It has been a long time since Coca-Cola contained cocaine. Yet the removal of any trace of the drug has not affected the drink’s popularity. The company brags that nearly 2 billion servings of its drinks are consumed daily. That’s pretty close to buying the world a Coke. In the American South, “Coke,” invented and headquartered in Atlanta, has become the preferred term for any soft drink.
That appeal has not escaped the attention of two men, one with an affinity for the drink and the other, who, like Coke, has a history with drugs. Last month, Donald Trump said that he had been speaking with Coca-Cola “about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been campaigning to get food and beverage companies to drop artificial ingredients from their products, counted it as another win for the Make America Healthy Again movement when Coca-Cola announced that it would begin selling Coke with cane sugar this fall, in addition to its high-fructose-corn-syrup variety.
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