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Coca-Cola is changing its top secret recipe to avoid having to put cancerwarning labels on their beverages. |
Coca-Cola has announced it will change the colouring in its signature soft drink, after health authorities in California threatened to force the company to affix a “carcinogen” label to the beverage.
“Coke and Pepsi, with the acquiescence of the FDA, are needlessly exposing millions of Americans to a chemical that causes cancer,” the Center for Science in the Public Interest wrote in a press release this week. The U.S. organization has led the charge against inclusion of the chemical in food.
“The colouring is completely cosmetic, adding nothing to the flavour of the product. If companies can make brown food colouring that is carcinogen-free, the industry should use that.”
The centre also estimated that the chemical in “Coke and Pepsi products tested is causing about 15,000 cancers in the U.S. population.”
At very least, the centre said, regulators should change the name of the additive to “ammonia-sulfite process caramel colouring” or “chemically modified caramel colouring”
Though the company will change the formulation of its colouring, it isn't doing so gladly. “The company did make the decision to ask its caramel suppliers to make the necessary manufacturing process modifications to meet the requirement of the State of California,” Diana Garza Ciarlante, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, told National Public Radio. But the colouring used has always been safe, she added. For now, the ingredient change is taking place only in California.
“All of our products are safe and comply with regulations in every country where we operate," Coca-Cola Canada said in a statement. "Regulators throughout the world, including Health Canada, have approved the use of the caramel found in our products. The colour of Coca-Cola is not changing."
Anti-regulation groups have come out swinging in the chemical’s defence. One of them went so far as to call the U.S. Center for Science in the Public Interest's lobbying against the chemical as a part of “the old cancer scam.”
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