Need a hit of extra pesticides today? Just drink some orange-flavored soft
drinks (called "fizzy drinks" in the UK) made by Coca-Cola. New research
conducted in the UK reveals that Coca-Cola's "Fanta" orange drinks contained
300 times more pesticides than the legal limit allowed in bottled water.
The chemicals that were detected in the Coca-Cola orange drinks included
carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil, prochloraz, malathion and iprodione --
all common pesticides used on fruit crops. That's good news in one sense, of
course, because it means Coca-Cola products contain some level of actual
fruit! Never mind the fact that the fruit is contaminated with pesticide
chemicals...
In its defense, Coca-Cola responded to the DailyMail article, saying, "All
of the drinks tested meet the safety regulations relating to food products
made from agricultural ingredients, which include drinks with fruit juice as
an ingredient."
Got that? They meet safety regulations, so don't worry about the pesticides.
In fact, all those chemicals are perfectly safe, didn't you know? As
Coca-Cola said, "The generally miniscule levels that were detected were well
within the acceptable daily intake levels and these findings should reassure
consumers there is no safety issue here."
Wow. I'm not sure what's more scary: The fact that these chemicals were
detected as such levels in the Coca-Cola drinks, or the fact that Coca-Cola
believes these levels are acceptable for daily consumption!
Of course, we are talking about parts per billion here: DailyMail reports
the average level of pesticide contamination in the Coca-Cola drinks was
17.4. But that turns out to be over 34 times the allowable level of
pesticides in bottled water (EU standards).
It's also worth mentioning that simply eating non-organic fruit from the
grocery store most likely exposes you to hundreds of times the total
pesticide contamination found in the Coca-Cola drinks (especially if you eat
conventionally-grown strawberries).
But hey, if you don't want to actually drink Coke's products, they can be
used in another way: As a pesticide on crops! This YouTube video shows how
farmers in India are using soft drinks on their crops as pesticides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Is4iuZt0eo
