Show Notes
Food in the past could be horrifying. Prior to the introduction of regulations like the United States Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, it was disturbingly common for manufacturers to add all sorts of inedible or even genuinely toxic substances to food to make it last longer, make it look more appetizing, or cut down on expensive ingredients and maximize profits. Boric acid and formaldehyde in milk. Brick dust in cinnamon. Bone meal or plaster of Paris in flour and bread. Lead-based dyes in jelly and jam. At one point, S.E. Massengill Company even added diethylene glycol to a common medicine to help make it taste sweeter and more easy to consume… For the uninitiated, diethylene glycol, commonly used today in antifreeze and as a solvent, is highly poisonous, and was known to be so at the time as well. Yet the substance was nonetheless added to the medicine targeted at children anyway, with about 100 deaths resulting before they recalled the medicine. Although noteworthy even with the recall, didn’t bother to tell the doctors prescribing it that there was any urgency in that, nor the danger their existing stocks of the medicine posed if they didn’t return them, and instead, continued to sell it.
The owner of the company, Dr. Samuel Evans Massengill, responded to the outrage over the deaths by simply stating, “My chemists and I deeply regret the fatal results, but there was no error in the manufacture of the product. We have been supplying a legitimate professional demand… I do not feel that there was any responsibility on our part.”
Much more on this story and how it finally got the government to step in and start regulating consumable products later in the Bonus Facts, and how this all led to Kinder Surprise Eggs being illegal in the United States. Which, yes, they still are. Watch to the end before commenting I’m wrong, and you’ll save yourself having to edit your comment.
But for now, other questionable substances were part of the appeal of the product itself - most infamously the cocaine in Coca-Cola. Paired with caffeine from the Kola nut, this ingredient was originally chosen by the drink’s inventor, pharmacist John Pemberton, as a treatment for morphine addiction and a stimulating alternative to alcohol. Cocaine was not fully eliminated from the official formula until 1929, though the Coca-Cola company continues to use processed coca leaves in the drink’s manufacture, being the largest consumer of that plant outside of the illegal drug trade. But while it is the most famous example, Coca-Cola was not the only classic soft drink to contain psychoactive drugs, with another iconic brew originally including a mood-altering medication still taken by millions of people to this day.
This is the weird forgotten history of 7UP.
Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila
0:00 Intro 2:37 Why People Started Drinking Carbonated Water, and Discovering Lithium 4:55 The Origins of 7Up and Why the Drugs? 16:22 What Does Lithium Actually Do to You? 18:55 The Elixir Sulfanilamide Incident and Why Kinder Surprise Eggs are Still Illegal in the United States Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The BrainFood Show
In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start with the rather curious way in which George Eastman, founder of Kodak, died.
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Although you might assume that being made to wear a stupid costume, be mocked, and act like an idiot for the entertainment of fatuous rulers would be a job nobody would want- like the position of Groom of the Stool (a job which initially consisted of directly supplying the necessaries to facilitate a good and clean bowel movement to the King, as well as to monitor said fecal matter and make dietary recommendations based on what you saw there)- the position of court jester was actually an enviable one due to it involving spending so much time with those in power. And as you were often putting them in good humor and otherwise making them happy, it was a position that came with a whole slew of perks. So what was life actually like as a court jester?
Ever wonder why Austria agreed to give up its sovereignty so readily to Nazi Germany without any semblance of a fight?
In the video today, we're looking at How Do German Schools Teach About WWII? How Do the Japanese Teach About WWII? Why Wasn't There an Italian "Nuremberg / Tokyo War Crimes" Trial After WWII? How Did Germany DeNazify So Quickly After WWII. How Do They Teach the American Revolution in Britain? How do Arabic Nations Teach the Crusades? How Do British Schools Teach About the British Empire? How do The Persians Teach Alexander the Great and When in History Did He First Become Great?