Coca-Cola, Pepsi to reduce 'cancer-causing' caramel coloring content of their softdrinks

Coca-Cola said Friday it will lower levels of a chemical in caramel coloring to comply with a California law, but insisted the beverage's recipe will not change and poses no health risks.

Pepsi is making similar changes in order to avoid having to label products with a cancer warning due to what California has ruled are high levels of 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI), shown to cause cancer in lab animals, consumer advocates said.

The changes do not amount to a change to Coke's formula, spokesman Ben Sheidler told AFP.

"We are NOT changing our recipe; or our formula," he said in an email.

"What we did do is direct our caramel suppliers to make a manufacturing process modification in order to reduce the level of 4-MEI in our caramel so as to meet the requirement set by the State of California's Proposition 65."

California voters passed Proposition 65 in 1986, and the law aims to protect state residents from "chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals."

Read more here
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story...eir-softdrinks