Soft Drinks Found to Have High Levels of Cancer Chemical

[Hardrock69]

Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006 by the Times / UK

by Rajeev Syal


Traces of a carcinogenic chemical have been found in soft drinks at eight times the level permitted in drinking water, it was revealed last night.

Tests conducted on 230 drinks on sale in Britain and France have identified high levels of benzene, a compound known to cause cancer, according to the Food Standards Agency. There is a legal limit of one part per billion of benzene in British drinking water. The latest tests revealed levels of up to eight parts per billion in some soft drinks.

Benzene has been linked to leukaemia and other cancers of the blood. Traces found in Perrier water 15 years ago led to the withdrawal of more than 160 million bottles worldwide. The disclosure has prompted food safety campaigners to demand that the Government reveal which products contain benzene. At present, the drinks’ identities have not been revealed.

Richard Watts, of Sustain, a pressure group lobbying for better food standards, said that this should be done urgently because the drinks were being marketed to children. “The scientific evidence is unclear about whether there is any safe level of benzene. We see no reason why it should be different from the designated safe level in drinking water. If it is unsafe in drinking water, why should it be safe in soft drinks?” he said.

The Food Standards Agency, the government watchdog, said that the products did not pose an immediate health risk, but called for further investigation from the British drinks industry. “Let’s have further investigations and regular discussions with the drinks industry to check what is happening. If levels are high then the FSA will take action to protect consumers,” an agency spokesman said.

Food scientists believe that high levels of benzene may have been produced by the reaction of two commonly used ingredients — sodium benzoate, a preservative, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Sodium benzoate is widely used in the drinks sector. In Britain, it is used in Britvic brands including Britvic 55 apple and orange flavours, Pennine Spring flavoured waters and Shandy Bass.It is not known if any of these products were included in the latest tests. A spokesman for Britvic has previously expressed confidence in its products.

A spokesman for the British Soft Drinks Association said yesterday that the industry was working to reduce the levels of benzene in soft drinks. “There is an obligation on the industry to have as low a level of benzene as possible and we are looking at ways of reducing the levels — and maybe even removing the preservative — if we can replace it with something else,” he said.

When minuscule traces of benzene were discovered in Perrier water 15 years ago, it forced the French company to withdraw millions of bottles.

Tests have been carried out in Europe after US food watchdogs found benzene in juices and sodas. The Food and Drug Administration registered its concern about the possible long-term effects on health.

Professor Glenn Lawrence, of Long Island University, who first conducted tests for benzene in soft drinks 13 years ago, said that the combination of sodium benzoate and vitamin C was commonly used in drinks in the early 1990s.

He said that drinks firms were now putting vitamin C back into drinks to encourage consumers to buy the product. He said that this was being done to encourage parents to buy the drinks to improve their children’s health but it might just be doing the opposite.

# BENZENE FACTS Michael Faraday discovered benzene in 1825 when he isolated it from oil gas to form a chemical, six parts carbon, six parts hydrogen

# It is produced during incomplete combustion of carbon-rich substances: it is produced from petrochemicals, but occurs naturally in volcanoes, forest fires and in cigarette smoke

# In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was used in aftershave, for its pleasant smell, and to decaffinate coffee. It is now used as an anti-knock agent in petrol

# It is an aggressive carcinogen and may lead to leukaemia and other cancers of the blood

# In 1993, Professor Glenn Lawrence, of Long Island University, published research showing that the sodium benzoate and vitamin C found in soft drinks could react to form benzene. He suggested that drink companies were putting vitamin C into drinks to encourage customers to buy them


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0302-07.htm

[Nitro Express]

Holy Shit! I better stick to something safe like Jack Daniels.

[FORD]

No shit!

Luckily I cut way back on the soft drinks a while back. Still have the occasional Coke with a meal now and then, but since I've determined that both high fructose corn syrup and nutra sweet are deadly poisons to the human body, that's incentive enough, even without the Benzene.

Of course then, one of my local grocery stores recently expanded their Mexican food aisle and started exporting the Mexican formula of Coca-Cola, made from cane sugar and not the vile HFCS. So that's a temptation NOT to buy up every last bottle of that shit.

For any long term carbonation junkies that are having a hard time quitting, I suggest you try some fruit flavored sparkling water.

They aren't sweetned at all, but the carbonation is still there, so you get half the fix. Works as a beer substitute as well, and tastes better than N/A beer.

[Hardrock69]

Thanks for the tip. I was corrupted by Dr. Pepper years back.

[Cathedral]

All i drink is water and cranberry juice, i dropped 5 pounds in a month just by eliminating the pop from my diet and my kidney's stay good and flushed out too.

Take care of your bodies, people, you only get one for the trip through life. :)

[FORD]

Originally posted by Cathedral
All i drink is water and cranberry juice, i dropped 5 pounds in a month just by eliminating the pop from my diet and my kidney's stay good and flushed out too.

Take care of your bodies, people, you only get one for the trip through life. :)

Check the label on that cranberry juice. Most of them contain high fructose corn syrup.

Of course you can get unsweetened cranberry juice at Trader Joes or any organic food store, but that's some intense stuff. Very sour.

And you can also get soft-gel cranberry capsules where vitamins and herbal supplements are found.

[thome]

Originally posted by FORD
No shit!

Luckily I cut way back on the soft drinks a while back. Still have the occasional Coke with a meal now and then, but since I've determined that both high fructose corn syrup and nutra sweet are deadly poisons to the human body, that's incentive enough, even without the Benzene.

Of course then, one of my local grocery stores recently expanded their Mexican food aisle and started exporting the Mexican formula of Coca-Cola, made from cane sugar and not the vile HFCS. So that's a temptation NOT to buy up every last bottle of that shit.

For any long term carbonation junkies that are having a hard time quitting, I suggest you try some fruit flavored sparkling water.

They aren't sweetned at all, but the carbonation is still there, so you get half the fix. Works as a beer substitute as well, and tastes better than N/A beer.

wellwella, well the -MAN- made sense, even though this post rings of conspiracy.
I got one word for you " the further from the Farm ,The further from the animal you eat, the further you are from what the body needs to
stay healthy and these bags of already pulled apart lettuce
have had 4 extra sets of hands on them, see my point of the
further it gets away from the Farm..?"

i hope you know, i dig this, closer to home and prepare your own,
but we move so fast and there just isn't time .

Ok, but I'll put this head o lettuce down in the office you work at and let 4 diff people come by and break it apart for you, see my point.

and then theres the the sh!t that I eat nowhere close to the points
i made above here Oh well at least I know how its supposed to be.

FORD, ON ROTH!

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, real cane sugar is the key to good soda pop. That's why A&W that is canned or bottled sucks and A&W made with cane sugar and their syrup is so good. In Yellowstone Park theres a spring that bubbles out carbonated water. I use that to make homemade root beer and it's yummy!

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by FORD
Of course then, one of my local grocery stores recently expanded their Mexican food aisle and started exporting the Mexican formula of Coca-Cola, made from cane sugar and not the vile HFCS. So that's a temptation NOT to buy up every last bottle of that shit.


How's that compare to the original?

[Vinnie Velvet]

I never was a soft-drink drinker.

Never drank coke (sometimes though) and never will.

If it wasn't alcohol, I always stuck with juices and water.

[knuckleboner]

eh, anything not in moderation will eventually kill ya.

it's all a question of how you want to go...

[Warham]

Back in the old days, the guys who worked at the Coke plant would clean the truck engines with the Coke before transporting it to the nearest place of retail.

Work for six years in the beverage industry and you get to know these things. ;)

[ELVIS]

So, they would use it to clean engines and then put it back in the bottles ??

My sister was a manager at McDonalds in West Seattle years ago, and they used to wash the windows and counters with Diet Sprite...

[Warham]

No, that might have been confusing.

They used Coke to clean the engines, since it worked well on removing the gunk (oil, dirt) off the engine parts.

Now, the bottles, that's a different story. ;)

[FORD]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How's that compare to the original?

It just tastes better. Not sure how to describe it.... I guess you could say it doesn't have the "heaviness" that the HFCS formula has. Soft drinks in the US were sweetened with cane sugar up until about the late 70's when store brands started using the cheaper corn based product and by the early 80's, even market leaders Coke & Pepsi jumped aboard the last train to ArcherDanielsMidlandville. To this day, most other countries around the world still use cane sugar. I'm not sure about Canada, honestly.

The reason high fructose corn syrup is so bad, is because its a highly refined carbohydrate that does not exist in nature. Therefore, the human body doesn't know what to do with it. There's nothing there to break down, so the shit goes right to the fat cells for storage. Which is exactly why the "obesity epidemic" in this country started right around the same time that they started using this shit in the soft drinks.

And it's not just in your Coke & Pepsi either, folks. Even supposedly healthy foods like juice and yogurt are now sweetened with this crap. Read the labels, and since we DO have to keep this thread political, oppose the current corporate assault on food labeling. Seems being forced to be honest is hurting the bottom line of some companies who would rather sell you cheap chemicals than quality food and they want the government to do something about it.

And as far as the HFCS peddlers, this goes back to companies like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, huge agri-corporations that are as tied to the BCE as the oil and pharmaceutical industries are. In fact it was the Searle corporation, now owned by Monsanto. that introduced the other poison, "Nutra Sweet" to the world.

And the man who signed the patent for Searle?

http://homepage.mac.com/macduro/iblog/B1939547413/C873703812/E1869252119/Media/RumsfeldSadam.jpg

Yep, that's right. Just before selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld was putting chemical weapons in your Diet Pepsi ;)

[Warham]

The reasons people are fat are these:

genetics

they eat too much and exercise too little

What's in their food matters little.

[ELVIS]

I knew it!

Weapons of mass destruction!!!

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
The reasons people are fat are these:

genetics

they eat too much and exercise too little

What's in their food matters little.

Not true. It's a fact that there was an unprecedented increase in obesity the last 25 years.

If your body can't process HFCS, then storing it is the only other option, apart from burning it off instantly,or through the use of carb-blockers, preventing it from being absorbed in the intestines in the first place.

I can tell you from personal experience, as someone who used to drink Coke like it was water, that this is true. Obviously, if I had known the facts about high fructose corn syrup in the first place, I could have acted earlier.

Unfortunately, I find this out in my 30's when the fucking metabolism naturally slows down anyway, making it twice as hard to get rid of 20 years of HFCS "storage".

Diabetes has also increased by the same percentage around this same time period, and for the same reason, the body can't break the shit down, since it's so highly refined. And before the shit can go into the fat cells, it has to be in the blood. Unfortunately, this has overloaded the system in some people permanently, leading to more diabetincs than this country has ever seen before.

Thankfully, I'm not one of them. But I've known enough people who have blood sugar problems to one degree or another that it is something I'm very aware of. And dismissing it as "lack of exercize" and letting these greedy bastards off the hook is NOT an option.

I can't believe they are now talking about using sugar cane as a source for alternative fuel. Fucking put the natural sugar back in food where it belongs and put the goddamned mutant corn in the gas tank. Your car won't gain any weight from it.

[Warham]

Back in the old days, when a kid came home from school, he'd sit down for a few minutes, eat some corn meal, then he'd go out and help Pa Ingalls plow the fields.

Today, a kid comes home from school, eats a half-box of ho-hos, then plops himself down in front of his PS2.

It's just that simple. That's why kids are fatter today than they were 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago.

And I don't buy the fact that more people have diabetes today than 100 or even 50 years ago, because we can diagnose people easier today.

[Northern Girl]

Originally posted by Warham
Back in the old days, the guys who worked at the Coke plant would clean the truck engines with the Coke before transporting it to the nearest place of retail.

My dad used to use it to eat the rust off metal, engines, etc. :D

I wouldn't touch the stuff.

[Warham]

I'm drinking some right now.

DEEEELICIOUS!

It's the 'Classic' stuff too. I live dangerously!

[Northern Girl]

Originally posted by FORD
Check the label on that cranberry juice. Most of them contain high fructose corn syrup.

Of course you can get unsweetened cranberry juice at Trader Joes or any organic food store, but that's some intense stuff. Very sour.


Yeah, all those "cocktails" are loaded with sugar. The unsweetened is the best but it's very concentrated, so you have to dilute it with water; and you get more for your money that way too.

[Vinnie Velvet]

I always thought those who were fat (aside from genetics) were fat because they wanted to be.

:D

[Warham]

Unsweetened? Yuck!

[Warham]

Originally posted by Vinnie Velvet
I always thought those who were fat (not because of genetics) were fat because they wanted to be.

:D

'As Fat As I Wanna Be'

[Northern Girl]

Originally posted by Warham
I'm drinking some right now.

DEEEELICIOUS!

It's the 'Classic' stuff too. I live dangerously!

Yuk! We never had soft drinks growing up, so I never got hooked on anything. I was raised on nothing but milk and water. Never had Koolaid either.

Now, I hate milk though. LOL.

[Warham]

Yep, and I enjoy milk when I eat my Lucky Charms in the morning.

Lucky Charms cereal. Now THAT'S dangerous.

[Northern Girl]

Originally posted by Warham
Yep, and I enjoy milk when I eat my Lucky Charms in the morning.

Lucky Charms cereal. Now THAT'S dangerous.

Just because you're a string bean and don't worry about weight issues, that bad eating WILL catch up with you one day. :(

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham

Lucky Charms cereal. Now THAT'S dangerous.

And it looks like cat chow with marshmellows

[Warham]

Originally posted by Northern Girl
Just because you're a string bean and don't worry about weight issues, that bad eating WILL catch up with you one day. :(

Don't worry. I eat oatmeal and cream o' wheat too.

[MAX]

Originally posted by Warham
Back in the old days, the guys who worked at the Coke plant would clean the truck engines with the Coke before transporting it to the nearest place of retail.

Work for six years in the beverage industry and you get to know these things. ;)

As much as I enjoy a Coke every once in a blue moon, the stuff is creepy.

I use and old wife's tail, grandma's bisquick remedy that really works.

When you have a clogged drain, pour a can of Coke down it and it clears it right up and better than liquid plummer.

Now, imagine what that does to your insides?!?!?!?!? :eek:

Seriously, if you do dig drinkin' soda, check out health food stores cos they have natural stuff that curbs the sweet tooth when needed and w/o all of the friggin' chemicals. There are several brands out there nowadays.

[Warham]

Actually, stomach acid is pretty strong. I'm not sure Coke has much effect. ;)

[jacksmar]

Well, I’ve given up the “leaded” soft drinks for diet but they’re not any better. But It does help keep the weight off.
Getting off topic again but I watched my buddies kid play basketball this weekend. I’ve not seen so many out-of-shape, mental cased, unatheletic kids in my life. They were totally uncoordinated and spastic. They try to imitate and mimic what they watch on TV and it’s really embarrassing.
The difference is we used to get home and go outside to shoot b-ball until dark. Eat dinner and help with a few chores and work on homework WITH our folks. TV came last or not at all. The radio was a lot cooler than Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days and Kotter. I really felt bad for these kids. They couldn’t dribble and they couldn’t shoot. One kid fell down twice and had to be helped off the floor. One kid was so spastic he was crying at the end of the game while his mother helped him get his sweats on. ??????
We used to mow the lawn and yard work on Sat. Without fail. Winter meant getting limbs and out of the yard and the gutters clean, storm windows installed and cleaned. Of the walks and driveways had to be cleared of snow. Sometimes Dad got us up early to help him get the car out for him to go to work.
Through the week we took out the trash, dishes nightly, washed clothes and rugs, swept and dusted. The Saturday afternoon was pretty much free to get a football game in with the guys or H-O-R-S-E.

Ford makes a really relevant and salient point about replacing sugar. I don’t get that either because you have to break down the natural sugar in fruits, so simple sugar should be easy to break down. What exactly is potassium citrate? I’ve heard it helps against kidney stones. But isn’t it a replacement for citric acid found naturally in fruits?

Hardrock, isn’t there trace levels of benzene in all drinking water?

[MAX]

Originally posted by Warham
Actually, stomach acid is pretty strong. I'm not sure Coke has much effect. ;)

True dat. :)

Otherwise, half the globe would be fucked from it. lol

I'm just not to hip on putting it in my body on a regular basis.

I'm just sayin' Coke 'tis a wee bit spooky and if ingested in high doses. lol

[thome]

Originally posted by FORD
It just tastes better. Not sure how to describe it.... I guess you could say it doesn't have the "heaviness" that the HFCS formula has. Soft drinks in the US were sweetened with cane sugar up until about

Yep, that's right. Just before selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld was putting chemical weapons in your Diet Pepsi ;)

I know why because the BCE wants all YOU "New Generation" PEPSI
drinkers to go Crazy .

No Chemicals like this in classic COKE classic Coke is for us
war monger types the global domination thing is suppressed in
pepsi drinkers and they want to weave macrame' and stop
washing their ginney's, cause it washes itself every 22 days.

Drink COKE or your a Commie .!

Bush in 08!


:eek:

[ELVIS]

Nothing like an old hippie who thinks he's funny...:rolleyes:

[thome]

Originally posted by FORD
It just tastes better. Not sure how to describe it.... I guess you could say it doesn't have the "heaviness" that the HFCS formula has. Soft drinks in the US were sweetened with cane sugar up until about

Yep, that's right. Just before selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld was putting chemical weapons in your Diet Pepsi ;)

absolutely the finest bit o' first and last sentence i have ever seen.


FORD and thome in 08!

but seriously folks eat your Beans and Meats and Fruits and Soft
vegetables Hard grains are for cows--- you don't have three stomachs
to break grains down ----Grind--- them to powder or they will hang in the turns of your colon and cause seriose problems perhaps your
the loss of your colon....

THE GRAIN COALITION doesn't want you to know this

10,000 Grain Bread it does nothing ...(conspiracy # 5 on the
thome o' meter.) but it mite kill you.

Live Rite, Eat Well ,Folow Smart assed Food Trends, Jog Every Morning,
Work Out,Don't Smoke, Don't Drink and Die Anyway.!

[ELVIS]

Jogging is not the greatest idea...

[Unchainme]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5e/Dr_pepper_can.jpg/180px-Dr_pepper_can.jpg

This is what I always drink. Don't know how Unhealthy it is. Probably will kill me someday, somehow. Probably made by the BCE too.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Unchainme
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5e/Dr_pepper_can.jpg/180px-Dr_pepper_can.jpg

This is what I always drink. Don't know how Unhealthy it is. Probably will kill me someday, somehow. Probably made by the BCE too.

Well, it is bottled by the BCE. (http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/portfolio/portfoliol5-1889.html)

[Unchainme]

Originally posted by FORD
Well, it is bottled by the BCE. (http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/portfolio/portfoliol5-1889.html)

Goddamnit! I knew there was a reason why I liked it so much. They must put some form of Nicotine in it or something. Urgh!

[thome]

Originally posted by Unchainme
Goddamnit! I knew there was a reason why I liked it so much. They must put some form of Nicotine in it or something. Urgh!

It's the prune juice cleans out the system..lol

With pizza nothing better in my book than Dr.Pepper .

[MAX]

After participating in this thread I said "fuck it" and had one with lunch. :)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ccmphtml/ccimages/w5225.jpg

[Unchainme]

Originally posted by MAX
After participating in this thread I said "fuck it" and had one with lunch. :)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ccmphtml/ccimages/w5225.jpg

Eddie Murphy: Richard said, "The next time the motherfucker call, tell him I said, "Suck *my* dick." I don't give a fuck. Whatever the fuck make the people laugh, say that shit. Do the people laugh when you say what you say?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do you get paid?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, tell Bill I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Jello pudding-eating motherfucker."

Classic, I loved Eddie Murphy's stuff from back in the 80's. Now he's all family friendly.

[Warham]

Originally posted by FORD
Well, it is bottled by the BCE. (http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/portfolio/portfoliol5-1889.html)

I used to work for American Bottling Company, which is owned by Cadbury Schweppes.

I guess in your conservatively-challenged mind, that means I was a BCE employee. :rolleyes:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Unchainme
Eddie Murphy: Richard said, "The next time the motherfucker call, tell him I said, "Suck *my* dick." I don't give a fuck. Whatever the fuck make the people laugh, say that shit. Do the people laugh when you say what you say?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do you get paid?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, tell Bill I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Jello pudding-eating motherfucker."

Classic, I loved Eddie Murphy's stuff from back in the 80's. Now he's all family friendly.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking.



Cherry Coke was my very first vice. Damn I loved that shit.

[ELVIS]

What a vice...:rolleyes:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ELVIS
What a vice...:rolleyes:

Are you denying the addictive nature of sugar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction



Sugar addiction is a popular term for the situation where individuals crave sweet foods, and find them impossible to give up. There is clearly an aspect of psychological addiction, but recent research has also identified elements of physical dependence:

"Recent behavioral tests in rats further back the idea of an overlap between sweets and drugs. Drug addiction often includes three steps. A person will increase his intake of the drug, experience withdrawal symptoms when access to the drug is cut off and then face an urge to relapse back into drug use. Rats on sugar have similar experiences. Researchers withheld food for 12 hours and then gave rats food plus sugar water. This created a cycle of binging where the animals increased their daily sugar intake until it doubled. When researchers either stopped the diet or administered an opioid blocker the rats showed signs common to drug withdrawal, such as teeth-chattering and the shakes. Early findings also indicate signs of relapse. Rats weaned off sugar repeatedly pressed a lever that previously dispensed the sweet solution."

Withdrawal symptoms have been reported, including headaches, fatigue, tremors, anxiety and depression. These effects are reported to be similar to, but slightly less intense than those associated with caffeine withdrawal. No research has been conducted as to whether table sugar (sucrose) alone is responsible for these effects, or whether any other sugars common in the diet (such as glucose or fructose) exhibit similar effects.

[Little Texan]

Originally posted by Unchainme
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5e/Dr_pepper_can.jpg/180px-Dr_pepper_can.jpg

This is what I always drink. Don't know how Unhealthy it is. Probably will kill me someday, somehow. Probably made by the BCE too.

You HAVE to try some Dublin Dr. Pepper! (http://www.dublindrpepper.com/default.aspx) Like Mexican Coke, it's made with cane sugar and it's so much better than regular Dr. Pepper!

I wish American soft drink companies would go back to putting real sugar in their products instead of corn sweetener, but the cheap bastards probably never will!

[Cathedral]

Pepsi ate the paint off my F-150 bumper many years ago.

If it can be offered as a paint stripper chances are it isn't all that great for the innerd's.

As a vice though, mine were pretty much pot, some cocain, and ludes, the real shit not the valume based bullshit they came up with after methaqualone was outlawed.

Xanax is a good friend too. :)

[Dan]

I consider Beer my soft drink.:)

[Warham]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Pepsi ate the paint off my F-150 bumper many years ago.

If it can be offered as a paint stripper chances are it isn't all that great for the innerd's.

As a vice though, mine were pretty much pot, some cocain, and ludes, the real shit not the valume based bullshit they came up with after methaqualone was outlawed.

Xanax is a good friend too. :)

Xanax, eh? Memories!