldwide, of the much ballyhooed drink. The coc aine trace made it addictive. So did the sugar content, according to some nutritionist. With the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings on Iran-Contra late in the 1980,s, the CIA-Coca-Cola link was dealt with. In Nicaragua, for example, those with CIA, when the Senate subcommittee asked, where with local offices of The Coca-Cola Company. By the end of the 20th Century, Coke bought about a billion dollars a year in advertisements in the monopoly press, even more when you add up their so-called "independent" subsidiaries.

There's a whole doc on Pepsi and the CIA -- so Coke, Cocaine and CIA are not surprising

Watch the Doc: Pepsi Vs. Coke John Pilger on Soda and military espionage




Or watch Burp! here

Burp! Pepsi Vs Coke in the Ice Cold War traces the history of these brands against the backdrop of global politics. The second world war was the perfect vehicle for Coca-Cola distribution (including to the Nazis), bottling plants on frontlines paid for by the US war department. Nixon got Kremlin supremo, Khrushchev, to pose drinking Pepsi, which became the first US product made in the Soviet Union. In 1949, Mao kicked Coca-Cola out of China. President Carter got it back in 1978. It is a study of the links between corporate and political power. In Chile, Pepsi Cola’s boss ran a daily paper which was used by the CIA to help Pinochet’s bloody coup.

Originally posted by fleabit

Right you are in a structure that has a gym built into it. In contrast there are many structures that have Coke machines as the most readily available source of calories -- isolated structures like large Universities, high schools, work places.

I'm sorry, but I just see a lot of babble, trying to make excuses for obesity. How does a university or a workplace having coke preclude someone from making a CHOICE to not drink it? Or to say, WORK OUT? You don't need a gym to work out. You need an elevated heart rate for approximately 45 mins to an hour, so your body consumes fat for energy. Not rocket surgery here.

My work once we moved downtown from the tech center, offered a few things. One was soda for .25 - quarter sodas! Guess how many I've bought in a year and a half? About 5 diet sodas, and 0 non-diet versions. It's CHOICE. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to drink soda or eat crappy food. Self discipline, motivation, and not being a lazy lump is what people need. Not soda companies to go away.

Some days it's snowing and freezing. Some days I feel like I have a long nail embedded in my leg because my huge spasm-ed back muscles are pinching my sciatic nerve. Guess what.. I STILL GO TO THE STUPID GYM! I don't like to much of the time.. who enjoys spending an hour and a half sweating, being wore out while being in pain? But ya know.. I am not obese. I am healthy (aside from my back.. which is a much better when I am in shape, versus not.. which is true for most people.. a strong core.. means a healthier back). I have to make the same decisions as everyone else about what to eat and drink.

Stop making excuses for people, it's pathetic. People need to get off their lazy butts and get in shape, that's all there is to it.

Updates on the movement to kill coke since coke kills

"What can you buy with $13 million? If you're Coca-Cola, you can buy enough influence with the National Parks Service to cancel plans to make the Grand Canyon more environmentally friendly. "Plastic water bottles are the biggest single source of garbage in America's most iconic national park. So the National Parks Service had a plan: ban the sale of plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon and invest in refillable water stations instead. The park was just weeks from implementing the ban -- and then Coca Cola stepped in. "According to the New York Times, Coca Cola — which has donated $13 million to national parks — asked the National Park Service to not ban the sale of plastic water bottles. Incredibly, the head of the National Parks Service bowed to Coke, and cancelled the Grand Canyon's bottle ban."

This is what I'm talking about! Organized group effort changes the law to stop Coke!

After more than 100,000 people signed Stiv's petition, the National Park Service announced the bottle ban in the Grand Canyon may go into effect as soon as spring 2012 along with a new process for all national parks to adopt similar bans.

Originally posted by fleabit

Right you are in a structure that has a gym built into it. In contrast there are many structures that have Coke machines as the most readily available source of calories -- isolated structures like large Universities, high schools, work places.

I'm sorry, but I just see a lot of babble, trying to make excuses for obesity. How does a university or a workplace having coke preclude someone from making a CHOICE to not drink it? Or to say, WORK OUT? You don't need a gym to work out. You need an elevated heart rate for approximately 45 mins to an hour, so your body consumes fat for energy. Not rocket surgery here.

My work once we moved downtown from the tech center, offered a few things. One was soda for .25 - quarter sodas! Guess how many I've bought in a year and a half? About 5 diet sodas, and 0 non-diet versions. It's CHOICE. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to drink soda or eat crappy food. Self discipline, motivation, and not being a lazy lump is what people need. Not soda companies to go away.

Some days it's snowing and freezing. Some days I feel like I have a long nail embedded in my leg because my huge spasm-ed back muscles are pinching my sciatic nerve. Guess what.. I STILL GO TO THE STUPID GYM! I don't like to much of the time.. who enjoys spending an hour and a half sweating, being wore out while being in pain? But ya know.. I am not obese. I am healthy (aside from my back.. which is a much better when I am in shape, versus not.. which is true for most people.. a strong core.. means a healthier back). I have to make the same decisions as everyone else about what to eat and drink.

Stop making excuses for people, it's pathetic. People need to get off their lazy butts and get in shape, that's all there is to it.

Those super-sized sodas you’re drinking could lead to an amputation, a shocking ad campaign launched by the Health Department warns. The agency this week plastered 1,000 posters of an obese, diabetic amputee in subway trains throughout the city. One poster shows the man — a Type 2 diabetes sufferer who lost his right leg — sitting behind a chart showing how soda portions have ballooned over time. “Portions have grown. So has Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations” it reads. The ads immediately came under fire from the American Beverage Association, which criticized the ealth epartment for painting an “inaccurate picture” of the dangers of soda.

"Coca-Cola... has now added to its prideful history using its lobbying power to kill the new healthier regulations for the school lunch program. There is no company in the world that can claim more credit than Coca-Cola for pushing the American childhood obesity rate above 30 percent.

Coke organizes to stop healthier school lunch regulations! Watch the news report


Ha MSNBC gets it wrong about Japan - he says Japan has a 10% obesity rate but what he meant is Japan has ten times less obesity than the U.S.

In the US, drink vending machines are full of soft drinks. In Japan they are full of unsweetened tea and coffee beverages for the most part.

reply to post by fulllotusqigong


I gave you a star but corn syrup is NOT the number 1 obesogen - just the first on the "foods to avoid" list, above Animal Protein & Farm Raised Fish and Tap Water.

We can't avoid MOST endocrine disruptors in our environment, just the ones we take in voluntarily- so doctors, public health officials and alternative health providers focus on on the stuff we can evade. Coca Cola and ALL sodas are bad - but NOT the sole cause of the obesity pandemic. Not by a long shot. And obesity is NOT the only disease they cause.

3 Organs Targeted by Obesogens

1. Liver – Obesogens can make your liver become insulin resistant, which then means that your pancreas has to increase the amount of insulin that it makes by driving energy into your fat cells.

2. Brain – Obesogens block the signals that your body sends to your brain to tell you that you are not hungry any more.

3. Fat Cells – Obesogens will encourage your fat cells to multiply.

I have drunk a lot of coke in the last two weeks and i have put on 6 kilo of fat around my stomach...in two weeks!!!
I've spent my entire life as a thin person and now i suddenly have this gut...not happy.

As for the aspartme causing headache's... yeah that also seems to be the case with me.

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by fulllotusqigong

 

I gave you a star but corn syrup is NOT the number 1 obesogen -

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and soy, which are added into your diet and the diet of the animals you eat, are converted into natural obesogens.

HFCS is the most common and abundant obesogen

HFCS -- first chemical that is an obesogen

Here are Three Sources of Food where a Hidden Obesogen Can be Found: The first chemical that is an obesogen is high fructose corn syrup.

Mr. Perrine and Ms. Hurlock wrote that oesogens are found everywhere, particularly because the obesogen, high fructose corn syrup, is found in most processed foods. Fructose (even when obtained through fruit), can instigate metabolic disorders that damage the liver, and disturb the normal functioning of the appetite-suppressing Leptin hormone levels.

Obesogens are found everywhere primarily due to HFCS

Whats so secret about it? Its highly acidic after consumption, contains sugar, if you inform yourself you know those things. People get fat because they consume less than they eat thats all there is to it. If your job is done sitting and you go to work and back in a car and dont do sports, you could slowly gain weight even with 2000 Kcal a day. Thats probably more than what most consume.

Originally posted by Cassius666
Whats so secret about it? Its highly acidic after consumption, contains sugar, if you inform yourself you know those things. People get fat because they consume less than they eat thats all there is to it. If your job is done sitting and you go to work and back in a car and dont do sports, you could slowly gain weight even with 2000 Kcal a day. Thats probably more than what most consume.

And I am drinking a rum (sugarcane alcohol) and coke.

Good thing I have a 6-pack... and no not of cokes.

Originally posted by tooo many pills
And I am drinking a rum (sugarcane alcohol) and coke.

Good thing I have a 6-pack... and no not of cokes.

You're in good company

"Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is present in 30 percent of adults in the United States," Abdelmalek said. "Although only a minority of patients progress to cirrhosis, such patients are at increased risk for liver failure, liver cancer, and the need for liver transplant," she explained. "Unfortunately, there is no therapy for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease," she said. "My hope is to see if we can find a factor, such as increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which, if modified, can decrease the risk of liver disease."

Originally posted by fleabit
As an adult, it's on you to know what and how much to eat, and to get off your lazy, fat butt and exercise to lose weight.

Sorry. That's not how it works. Even the best obesity researchers will tell you that restricting calories and increasing exercise frequency doesn't work in the long term. They don't know why, but they know it doesn't work.

You can go around calling fat people lazy if that makes you feel better. And if exercising and eating less works for you, then good for you. That doesn't make it true. Their have been countless studies of different designs testing the energy balance hypothesis on obesity treatment. They almost always fail to keep the weight off long term.

Originally posted by fleabit
You don't need a gym to work out. You need an elevated heart rate for approximately 45 mins to an hour, so your body consumes fat for energy. Not rocket surgery here.

Ya know...If you're gunna argue a point, make sure you get facts straight. Most workouts within an hour will burn glucose, not fat. You burn more fat when you're sleeping than you do jogging on a treadmill for 45 minutes. It's not about how many calories you burn when you're working out, which isn't much, mind you. It's about what you're burning when you're going about your day and where it's coming from (exogenous vs endogenous).

reply to post by fulllotusqigong


Haha, everything about HFCS, and GMO-yellow corn for that matter, is bad for you. If Coke used natural sugar it would be healthier, but 39 grams of sugar in one can is absolutely insane if you really think about it. Plus, it would probably cost 5 times as much. I am glad I stick to natural spring water for 90+% of my hydration.

Absurd.

The "secret to obesity" is simply people eating too much and not exercising enough.

Don't blame Coca Cola for people's inability to eat and drink in moderation.

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd
You can go around calling fat people lazy if that makes you feel better.

Can I say it since I'm a fat guy? Cause it's true, laziness is the cause.

I went up and down as far as weight throughout childhood but since I stopped being active in my late teens and started eating more, I've piled on weight.

reply to post by curious7

The "secret to obesity" is simply people eating too much and not exercising enough.

Don't blame Coca Cola for people's inability to eat and drink in moderation.

While that is true, the real contributing factor to obesity is the over consumption of high fructose corn syrup because the body doesn't recognize or break it down correctly as a natural molecule such as sucrose, fructose, an glucose, I believe it just straight up stores it as fat or waste. And while you could work it off with exercise, the extra intake of HFCS in most foods makes it that much harder to get results for the person that already doesn't have the time or the will to run it off.

reply to post by fulllotusqigong


What an exaggeration to say that 55mg of sodium is as much as an entire pizza. That's only 2%.

As others have said, it's EVERYTHING that we eat. So much processed food is loaded with not just sugar or HFCS, but also sodium. It's incredibly difficult to eat processed (quick to eat) food without overdosing on sodium.

It's really an attack from two angles: sugar and salt.

Try adding up all the sodium in the foods you eat. I bet for 95% of you, it will be way over 100% RDA.

People have the time - they just don't want to do it. This thread and most of the posts are ridiculous. Coke is bad for you. So is Pepsi, Shasta, root beer, grape soda, and anything else that has loads of sugar in it. DON'T DRINK IT! See.. not hard. Don't let your kids drink it! Educate them.

It's not crack.. what a laugh. If you eat out of habit, and stop eating insanely, you don't get the shakes. You don't have a horrible reaction. It's not addictive in the same sense of drugs whose chemicals actually affect your brain, and it's ridiculous to act like they do. No one goes to detox for fast food. The only ill effect from cutting back on horrible amounts of horrible food, is your body's assumption you are starving. You get "hungry." You get some pangs. Deal with it. The current generation is so unable to deal with pain, suffering, and hunger, it's laughable. They freak out and angst over the stupidest things. In our past, people had to deal with real issues. Now, people invent issues just to put excitement into their lives.

Aside from exceptional cases, EVERYONE has the ability to eat better, and exercise, and lose weight. It's a choice. But people want miracle cures. They want a pill to drop weight. They want rewards with no work. And when they don't get it, they complain that the establishment is to blame.

You can safely lose about 3 pounds a week, with solid exercise (i.e. 5 or 6 days a week), and eating just REASONABLY better. Not even going nuts. Just being careful, and avoiding excess of bad food. But most people refuse to do it. It requires sacrifice. Effort. Diligence. Things that these days, is sadly lost and forgotten. No... it's much easier to blame a soda company for your obesity.

reply to post by daynight42

Despite collating more event data than previous systematic reviews of RCTs (665 deaths in some 6,250 participants) there is still insufficient power to exclude clinically important effects of reduced dietary salt on mortality or CVD morbidity.

www.nature.com...

Dietary sodium probably plays little role in the development of heart disease AND obesity in most people. There's no real clear evidence that reducing dietary sodium is protective (and there's even some evidence suggesting it could be detrimental).

The real problem is sodium retention. Hypertension ensues when your ability to secrete sodium is inhibited. And that happens when insulin levels are high.