Despite Drought, Coke, Pepsi Keep Being Bottled

Residents of rural, drought-stricken southern India say that Coca-Cola's soft drink bottling plant is running their wells dry and contaminating any remaining water. In some areas, residents have no remaining water and must rely on water delivered by a truck each day.

Others say their wells ran dry three years ago, after Coke's bottling plant arrived. Coca-Cola has 52 plants in India in all, and some draw from 800,000 to 1.5 million liters of water from common groundwater resources daily. Other water is supplied to Coca-Cola via water trucks that extract water from neighboring villages.

In one village, residents said they noticed changes in the quantity and quality of their well water just six months after Coke's plant came to town. The water turned brackish ad milky in color, making it unsafe for drinking, cooking and bathing. And farmers say that while their wells once had enough water to run a pump for 18-20 hours, they now run dry after only four hours.

Coca-Cola officials say there is no scientific proof that the groundwater shortage is related to their plants, and some say the company is actually the victim of anti-American sentiments.

In 2005, after a series of large protests, the local government in India revoked Coca-Cola's license and ordered them to shut down one of their plants, worth $25 million.
VOA News.com March 8, 2006India Resource Center May 28, 2002Frontline May 20-June 2, 2006, Vol. 23, No. 10

Dr. Mercola's Comment:This despicable behavior is a classic illustration of the priorities of most of the multi-national fast-food companies. They are concerned and focused on the profit to their shareholders. It is very rare for them to demonstrate any concern for the health of the consumers they serve or the environment of the country they are operating in.

This is just one more reason why you will want to seriously consider vowing to never drink another soft drink again. There just simply isn't any reason to continue drinking this absolutely unnecessary fluid.

For10 years after I graduated from medical school I could never determine which type of soda was worse, regular or diet. In some ways this is analogous to asking which would you rather get hit with, a hammer or a baseball bat? There simply isn't a good answer to this one.

About two years ago I started writing a book on Splenda, and it will finally be published this fall,titled Sweet Deception. Writing this book required me to perform a very critical review of artificial sweeteners, and after performing that analysis I am absolutely convinced that artificial sweeteners are more dangerousthan even high fructose modified corn syrup.

So don't fool yourself and say you are drinking diet soda because it is safer than regular soda. The reality is that it is even worse and will cause you to gain even more weight than regular soda.

If you have reviewed the nutrition planof my Total Health Program you will find that eliminating soda and shifting to clean water is one of the most important basic physical changes you can implement in your health program.

Now I realize many of you have a problem with being addicted to soda. The easy addiction to resolve is caffeine. All you have to do is slowly wean off your soda over a few days to a week, depending on how much soda you are drinking. This is necessary toavoid the caffeine withdrawal headache that can be very painful.

If you have a stronger physical addiction I encourage you to consider using the simple, yet highly effective and completely free, energy psychology tool called Turbo Tapping. Many people have successfully used this to eliminate their soda addiction.