Indian State Bans Coke, Pepsi Products

By Rajesh Mahapatra
Posted 09 August 2006 @ 08:10 am EST

A southern Indian state on Wednesday banned the sale or manufacture of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite and other soft drinks made by the Indian subsidiaries of Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., an official said.


Four Indian states have already banned the sale of Coke, Pepsi and other soft drinks at schools, colleges and government offices after a research group in New Delhi last week claimed they contained high levels of pesticide residue. But the state of Kerala was the first to impose a total ban on production and sales.

The moves will likely hurt local sales of Coca Cola and PepsiCo, which account for nearly 80 percent of India's $2 billion-plus soft drinks market.

Kerala's health secretary, Viswas Mehta, told The Associated Press the state banned the drinks because of concerns over pesticide contamination.

Mehta, reached by telephone, said his department has also begun collecting samples of Coke and Pepsi for independent testing.

The offices of Coca-Cola India and PepsiCo India were shut because of a national holiday and company officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

But the companies said last week in a joint statement that both "comply with stringent international norms and all applicable national regulations."

The Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi said it found pesticide residues in samples of Coke and Pepsi that were 24 times above the limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
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From the June 2006 Idaho Observer:

Aspartame - The World’s Best Ant Poison

contributed by Jan Jensen of WELLthy Choices

We live in the woods and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We have spent thousands of dollars with Orkin and on ant poisons trying to keep them under control but nothing has helped.

So when I read somewhere that aspartame (Nutrasweet) was actually developed as an ant poison and only changed to being considered non-poisonous after it was realized that a lot more money could be made on it as a sweetener than as an ant poison, I decided to give it a try.

I opened two packets of aspartame sweetener, and dumped one in a corner of each of our bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago and I have not seen any carpenter ants for about 9 to 12 months. It works better than the most deadly poisons I have tried. Any time they show up again, I simply dump another package of Nutrasweet in a corner, and they will be gone for a year or so again.
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