The secret life of Coke

THINGS may go better with Coke, but not if you’re a bug in Andhra Pradesh. The ubiquitous soft drink is now the toast of farmers in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh who, rather than quaffing the stuff, have been enthusiastically spraying it on their crops as a pesticide.

Those addicted to red-and- white cans or wasp-waisted bottles may be pleased to know that their guts may be free of agricultural pests. According to a report in the Deccan Herald, hundreds of Indian chilli and cotton farmers have been finding Coke an effective pesticide which costs much less than proprietary pesticides.

Coca-Cola, and its rival, Pepsi, have had an uneasy time in the Sub-continent of late. Last year a Dehli-based environmental group, the Centre for Science and Environment, claimed that drinks manufactured in India by both companies contained pesticide residues well above the levels permitted in the developed world. Coca-Cola was also the focus of protests over the amount of water its plants were extracting in areas of India where water is in short supply.

A spokesperson for Coca-Cola insisted yesterday that they were only aware of "one isolated case where a farmer in India may have used a soft drink as part of his crop management routine, and that soft drinks do not act in a similar way to pesticides".

Now, however, it seems that farmers can’t get enough of the fizzy drink, which comes much cheaper than the conventional methods purveyed by the likes of Monsanto. They also favour Coke because it is safe to handle and doesn’t require dilution. One’s initial reaction may be that if it does that to bugs, what does it do to us?

However, at least one expert has suggested that the sweet stickiness of the stuff attracts ants which then consume the crop pests.

Since it was first produced in 1886, Coca-Cola, the one-time huckster cordial which has become, depending on your point of view, refreshing icon of western civilisation or the red-and-white banner of American capitalist imperialism, has attracted more than its fair share of unconventional uses, not to mention myths about that supposed "secret ingredient".

Stray from quaffing to cooking, and "breaking out the bubbly" takes on a horribly new slant when it comes to Coke’n’cookery: one tentative internet enquiry reveals 55 recipes for chicken cooked in Coke alone, and if you regard this particular school of gastronomy as the prerogative of barbecuing rednecks, think again. No less than that kitchen goddess Nigella Lawson swears by cooking ham in the stuff, while her newly-released cookery tome, Feast includes ham in cherry coke, which she describes as "a triumph". Edinburgh’s own Sue Lawrence extols the virtues of chocolate Coca-Cola cake, even though she claims to "loathe Coke with a vengeance and seldom allow it in the house".

Visit Coca-Cola’s own website and you’ll find delicacies such as sauteed salmon with sweet- and-sour glaze or seared scallops with fiery passion fruit salsa. (Mind you, using soft drinks as a meat tenderiser is nothing new: in one of his travelogues, Paul Theroux once included a handy Pacific island recipe for dog marinated in 7-Up.)

Edinburgh diners may rest easy, however. A discrete inquiry at Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel elicited that its executive chef, Jeff Bland, has never cooked with Coca-Cola in a recipe and has no intention of ever doing so.

As we all know, put Coke, or any sweet drink such as lemonade, in a vase of cut flowers and it will prolong their life - something to do with the carbon dioxide they emit, though a cut-crystal vase swilling with flat, brown Coke may not have quite the required aesthetic impact. Further inquires on that compendium of lunatic advice, the internet, advises "spray inexpensive cola on your grass once a month for super green grass" and adds that for a bug-free lawn, a can of Coke mixed with a cup of ammonia and a ¼ cup of soap should do the trick. You wouldn’t want to graze on it, though.

However, there are those who extol Coca-Cola’s merits for a bewildering variety of tasks, ranging from instant tanning to engine cleaning. On the medicinal side alone, it is said to relieve jellyfish stings and cure hiccups, and attracts glowing testimonials for its efficacy as both "a yummy constipation remedy" and as a cure for diarrhoea - not quite, perhaps, what the advertising copywriter meant when he came up wit the famous slogan "the pause that refreshes".

So far as cleaning old pennies goes it is, indeed, widely regarded as the real thing, and is also recommended for cleaning toilets, removing carpet stains and automobile engine degreasing, although we are assured that the widespread US myth that state troopers use it for washing blood off the highway after automobile accidents is sheer urban myth.

Other handy tips include giving an "antique" stain to photographs and, perhaps most intriguing, removing unwanted marine growth from submarines after spells of duty in the tropics.

None of which is likely to be what Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton had in mind in 1886 when he produced a sticky brown cordial which his business associate, Frank Robinson, christened Coca-Cola. Initially it sold nine glasses a day to innocent Atlantans who, so far as we know, drank it rather than sprayed it over their smallholdings.

The Coca-Cola formula, while revised over the years, remains a legendary trade secret, and is reputed to be held in a bank vault in Atlanta, where the Coca-Cola company has its headquarters. While further folklore holds that only two executives have access to this formula, with each executive having only half of it, the fact is that while Coca-Cola does limit knowledge of the formula to only two executives, each knows it in its entirety while others do have access to the process.

It all sounds faintly reminiscent of that hoary old Scots myth about the last Pict throwing himself over a cliff to keep the secret of heather ale safe from enemies. Some day, perhaps, the last Coca-Cola executive will pass on to the great conglomerate in the sky, taking with him take with him the secret of "the real thing". And what will farmers in Andhra Pradesh do then?

In the meantime, Scottish agriculture remains a Coca-Cola-free zone, although one crop scientist at the Scottish Agricultural College at Auchencruive said that he had heard of Tabasco sauce used as a vermin deterrent.

For the last word, we went to The Beechgrove Potting Shed’s Jim McColl, who is regularly bombarded with arcane garden lore. The Coke-spraying farmers of Andhra Pradesh were news to him, although he had recently invited listeners to submit novel methods of pest control for roses, which McColl and company would test at Beechgrove. "We’ve had one or two strange ones," he says, "although not Coca-Cola.

"Nothing would surprise me ... but just wait till they discover Irn-Bru."