The World is being drowned in Cola

Fairy Tale, Year 2020: Once upon a time, there lived a nuked orphan prince of Taliban in his beautiful castle of 2000 calorie coco-chocolate, enamelled with dripping 2500 calorie mozzarella cheese. He fell in love with a gorgeous princess of far away land of the Korean terrorist camps in the hills of magnificent tobacco smokes and flavoured whiskey. The love was blissful, white doves flew in grey smoked skies and peacocks danced in acid rain, their armies of Godzilla and anacondas were all in a state of NATO ecstasy of the cold war era.

This all was soon ransacked by a tsunami of Colas and Diet Colas and other carbonated drinks. The prince in shining armour getting drowned in the colas trying to save his princess with Celine Dion’s ‘My heart will go on…’, playing in the background. Will the couple live happily ever after?

Cynics blame cola drinks for all that’s wrong in the world and now they have even gone to the extent of claiming that the world might one day sink in cola. I won’t be surprised if a mammoth calculation and analysis proves that the trigger for the World War-II was indeed a cola. How can the world, or for that matter any part of the world, sink in Cola? This statement can be analysed under three heads – the health effects, the cultural effects and the economical effects of the popularity of the colas.

The health standards might actually be falling because of the colas and that seems to be the strongest reason for claiming that the world is sinking under cola. But this is half of the story, and to better understand whether health is deteriorated due to cola or not, we need to analyse a host of topics. What we need to consider is when do people drink/consume the cola drinks? What are the substitutes available to them? The fact is that almost all aerated drinks/sodas, including the colas, are either consumed with friends as a substitute for tea or beer, or consumed for taste as a replacement of tea, coffee, etc. Now the next logical question is that can alcohol be avoided in parties using anything other than colas…and the answer is a categorical ‘no’. Colas are used for breaking the ice and socialising, and they are certainly less harmful than the different forms of alcohol that they substitute. In terms of using cola drinks as a refresher, they replace tea and coffee which are perceived to be non-harmful in the Indian culture, due to their long history. On the contrary, both of them contain more caffeine[1][2][3][4] than the regular cola drinks (Pepsi, Coca-Cola). As far as the high level of sugar in cola drinks is concerned, all of them are available in their sugar-free versions with zero calorie content[5][6], known as the ‘diet’ version. Lately, the cola giants have also introduced new variants with zero caffeine content[6][7], which shows their commitment to community health. In India, the annual per capita consumption of cola is approximately four bottles[8] per person which is much less than the per capita consumption of concentrated liquor[9][10]. The simple question here is whether it is better to drink alcohol or cola? Cola does harm when consumed excessively, yet its ability to harm is much less than that of coffee and tea.

Talking of cultural imperialism, people around the world and in the Indian subcontinent in particular, are wary of anything that is remotely American. We believe that if we drink the colas, then we are actually falling prey to the American way of living. If we look at the advertisements of these colas in India, we realise that they try to cater to the local audience/consumer by promoting their drink to be consumed alongside paranthas and not pizzas; during Diwali and not Thanksgiving. They even adapt to the local requirements and that is one of greatest reasons why Thumps-up, a brand of The Coca-Cola Company, comes with greater fizz[11][12] so as to appeal to the taste buds of the local population; and not surprisingly it has the largest market share in the cola market even with minimal marketing expenditure. The only deducible conclusion is that all arguments regarding cultural imperialism are nothing but hollow.

Finally taking up the issue of economic imperialism, in a world of lassie fairer any claims of economic imperialism by a single product makes very limited sense. India’s balance of trade with the USA is tilted in India’s favour (USD 11,735 million in 2004)[13]. If we still feel that because of one particular product we might be economically imperialised then we also need to consider the huge population of Indians working in firms servicing the US clients and those who are working in America and are sending huge remittances back home. Coca-Cola India alone creates employment for 125,000[8] Indians directly or indirectly. Since this argument also falls flat on its face, we need to analyse the real reasons for the blanket statement, which is our topic.

The reason for making such a blanket statement is simple – there are people who are wary of anything that give us happiness. What we should understand is that though drinking cola is not healthy but it is certainly a lot better than tea, coffee and alcohol- the other drinks that we generally use. We need to reduce our intake of these drinks, as an excess of everything is bad, but this certainly does not mean that we shift over to tea or coffee. Next time that you drink a cola, be happy and proud because you are doing good to the economy, and you have avoided a coffee or alcohol in doing so.

And since all of us like happy endings, we will let Celine Dion drop the high note and ask the Taliban prince and his Korean sweetheart to wade through the cola waters, and live happily ever after.



References:
1. Journal of Food Science, 2007
2. ‘Tea Consumption and the Prevalence of Coronary Heart Disease in Saudi Adults: Results from A Saudi National Study’, Iman A. Hakim, Mohammed A. Alsaif, Mansour Alduwaihy, Khalid Al-Rubeaan, Abdul Rahman Al-Nuaim and Omar S. Al-Attas, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
3. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, 2007
4. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211
5. http://pepsi.com/pepsi_brands/product_info/dietpepsimax/index.php
6. http://www.dietcoke.com/
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Free
8. ‘Coca-Cola India’, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, no. 1-0085
9. ‘Alcohol in India’, Monica Arora, HRIDAY/SHAN, www.ias.org.uk/resources/publications/theglobe/globe200103-04/gl200103-04_p27.html
10. ‘India: Alcohol and public health’, Dr Vivek Benegal, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengalūru
11. http://www.dietcoke.com/
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Free
13. http://www.indiaonestop.com/tradepartners/us/indo_us_trade.html