Jackson’s focus was on the built environment, which often promotes automobile travel, discourages exercise, and provides inadequate access to healthy foods, but The Weight of the Nation, a documentary that aired on HBO, specifically attacked soft drinks. Among other commentators, it featured Robert Lustig, a pediatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, who urged adoption of a punitive sugar tax in “The Toxic Truth About Sugar,” an article published that same year in the prestigious journal Nature. Lustig said the same thing on the TV show 60 Minutes.
“The single best thing to do for weight loss,” The Weight of the Nation stated, was to “stop drinking sugar-sweetened beverages.” In the HBO film, Kelly Brownell, the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy at Yale University, asserted, “There is nothing in a soft drink that is good for you. . . . The body doesn’t seem to recognize calories very well when they get delivered in liquid. In the war on obesity, they’re not the only problem, but they’re a darn good place to start.”
Brownell might have been more convincing if he weren’t himself obese, and he presumably did not drink Coca-Cola. Muhtar Kent looked a lot more fit. “It is, I believe, incorrect and unjust to put the blame on any single ingredient, any single product, any single category of food,” Kent complained. “Obesity is a serious and complex global health concern,” he acknowledged. “It’s costly in monetary and human terms. And it has the power to undermine the well-being of individuals, families and communities.” But he defended the Company, pointing out that a quarter of its 3,500 beverages were low or no calorie, and that people could choose them. “We offer 23 variations of Coke,” he said, “a Coke for every person, every lifestyle and every occasion. Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, caffeine-free versions and flavors like Cherry Coke.” Early in 2013, the Company made similar points in “Coming Together,” a two-minute video asserting that its beverages and programs were part of the solution to obesity, not the problem.
Nonetheless, Kent was not invited to the June 2012 National Soda Summit, an anti–soft drink conference sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, where former Coke marketer Todd Putnam was the keynote speaker. “It took me 10 years to figure out that I have a large karmic debt to pay for the number of Cokes I sold across this country,” he confessed. When he worked for Coke, he recalled that it was “exciting, intoxicating, even. I felt like the king of the world.” His sole thought? “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”
A few months later, renegade ad man Alex Bogusky, who had once created spots for Coke Zero, made a devastating four-minute animation for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Called “The Real Bears,” it shows a family of polar bears drinking Coca-Cola to a lilting Beatles-like tune: “Sugar, sugar, I wanna make you happy. . . . Sugar, sugar, so good, so good.” Signage on a polar vending machine requests, “Be happy please.” The bears get fat, lose their teeth, develop diabetes, can’t enjoy sex because of erectile dysfunction, and Dad has his leg amputated with a chain saw because of advanced diabetes. Near the end, they watch a TV commercial that demands “Be happy, dammit!” Then, led by Dad in his wheelchair, they pour their Cokes into the sea.
Aside from sugar, the other major villain in Coke, according to Michael Jacobson, is caffeine, even though a twelve-ounce can contains only a third the stimulant in a strong cup of coffee. Like Harvey Wiley, Jacobson objected to children ingesting any caffeine. Scientists tell us that caffeine promotes stomach-acid secretion, temporarily raises blood pressure, and dilates some blood vessels while constricting others. Caffeine is mildly addictive, and when used excessively it can lead to “caffeinism” and its attendant shaky nerves and insomnia. In 1980 and 1981, caffeine was blamed for everything from pancreatic cancer to miscarriages and birth defects, but none of these findings stood the test of time. Indeed, more recent studies indicate that long-term caffeine consumption can reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease, liver ailments, colon cancer, heart troubles, and suicides. And it seems to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, perhaps providing a counterbalance to the excess sugar that helps cause the disease.
In general, unless a woman drank ten or more cans of Coke a day, Jacobson didn’t think there was any danger from the drug, though pregnant women should cut down or eliminate caffeine intake, since the drug is transmitted to the fetus, as it is to the infant through the breast milk of a nursing mother. Surprisingly, caffeine has not been proven to harm children. Jacobson was concerned, however, about withdrawal symptoms. In some studies, children deprived of caffeine displayed impaired performance and attention.
Besides caffeine and sugar, critics have traditionally complained about the phosphoric acid that gives Coca-Cola much of its fabled bite. Science teachers have dropped extracted teeth into Coke to show how it softens and blackens them, and the soft drink does indeed clean windshields, chrome, and battery terminals quite nicely. Nonetheless, Coke’s acidity—equivalent to that of orange juice—does not harm the digestive tract, already an acidic environment. As a matter of fact, some doctors still prescribe flat Coke to soothe upset stomachs. Some studies appear to link soft drinks containing phosphoric acid (but not citric acid) with kidney stones, however.
If the acid does not remain long in the mouth, saliva tends to neutralize it. But for those who down multiple daily Cokes, the front teeth bear the brunt of the acid, which can etch the enamel, and it’s even worse for those who savor the drink by swishing it around and pulling it through their teeth. Then bacteria feed on the sugar, creating yet more acid and plaque that causes cavities. In other words, soft drinks can provide a one-two dental punch. They can erode teeth and promote the formation of cavities. Studies on rats have shown that the acidic, sweetened drinks are substantially worse for their teeth than plain sugar water. Consequently, drinking Coke through a straw, taking the beverage deep into the mouth, limits contact with the teeth and is therefore best for dental hygiene.
Other health concerns have also plagued Coca-Cola. Although high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar offer similar mixtures of fructose and glucose, many people distrust HFCS because it is chemically altered from corn, and the jury is out as to whether corn syrup behaves metabolically exactly the same way as cane sugar does. Both can cause obesity. Until recently, some manufacturers used a mercury-based product to separate corn starch from the kernel. A 2008 study conducted by the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy found a tiny amount of mercury in Coca-Cola Classic, but the HFCS industry claims to have fixed the problem as of 2012. Neither IATP nor the FDA had retested for mercury in Coke, however.
Bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical widely used to guard against contaminants and extend shelf life, also came under fire as a liner in Coke cans, with several shareholder resolutions (all defeated) concerning its safety. In 2010, the FDA expressed “some concern about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children” and suggested “taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure to BPA in the food supply.” On its website the Company insisted there was no problem: “The clear scientific consensus is that there is no risk to the public from the minuscule amounts of BPA found in Coca-Cola or other beverage cans.”
Coke’s caramel coloring posed yet another health concern after mice fed 4-Methylimidazole (4-MEI) developed lung cancer in studies conducted by scientists at the National Toxicology Program of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The chemical process used to produce the caramel in Coca-Cola also yields 4-MEI as a by-product. Michael Jacobson’s Center for Science in the Public Interest called for a ban on the coloring, and in 2012 California would have forced Coca-Cola to put a cancer warning on its bottles if the Company had not quickly reduced the MEI level in its California Coke by using naturally produced caramel. “We intend to expand the use of modified caramel globally,” said a Company spokesman.
Ever since Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, people have attacked it because of its purportedly bad health effects. Company offi
cials have usually just dismissed such critics. Don’t you think maybe, they inquire, after 125-plus years of massive Coca-Cola consumption, we’d notice toothless, neurotic, cancerous, obese heavy users falling over dead on every street corner? Roberto Goizueta used to joke about the “immutable law of the cynical elite,” which holds that “nothing so available, so inexpensive, so much enjoyed by so many . . . can be good for you.” As for those who lump Coke with junk food and blame it for the poor nutrition and the obesity epidemic, as well as people abandoning their traditional diet, the Coca-Cola executives reply that they advocate drinking the beverage only as part of a balanced diet. It isn’t their fault if people don’t eat well and don’t exercise. And besides, a quarter of Coke’s beverages contain low or no calories, and the Company is working on more nutrient-rich drinks. “The consumer decides,” said Muhtar Kent. “We provide them with the right choices and the right marketing for these choices.”*
If anecdotal cases proved anything (which they don’t), Coca-Cola might be the life extender Pemberton claimed. Look at Robert Woodruff, who died at ninety-five and presumably drank his fair share of Coke. On her ninety-seventh birthday in 1959, an Alabama woman attributed her longevity to drinking a Coke at precisely 10 a.m. every day since 1886. But she was nothing compared with legendary figure Luke Kingsley, a Memphis car salesman who told a reporter in 1954 that he had routinely drunk over twenty-five Cokes a day for the previous fifty years. “I have been to the funerals of five or six doctors who predicted it would kill me,” the sixty-five-year-old chortled. At the end of the interview, the parched journalist asked for a drink of water. “Water!” barked Kingsley. “That’s something you wash your face in. Have a Coke!”
GLOBAL COCA-COLA CULTURE
Even if Coke can’t necessarily be held accountable for all the ills of modern life, most intellectuals express revulsion at its ongoing worldwide conquest. To many commentators, Coca-Cola typifies the worst of Western culture. “Coke is the American’s fuel, just as television is his soul,” a German sneered in the late 1970s. Twenty years earlier, Adlai Stevenson asked, “With the supermarket as our temple, and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fill the world with an irresistible vision of America’s purpose and inspiring way of life?” The current answer appears to be a resounding “YES!” Coca-Cola has indeed taught the world to sing to its harmonics, or it is doing so as quickly as possible.
There are hundreds of films in which Coca-Cola makes a cameo appearance (paid or unpaid), from King Kong (1933) to Casino Royale (2006) and beyond, making it the most widely placed product in the history of movies. Some filmmakers have used Coke as a convenient symbol of Western civilization—witness Dr. Strangelove and On the Beach, both films in which a Coke bottle serves as a wry commentary on our shallow values in the midst of Armageddon. At the beginning of The Gods Must Be Crazy, the totemic bottle falls out of the sky onto the sands of the Kalahari Desert, where it completely transforms the lives of the innocent Bushmen as surely as Eve’s apple in Eden. In The Coca-Cola Kid, a similar invasion takes place in Australia. In all of these films, the soft drink is presented as a sinister force, a harbinger of unhealthy values.*
Whether Coke deserves such criticism or not, no one doubts that it is invasive. Many years ago, a Coca-Cola executive told his followers, “You have entered the lives of more people . . . than any other product or ideology, including the Christian religion,” and that truth has only grown more profound with the passage of time. Despite the rise of Google, Apple, and other global brands, Coca-Cola may remain the world’s most widely distributed single consumer product. Today, at North Avenue, Muhtar Kent and other senior Coke managers can punch their computers and call up the history of per capita consumption growth for any country as easily as Star Trek’s commander could summon details of obscure planets.
It is certainly unnerving when Coke marketers talk about the battle for the “share of stomach” or the drink’s executives discuss its “mind shelf space,” which keeps swelling, crowding out other perhaps more worthy uses of our brain cells. And Coke wants to be in your heart as well, wooing “brand love.” Former Communists and Myanmar peasants aren’t alone in coveting Coke and other symbols of Western culture. Satellite, cable, cell phones, the Internet, and Facebook are bringing the Real Thing into homes and lives all over the world. It is Always Coca-Cola in all ways, with a universal appeal to Open Happiness. As Roberto Goizueta once put it, “People around the world are today connected to each other by brand-name consumer products as much as by anything else.” That’s why Coca-Cola executives must be world citizens. “We increasingly at Coca-Cola look for people who are comfortable living in Mumbai or in Germany or in Nairobi,” Muhtar Kent observed.
“From infancy to adulthood,” historian Barbara Tuchman wrote in 1980, “advertising is the air Americans breathe, the information we absorb, almost without knowing it. It floods our minds with pictures of perfection and goals of happiness easy to attain.” Now, decades later, advertising permeates the air that everyone breathes, as well as everything seen on the web. The message that they can Open Happiness by drinking Coke has led Mexicans, for instance, to spend their money—often a substantial part of their daily wages—on Company products, with the world’s leading annual per capita consumption of 728 beverages in 2011. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mexico also had the world’s highest obesity rate.
Whether harmful or not, the messages bounced from satellites or carried through cable certainly connect. In 1990, one researcher attempting to define the “global teenager” by surveying a representative sampling of young people from Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, Britain, Guatemala, India, Israel, Kenya, the Soviet Union, and Thailand discovered that, while only 40 percent could correctly identify the United Nations logo, 82 percent knew Coke’s symbol. Today, that figure is probably near 100 percent as Coca-Cola marketers, through campaigns such as “Move to the Beat” for the 2012 London Olympics, exploit what they called “a fusion of two global teen passions—sport and music.”
Such trends have alarmed many observers, who fear that the variety and spice of human culture will be destroyed by the Coca-Colonization of the world. In his 1996 book, Jihad vs. McWorld, political science professor Benjamin Barber argued that Coke insidiously infiltrates and distorts cultures. During the Vietnam War, U.S. propaganda spoke of winning the hearts and souls of men. “The Cola Wars are only about the hearts and souls of men,” Barber said. “By persuading people they must have the products you sell, you win a war much more permanently . . . than if you simply occupy a town.”
Although Coke unquestionably exerts an influence on cultures and does change drinking habits, local habits (and ethnic groups) are far stronger than many critics recognize. They are horrified, for instance, that in regions such as Chiapas in Mexico, Coke and Pepsi are used in Mayan religious services in lieu of poch, the traditional alcoholic drink. The scene certainly is startling, as Indians in traditional Mayan dress pour Coca-Cola as a ritual offering. But the fact remains, they still are in traditional dress, and there still are rituals.
In a chapter entitled, “The Future of Humanity,” an anthropology textbook portrayed a black-robed, gray-bearded patriarch reading the paper below a Hebraic Coca-Cola sign. “The worldwide spread of such products as Coca-Cola and Wrangler jeans,” the caption read, “is taken by some as a sign that a single, homogeneous world culture is developing.” Others refuse to panic, however. Already an accepted part of the landscape and lifestyle in an enormous array of cultures, Coca-Cola doesn’t appear to be destroying them. In the picture in the anthropology book, the Jewish patriarch is still wearing his black robes and reading his paper, not boogying in his blue jeans.
In other words, we might regard the current cross-pollination of cultures as a kind of evolution rather than a homogenization. The world may be flat, as author Thomas Friedman argued, but bumps and variations remain, and in some ways, as even Friedman has admitted, the Internet has led to greater individualis
m and protest. “The differences among races, nations, cultures and their various histories are at least as profound and as durable as the similarities,” observed the late Australian essayist Robert Hughes, who predicted that the future belongs to “people who can think and act with informed grace across ethnic, cultural, linguistic lines”—a perfect description of today’s top Coca-Cola managers.
The Coca-Cola Company’s evolution exemplifies the subtleties of globalization. The Coca-Cola brand remains the “oxygen” of the Company, as Muhtar Kent has said, but soda sales are declining. It isn’t yet clear whether we are witnessing a long-term shift away from carbonated soft drinks or a modest decline that will bottom out.* It’s too early to tell, but Coke now sells over 3,500 different drinks, carbonated or not, around the world. Many are local beverages that Coke bought out, while others were invented to appeal to a particular taste. In its determination to own world hydration, the Company has been forced to diversify, adapt, and experiment, even though it would undoubtedly prefer everyone to buy Coke. But combined sales of Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero are creeping up on regular Coca-Cola, and some day they might pass the much-maligned sugar-sweetened drink. At least they are all called by the sacred name.
What Coca-Cola does—with remarkable success—is identify the commonalities of human experience without necessarily altering cultures fundamentally. “You’ll find plenty of social scientists who’ll point up the differences,” Don Keough once told me, “but wherever I go, boys and girls meet, walk in parks, fall in love, get married, have children, have family gatherings. They celebrate the joys of life just the way you and I do.” Consequently, Coca-Cola is able to make its global advertising appeal to virtually all human beings.
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 80