Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be. You can’t beat the real thing. It really refreshes and brings real satisfaction in every glass. It was not until America’s choice had been thirst best friend for decades and consumed by millions every day, when a serious drawback arose: the real thing makes you really fat.


by KOERT VAN MENSVOORT


In 1982 the Coca Cola Company addressed the negative aspect of its drink with the introduction of a sugar-free version of the Ice-cold sunshine. Diet Coke was the first new coke brand since 1886 and signified a revolution – not only for wannabe thin women – but for the Coca Cola brand as a whole. Numerous coke by-products followed in the slipstream of the Diet Coke success: Cherry Coke, Caffeine-Free Coke, Classic Coke, Vanilla Coke, Coca-Cola Orange, Coke Zero, Coke Black Cherry Vanilla and many more. Today these spinoffs have saturated the market up to a level that we can safely say nobody drinks the real thing anymore.

cokebottles

End of story? Not really, evolution always continues. The latest addition to Coca Cola product range could mean a new revolution in fast-food: Diet Coke Plus not only reduces calories or ads a flavor, it actually improves your health. Diet Coke Plus is fortified with vitamins and minerals. One can already provides 25% of the daily value for niacin and vitamins B6 and B12, and 15% for zinc and magnesium, so if you drink four cans a day, you’ve got your it all covered; Diet Coke Plus: better than the real thing!

diet coke plus product image

The general tendency here is that fast-food is remarketing itself into health-food. My guess is soon we will be eating burgers, fries, shakes, ice-cream and chips that are engineered to make us healthy. Although this may sounds like hedonistic utopia, it also has an uncanny side to it. After all, we humans have evolved with a powerful ability to ‘taste’ whether food is good or bad. When we were roaming the savanna 40.000 years ago, you could easily taste that those bitter berries were probably poisonous. But as food science progresses the ability to taste whether food is healthy becomes obsolete, or at least gets numbed. Nowadays we need long lists of nutrition facts on food packages in order to make sense of what we eat and then some of the important information isn’t even on the package, because our scientists simply don’t have the right knowledge (yet).


The sweetening ingredient in Diet Coke, a substance called aspartame, has already been blamed by some scientists for possibly causing serious illnesses (such as cancer, brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma) when consumed in large quantities. Though many studies are available that state aspartame is perfectly safe, the controversy has reached enough lever for Coca Cola to release ‘Diet Coke Sweetened with Splenda’, a coke that instead of aspartame contains sucralose and acesulfame potassium, whatever that may be.

bigmac light. 0% fat

Thus, while engineering might make food healthier, it also makes food more abstract. And abstraction is not something people generally appreciate, whether it is in language, music, painting, or food. No surprise that people, who can afford it, move away from engineered food, packed with abstract chemicals and meta-substances, towards the so-called organic food, which can be more or less classified as ‘food produced in the way your grandparents produced their food’.


Historically, the organic farms have been relatively small family-run farms — which is why the retro-food was once only available in small stores or farmers' markets. However, since the early 1990s organic food has had growth rates of around 20% a year, far ahead of the rest of the food industry. With the market share of organic food outpacing much of the food industry, many big corporations have moved into the market of retro-food production.


Now let’s get back to Diet Coke Plus. I am not sure whether the people of the Coca Cola Company realize it themselves, but with Diet Coke Plus they are in fact returning to their roots. Late 19th century when Coca-Cola was invented by John Pemberton, he intended it as a patent medicine — similar to the cough syrups we still know today. Few people live to remember early marketing slogans like “For headache and exhaustion, drink Coca-Cola” (1900) and “Coca-Cola is a delightful, palatable, healthful beverage“ (1904) which clearly indicate Coca Cola was originally marketed as a health drink. It was only after the salesmen realized that people didn’t want to drink a ‘medicine’ on a daily basis, they decided to let go of this original image in order to increase consumption and marketing share.


So for over a hundred years, while we thought we were always drinking the real thing, we were in fact consuming a spin-of version of the original health drink; a Fake! Only with this historical information one realizes the new Diet Coke Plus health drink might just be the most original coke produced in our lifetime. As I see it, Coca Cola Company is moving in an interesting direction with Diet Coke Plus, but they still have to push further in order to truly return to their origins. In their upcoming Coke product they should drop all the chemically engineered additives and produce a truly authentic old fashioned soft drink. After Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Classic Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke Plus and Coke Splenda, I want my Organic Coke! Because you can’t beat the original thing.

Organic Coke, Image by Koert van Mensvoort for NextNature.net

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25 comments

  • Is their GMO in the diet coke plus? Where is your closest store in D.M., Ia. that sells Organic coke (life) and diet coke plus?

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  • Cool

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  • how can i get organic coke in the states?

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  • I think I might become an organic coke drinker soon. As you say, you really can't beat the real original thing!

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  • Don't be so quick to celebrate as Coke will surely take dollars spent by good intentioned consumers and pump the funds into anti gmo labeling as they've already done! I won't be drinking Coke - organic fair trade or not, and I suspect most of my friends won't either...

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  • KT

    nice TYPO--COUGH..not COUCH!! Other than that--awesome!

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  • jay

    whoever thinks that diet coke is good and organic is http://stupid.it contains aspartame an artificial sweetener that kills you. search for the documentary called "sweet misery" and see for yourself.

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  • K'

    awesome post

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  • I have just one question. Is it made with sugar? I stopped diet soda's because of the chemicals, I would rather practice moderation, them die thin (which has never been proven) What we DO know, is High Fructose Corn Syrup HFCS is NOT like sugar at all, it doesn't metabolize like a sugar either, sugar metabolizes to a carbohydrate, while HFCS metabolizes to nasty belly fat. Logically, there really isn't a reason for HFCS in the first place, we have sugar, it works just fine. You think its possible Corporate manufacturer use HFCS because it's cheaper, even though it metabolized differently in the body, it doesn't hurt anyone directly, so far, all we know is it only one of factors in the cause of obesity. NAW!! They wouldn't do that for money? Right? You might want to research HFCS, and take a look. I was shocked. I LOVE COKE! There is absolutely nothing that has its taste. Yet, ever sense its defection from sugar, I no longer enjoy drinking it. I'm not alone, HFCS has this yucky, sticky aftertaste. Recently, Pepsi ran a retro themed, limited time promotion, called "Throwback," which they used sugar, instead of HFCS. I don't care for the taste of Pepsi, Yet, I couldn't resist, I purchased as many cases I could afford, which, seemed to be the case with others, due to the difficulty finding the product. If this new release of Coke Organic, is sugar based, I WILL BE IN HEAVEN! Because nothing taste like an Ice cold refreshing Coca Cola.

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  • yeah, when they stop driving people even further into poverty and suicide, and stop stealing families' and farmers' water right out of the fucking earth in third world countries i might give a single turd about what coca cola does for our fat ass, materialistic, consumerist, greedy, convenience based society.

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  • you should proof read your stuff, if you don't want to read it what makes you think anyone else will. Just a thought. I use to drink Diet Coke everyday all day till my step father got sick and they told him it was aspertame, that didn't convince me till i read an article from a research hospital. I have since kicked the coke habit, now i only drink it when Dr. Pepper isn't available.

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  • Your site has some excellent and interesting posts. I had to laugh when I saw organic coke though! I can't imagine anyone who is really into organic foods even considering drinking coke, organic or not... I'll have to ask around and see, it's amazing how many people who are otherwise healthy who still drink coke and don't really think about what is in it...

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  • New here, defininately coming back. Just wanted to comment on the whole 'organic cleaner' bit above. There is a company that has been successfully marketing and selling natural, organic products - including laundry soap, dish/general-purpose soap, other cleaners, food, vitamins, healthy junk-style food, and a lot more, for over 60 years. This company is well-known, but unfortunately so stigmatized that many today will not even give their products a chance - they only get turned onto them by trusted friends. The company is Amway, and the products are amazing. One awesome cleaner called L.O.C. (Liquid Organic Cleaner) has remained more or less unchanged since the '50s, other than the addition of a foaming agent after stories of people dumping entire bottles into their sink or bucket because they couldn't get suds. These organic and natural roots extend to a significant portion of their large line of cleaning products. Additionally, they have even sold highly efficient, healthy, well-filtered cyclonic vacuum systems since 1980. Only in 2009 did a vacuum come out that was on par or better. To stay on topic, I recall them once even selling a line of organic soda syrups to go with a soda-making machine. They weren't bad. I always find it amusing when people find these organic, healthy, or other "new" inventions amazing.

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  • Organic or not, any carbonated soft drink will rot your teeth. Prolonged (sipping a glass over an our tv show) or repeated (couple glasses a week) has been show to eat away at tooth enamel due to the acid- you can't grow back new tooth enamel. Healthier versions or not, soft drinks are not safe.

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  • Hello, you might not like where it comes from but Red Bulls new Coke is actually organic. It does taste like the cola candy frogs tough.

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  • This is all great but I need stuff like a moving aderverting, Great part on the Essay section =D.

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  • Anyone that drinks this demon jizz'm is a complete idiot.

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  • I like Coke (but mostly prefer Pepsi) very much. Instead of regular mineral water I am drinking at list 2 liters of Pepsi (light) every day. For your surprise I am just 76kg in weight (184sm height and 26 years old) and doing some professional sports too :) (swimming) So it is not about what you drink or eat (MacDonald’s is my favorite restaurant and I am eating Big Macs three or four times per week) it is all about how much you are moving every day or you are just sitting in your room watching TV :) So as a conclusion thanks to manufacture of “Coke Plus” I will definitely use it! I will ask simple question: what is the difference between Coke Plus and Red Bull? LOL but why people get used to say: RedBull is stupid but it works while with Coke and Pepsi it is always said: very harmful :D

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  • I don't get all that fuzz about Coke. If you like it, just drink it, if you don't, drink juice. No one is obliged to do either one or the other.

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  • Hmm, I don't think it will be possible, I mean sure the Coca is probably the most organic thing in it, but I'm pretty sure its either going to taste like crap, or it won't work out.

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  • Great Andy, I can't wait to drink my first real organic coke. I have to say I like the nextnature can design more than the one on the biocoke site!!!!

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  • Hi, Just check this site: http://www.biocoke.com or http://www.organicoke.com it must be coming!!! Have a nice day. Barhol

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  • Well, I don't ever drink coke or its cousins, but I have tried out a newfangled cleaning product from clorox lately... "GreenWorks" -- and holy hell, it actually worked! Not as quickly and lazily as bleach, but with some scrubbing muscle action, it worked just fine. Now, I don't think clorox ever made a natural product as its first, but it just goes to show... the market needs better information; and once people have that info and you can repackage nature yet again to them. The newly organic duds sell quick and everyone starts making it. Whenever people can make a buck at something, people start moving like roaches in a wildfire.

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  • Each and every time I read one of your posts I get the feeling that I am witnessing a glance of the future. Kudos to you.

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  • instead of disguising junk food as health food, i'm waiting for them to advertise health food as junk food.

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