THAT’S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES (9 page)

Here’s a question to ponder. When did civilization begin? When was it that we reached a sufficiently high level of cultural and technological development to call ourselves civilized? Looking at the world today, some would argue that we still have a way to go, but others point to beer as the first product of civilization. And they may be right.

The Sumerians, living five thousand years ago in what is now Iran, are commonly believed to be the world’s first civilization. And they were into beer. In a big way. They brewed at least sixteen varieties, all from barley, just like today. We know this because a piece of Sumerian pottery, unearthed in 1992 and currently housed in the Royal Ontario Museum, harbored a yellowish residue that turned out to be calcium oxalate, a signature of beer brewed from barley.

The ancient Egyptians also raised barley and developed pure yeasts to make beer. They even learned to seal beer in jars to prevent a secondary fermentation. Beer was not only drunk for its alcoholic effect, it was also consumed for its supposed medicinal properties. The ancients treated scorpion bites with beer, albeit ineffectively, and they ate onions steeped in beer as a “remedy against death.”

In the Middle Ages, beer was an extremely popular beverage. Fermentation yields an acidic brew that is not conducive to the growth of bacteria, so beer was certainly safer than the dirty, untreated water that most people were forced to drink back then. But even beer drinkers had a concern. As a drinker hoisted a mug of the brew, his view would be temporarily obscured, and any pickpocket in the vicinity would seize the opportunity to ply his trade. Some believe that this gave rise to the glass-bottom mug and to the expression “Here’s looking at you!” Many were also concerned about the adulteration of beer. As early as the eleventh century, Edward the Confessor employed ale testers to check up on the brewers. These testers would spill some ale on a wooden seat and then sit on the puddle wearing leather breeches. If they had a hard time getting up, they knew the ale had been sugared. A definite no-no.

Indeed, the world’s oldest consumer-protection law was formulated to ensure the purity of beer. In 1516, Count William IV of Bavaria issued the Purity Law, which allowed brewers to use only barley, hops, and water in making their beer. This law is still in force in Germany. And the Germans pride themselves on the quality of their beer. In fact, in 1870, Louis Pasteur transformed brewing from an art to a science when he resolved to make French beer as good as German. He discovered that the spoilage of beer was due to the presence of microorganisms foreign to the nature of the true beer yeast.

Unwanted microbes are not the only enemy of the brewer’s art. The scent of 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol can be most disturbing. Unless you’re a skunk. If you are, then the stuff is a valuable commodity, because it effectively wards off predators. But people certainly don’t want it in their beer. How does it get in there? Skunks aren’t to blame — light is. It may be hard to believe that light can alter the flavor of beer, but it most assuredly can. Hops — or, more specifically, the blossoms of the female hop plant — are the secret to the taste of beer. They were originally added to compensate for the sweet taste of malt, but they turned out to have value in the control of undesirable microbes. There are many compounds present in hops, including some that have estrogen-like effects and may cause breast growth in those who drink beer to excess. But one specific compound, iso-humulone, seems most important when it comes to solving the problem of “light-struck flavor.” Light cleaves the molecule to produce an active fragment that then reacts with some sulfur compounds found in beer to form the offensive 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol.

We should not be surprised that molecules are affected by light. After all, we know all about the damage that sunlight can do to molecules in our skin. It can do the same to iso-humulone. Is there a solution to this problem? Sure there is. We can block the rays that damage beer the same way we block the rays that damage our skin. Of course, applying sunscreen to beer bottles is not an option. But building protection directly into those bottles is. And that is why beer is sold in brown bottles. The brown pigment in the glass filters out the wavelengths of light that cause the skunky smell.

So why do some manufacturers bottle their product in clear glass bottles? Chemical ingenuity has made this nuance possible. Through the process of hydrogenation — much like the one we use for margarine — we can alter slightly the molecular structure of iso-humulone, making it stable in light. We can now admire the golden color of our favorite beer without even opening the bottle. The true beer lover, however, won’t hesitate to crack open a cold one and gulp down a healthy dose. And it may be healthy, indeed, although much depends on the dose.

A study published in
The British Medical Journal
examined the beer-drinking habits of a group of people who had suffered heart attacks and the beer-drinking habits of a group randomly selected from the Czech population. The Czech Republic is especially appropriate for such a study, because it is a country where beer is the beverage of choice. Perhaps surprisingly, in both groups the lowest risk of heart attack was found among the men who drank nine to twenty pints a week. Their risk was a third of that seen in the men who never drank beer. But if they drank more, they lost that protection and developed problems. Dark beer seems to be especially protective. Researchers discovered that it even reduces the potential harm caused by the notorious heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) that form when food is heated to a high temperature. Serving dark beer at a barbecue is a good idea. Maybe Benjamin Franklin was on to something when he said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

The police officers could hardly believe their eyes. The eighteen-year-old driver they had just pulled over sat there speechless, a wad of white fabric sticking out of his mouth. He had ripped the crotch out of his underwear and stuffed it into his mouth in an apparent attempt to fool the Breathalyzer. A memory of someone saying that cotton is highly absorbent must have stirred in his confused mind, prompting this bizarre reaction. But the Breathalyzer was not fooled. Neither was it fooled by the teenager who started sucking furiously on pennies after the highway patrol stopped him. He must have remembered a bit of the chemistry he had learned in school — the bit about alcohol being oxidized to acetaldehyde by the action of copper. He figured he’d be in the clear, since the Breathalyzer tests for alcohol, and not acetaldehyde. Unfortunately, the young genius didn’t remember accurately. Ethanol, the alcohol in beverages, can indeed be converted to acetaldehyde by copper, but only when the copper is red hot.

Then there are those who try to outsmart the police by insisting that they’ve just used mouthwash. But this doesn’t wash either. Sure, mouthwashes contain alcohol, and a false Breathalyzer reading is possible, but only if the test subject rinses out his mouth immediately before giving a breath sample. The police must follow certain guidelines: they have to observe a suspect for several minutes before administering a Breathalyzer test, and alcohol from mouthwash dissipates within a couple of minutes.

Is it surprising that people resort to such curious acts when they’ve overindulged? Not really. After all, alcohol certainly affects the brain. And the rest of the body as well. The chemistry involved is absolutely fascinating. Before alcohol can affect the brain, it has to get there. Most of the alcohol we consume is absorbed into the bloodstream from the stomach and the small intestine. But not all of the alcohol makes it through. Some is metabolized in the mucosa that lines the stomach and intestine. Here, enzymes convert ethanol first to acetaldehyde and then to acetic acid, neither of which is inebriating. In men, about thirty percent of a dose of alcohol meets its metabolic end in this fashion, but there is a definite gender bias here. The female stomach and intestinal lining is only about half as efficient at breaking down ethanol, so more makes it into the circulation. This explains why women may become tipsy more easily.

Once the alcohol is in the bloodstream, it passes through the liver. The liver is the body’s main detoxicating organ, and it detects alcohol as a potential troublemaker. First, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase snips a couple of hydrogen atoms out of the ethanol molecule, converting it to acetaldehyde. Then aldehyde dehydrogenase transforms this intermediate into acetic acid, which is either excreted or used by the body as a source of energy as it is broken down into carbon dioxide and water. A gram of ethanol can provide about seven calories in this fashion. If a person’s intake of alcohol is sufficiently high, the liver’s detoxicating system becomes overburdened, and some of the alcohol slips through unmetabolized. It can then wreak havoc in the brain.

Ethanol does this by interfering with neurotransmitters, the chemicals that brain cells use to communicate with one another. At low alcohol levels, receptors for glutamate are activated, leading to stimulation and a loss of inhibition. This is the “social lubricant” effect of alcohol. But as the concentration of alcohol rises, glutamate receptors actually become less responsive; the drinker begins to slur his or her words, and “cocktail party amnesia” sets in. Other neurotransmitter systems are also affected. Gamma aminobutanoic acid (GABA) is known as an inhibitory neurotransmitter because it prevents nerve cells from firing excessively. Alcohol stimulates GABA activity, which eventually causes sedation and relaxation. And that is only part of a very complex picture.

Eventually, the effects wear off as the alcohol is excreted or metabolized as it passes through the liver again. But, as this is happening, the drinker must contend with nausea, headaches, and a flushed face. The culprit here is acetaldehyde, some of which escapes from the liver before being converted to acetic acid. Not everyone experiences these symptoms to the same degree. Many people of Asian origin are severely affected by facial flushing, because nature has dealt them a very slow-acting version of aldehyde dehydrogenase, the enzyme that normally degrades acetaldehyde. Indeed, the same phenomenon lies behind a prescription drug known as disulfiram (Antabuse), which physicians give to alcoholic patients. The drug inactivates aldehyde dehydrogenase, forcing acetaldehyde into the circulation. This should make the drinker so sick that he gives up the booze. Unfortunately, he usually gives up the drug instead.

Some of the effects of acetaldehyde can linger till the morning after and contribute to a hangover. Interestingly, scientific researchers have not investigated the hangover business as extensively as one would expect. That’s because solving this problem would trigger a whole new problem. Some are concerned that if the hangover is eliminated, then people will drink more. Still, we do know that there is more to the hangover than just the remnants of acetaldehyde. The metabolism of alcohol in the liver produces some free-radical debris, which is usually taken care of by glutathione, one of the body’s most important antioxidants. When the system is overwhelmed, these free radicals can contribute to the hangover. That is why researchers have had some success in treating hangovers with supplements of N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which serves as a source of cysteine, the critical compound the body needs to generate more glutathione. Eggs also contain cysteine, and that may explain why traditionally people have used them as a hangover treatment.

The hangover is actually multifactorial. Dehydration plays an important role, as does hypoglycemia caused by the alcohol-mediated loss of sugar in the urine. But, in all likelihood, the greatest contributor to the hangover is methanol. This alcohol is found in small concentrations in many beverages; it’s a by-product of fermentation. Methanol is metabolized by the same enzymes as ethanol, but the products this time are formaldehyde and formic acid, which produce the hangover symptoms. Why does this happen only the morning after? Because the enzymes prefer to work on ethanol instead of methanol. Only when all the ethanol has been metabolized do they switch to methanol. This then explains the “hair of the dog” hangover remedy. A drink in the morning supplies ethanol for the enzymes to act upon so they’ll leave the methanol alone. As the enzymes busily metabolize the ethanol, methanol is excreted in the urine without being converted to formic acid. A Bloody Mary may be the best choice here, because vodka contains very little methanol. Confirmation of the critical role methanol plays in hangovers comes from a study showing that treatment with 4-methylpyrazole, a drug that blocks the breakdown of methanol, can eliminate the symptoms.

I must admit to feeling a little queasy talking about hangover cures. Alcohol can be an extremely destructive beverage. It is probably more damaging to society than all illicit drugs combined. Cirrhosis of the liver, strokes, breast cancer, oral cancers, domestic violence, and sexual assault have all been linked to alcohol abuse. In North America, there is an alcohol-related car accident every thirty seconds. And, as if that wasn’t frightening enough, excessive alcohol can shrink the genitals and have feminizing effects on men. The male drinker produces less testosterone, so his sex drive flags. But, for those who want to look on the bright side, less testosterone means less likelihood of baldness.

Henny Youngman, whom some would call a comedian, once remarked that when he read about the evils of drinking he gave up reading. I hope you won’t do the same. There is nothing funny about being drunk. Drunks destroy their own lives and kill others. What can we do? Well, University of Georgia researchers have found that blood alcohol can be reduced significantly by inserting a tube into the rectum and piping in alcohol dehydrogenase and oxygen. Sounds good to me.

Robert Southey was poet laureate of Britain for thirty years. He used his position and talent to attack the social structure of the times, and he was particularly critical of the idea of slavery. Most of us would be hard pressed to quote any of his works, but an expression that Southey coined has made it into our everyday vocabulary. In 1812, someone served the poet a newfangled beverage made with soda water and ginger beer. The bottle was corked, and it made a popping sound when opened. In a letter to a friend, Southey described the fun he’d had with “soda pop,” a beverage that we have been having fun with ever since. Let’s face it, there are some things in life that we do purely for the fun of it. And drinking soda pop, or soft drinks, is one of them. But there may be a price to pay for the fun.

Soda pop was not always marketed as a refreshing beverage. Its early manufacturers actually touted it as a medicine. In the middle 1800s, North American doctors frequently diagnosed their patients with a condition they labeled “neurasthenia.” It was a catch-all term that described occasional fatigue, insomnia, depression, and achy muscles — in other words, the symptoms of life. John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, thought he had a way to treat neurasthenia: French Wine Cola, a solution made with extracts of the coca leaf, the African kola nut (a source of caffeine), damiana root (a supposed aphrodisiac), and wine. The coca leaf is the source of cocaine, a substance that Pemberton was very familiar with. He had been wounded in the Civil War and was left with a permanent disabling pain that had caused him to become addicted to morphine. At the time, people believed that cocaine was an antidote for morphine addiction, and the substance was perfectly legal. Pemberton’s acquaintance with the coca leaf prompted him to try it as an ingredient in his concoction. The amount that he used, however, was so small that the dose of cocaine in French Wine Cola was trivial.

When the temperance movement came to Atlanta and alcohol was banned, Pemberton had to reformulate his product. Instead of wine, he used extracts of orange, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, neroli, caramel, and vanilla blended with sugar and lime juice. All he needed now was a captivating name. His accountant suggested Coca-Cola, and it was destined to become the most famous trademark in history.

At first, Pemberton sold his Coca-Cola as a thick syrup that had to be mixed with water. He promoted it as a new elixir that would treat melancholy, hysteria, rheumatism, and obesity. People sang its praises, and some physicians even complained that the elixir was stealing their patients away from them. Then a pivotal moment arrived. A gentleman suffering from a terrible headache walked into a pharmacy and asked the pharmacist to mix him up a dose of Coca-Cola as quickly as possible. Since the patient seemed so distraught, the pharmacist thought he’d save a little time, and instead of walking to the other side of the counter where the water tap was located, he mixed the syrup with soda water, which he had on hand. Pharmacies in those days dispensed soda water because of its reputed health benefits. This became possible after Jacob Schweppe designed the necessary equipment to carbonate water on a large scale, capitalizing on Joseph Priestley’s 1772 discovery of infusing water with carbon dioxide. Not only did the Coca-Cola/soda-water concoction relieve the man’s headache, but it also relieved his thirst. Based on this experience, the pharmacist began to mix Coca-Cola syrup routinely with soda water, and the world’s most popular soft drink was born. Pemberton soon realized the potential of this mix, and Coca-Cola transcended its status as a medicinal tonic to become a “delicious, refreshing, exhilarating, invigorating” beverage that even the healthy could enjoy. Contrary to the popular myth, the exhilaration the drink provided was not a result of the cocaine — it was an effect of the caffeine-containing kola nut.

Coca-Cola was not the only beverage to tackle health problems. Other soft drinks (“soft” because they contained no alcohol) also got in on the game. In Waco, Texas, pharmacist Charles Alderton came up with Dr. Pepper, which he claimed could aid digestion and restore vim, vigor, and vitality. Charles Hires began to market a root beer that was sure to “purify the blood and make rosy cheeks.” Later, Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda was introduced with the slogan “Takes the ‘ouch’ out of ‘grouch.’” The drink was a huge success, perhaps because it contained lithium, which has mood-altering properties. Eventually, the name was changed to 7-UP — presumably a combination of “seven ounces” and “bottoms up!”

But not all soft drinks were sold in bottles. Up until the 1950s, pharmacies had soda fountains. It was at the soda fountain that the soda jerk (so called because of the jerking motion he made when dispensing the carbonated water from its container) mixed up a variety of fizzy beverages. He would spoon out flavored syrup and add just the right amount of soda water to delight young and old alike.

Today, we guzzle roughly sixteen ounces of pop per person per day in North America — a staggering amount. Consumption has doubled since 1975. Teenagers are the heaviest consumers, with boys averaging close to three cans a day. Some researchers suggest that these heavy users are also becoming just plain heavy. Obesity is a growing problem in North America, a problem to which sugared soft drinks may contribute. One can has about seven teaspoons of sugar, which accounts for the drink’s 120 or so calories. (Fruit juices have about the same amount of sugar, but they also provide a variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.) And serving sizes are increasing: many outlets — fast-food restaurants and movie theaters — now sell soda pop in virtual buckets. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that the body does not handle these liquid calories the same way it handles calories from other foods.

In one fascinating study, researchers asked subjects to consume 450 calories’ worth of jellybeans daily for four weeks, and then 450 calories’ worth of soda pop for the same period. During the jellybean feast, they ate about 450 calories less of other foods, but they didn’t during the pop fiesta — they ended up increasing their total calorie intake by 450 calories. Scientists have also found that people who consume a sugar-sweetened drink with a meal eat more than they would if they chose a calorie-free beverage instead. And soft drinks tend to squeeze milk out of the diet, resulting in reduced calcium intake and a greater risk of osteoporosis. A University of Saskatchewan study showed that teenaged girls who drank soft drinks instead of milk already had a reduced bone-mineral content. This was not due, as some allege, to phosphates in colas robbing their bones of calcium, but it was clearly related to soft drinks displacing more nutritious drinks from their diets.

We obviously have legitimate reasons to limit our soft drink consumption, but we should be wary of the numerous nonsensical reasons that are floating around. Polyethylene glycol, used to disperse insoluble flavor components, is not antifreeze. The body does not absorb it, and it is harmless. Soft drinks do not acidify the blood and allow cancers to grow. Neither are these beverages as damaging to teeth as candies and sweetened desserts. A tooth will not dissolve in Coke within twenty-four hours, and a T-bone steak will not dissolve in Coke within forty-eight hours. The caramel coloring in colas is not a carcinogen. Phosphoric acid does not promote indigestion by fighting with hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Cold drinks do not reduce the effectiveness of digestive enzymes, causing food to be fermented instead of digested. Aluminum contamination from canned drinks does not cause Alzheimer’s disease.

If you are looking for a real cola horror story, here’s one. An usher at a movie theater popped out before the film started to buy an ice-cold cola from a machine. As he started to drink, he felt a round, solid object bob against his lips. He had a horrible thought: the foreign object could be a severed finger or a small animal. He immediately stopped drinking. Although the usher had to get back to work, he kept the can for later investigation. After the movie, he poured out the can’s contents, finding nothing. But when he purchased another can from the same machine, the mystery was solved. That can contained a similar solid object: a finger of ice.

And here’s yet another scary account. Deglutition syncope is a rare condition that can be caused by drinking cold, carbonated beverages; the drinker faints after guzzling a soft drink too rapidly. In some way, the cold drink stimulates the esophagus to put out a signal that affects the heart, causing it to beat more slowly. Blood pressure drops, dizziness and confusion set in, and, in extreme cases, the subject faints. Yet soft drinks can sometimes have a beneficial effect on the esophagus. Some unfortunate people suffer from a narrowed esophagus, and their food gets stuck on the way down. Often, a physician has to insert a scope into the patient’s esophagus to clear the blockage. Occasionally, however, the patient can solve the problem by simply drinking a fizzy beverage. The drink penetrates the stuck food, and the escaping carbon dioxide then dislodges it. A good burp, and the food slides right down the pipe.

And Coke can do other useful things. Phosphate from phosphoric acid is a great rust remover, forming a soluble complex with iron. Coke can therefore be used to loosen rusty bolts. You can remove rust spots on a chrome bumper with aluminum foil dipped in Coke. In a pinch, you can use it to clean a toilet bowl as well. A ham wrapped in foil and treated with Coke will produce a delicious gravy, and, believe it or not, there is even a recipe for Coca-Cola cake. It’s made with flour, sugar, butter, cocoa, buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla, marshmallows, and Coke. Now, if that doesn’t take the cake, I don’t know what does.

The modern soft drink industry is huge, producing about 110 billion liters of product every year. The basic ingredient is, of course, water, but not any old water. The water that goes into soft drinks is purer than the stuff that comes out of the tap. First, the manufacturer adds a flocculating agent, like aluminum or iron sulfate. This forms a gel-like material that settles to the bottom, taking impurities down with it. Chlorination follows to eliminate microbes, and then the manufacturer mixes in lime (calcium hydroxide) and soda ash (sodium carbonate) to precipitate out calcium and magnesium. We refer to this as removing the “hardness” minerals. If the drink maker does not reduce the amount of these alkaline minerals in the water, then they will interfere with the taste of the product by neutralizing the acids that are part and parcel of that taste. The water then passes through an activated carbon filter to remove residual chlorine and other off-flavors, along with any tiny particulates that can act as nucleation sites for carbon dioxide pockets and cause “gushing.”

After water, the next most important ingredient is sugar. Traditionally, manufacturers used cane or beet sugar (sucrose), but today they are more likely to employ sweeteners derived from corn. Cornstarch is a giant molecule composed of individual glucose units strung together. Enzymes from easily cultured molds can turn cornstarch into corn syrup by breaking down the long glucose chains. The syrup contains glucose, maltose (two glucose units joined together), and molecules composed of a varying number of glucose units. Both glucose and maltose are sweet, and hence manufacturers can determine the sweetness of the syrup by controlling the extent of starch breakdown. But there is another clever method they can adopt to increase the sweetness of the syrup, allowing them to use less of it. Using enzymes from various species of the bacterial genus
Streptomyce
, which is sweeter than sucrose, they can convert glucose to fructose. So-called high fructose corn syrups are now frequent replacements for sucrose in soft drinks because they are cheaper. Also, manufacturers find the liquid form of the sweetener more convenient to work with.

Corn sweetener has its pros and cons. Sucrose, over time, breaks down to form glucose and fructose, altering the taste of the beverage. This does not happen with high-fructose corn syrup. But if we replace sugar with high-fructose corn syrup, we will end up consuming about two and a half times as much corn syrup as we did in 1980. Fructose metabolism has a higher requirement for chromium and copper than the metabolism of other sugars, and this can conceivably lead to a drop in chromium and copper blood levels. Rats fed a high-fructose/low-copper diet routinely develop higher cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar.

While water and sugar make up the bulk of a soft drink, its essence comes from the flavor components. Chemists have identified some six thousand compounds with specific flavors, but the majority of flavor blends derive from only eight hundred or so compounds. Manufacturers go to great lengths to try to keep their formulations secret — they are determined to prevent copying. You might think that in this age of supersophisticated chemical analysis, one could easily uncover such secrets. But you would be wrong. Nobody has been able to duplicate the exact flavor of Coca-Cola, the famous formula 7X. The basic composition is well known; in fact, Pemberton’s original notebooks have been found. What we don’t know is the exact ratio of the orange, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, and neroli oils, and the order in which these are mixed with the vanilla extract, lime juice, and phosphoric acid. Chemical analysis can reveal the compounds that are responsible for the flavor, but it cannot tell us how the blend was arrived at. Imitators have come close to 7X, but so far, no cigar.

The complexity of the situation is exacerbated by the use of various additives. We can divide flavors into two categories: water soluble and water dispersible. Compounds such as vanillin and cinnamic aldehyde mix easily with water, but most fruit flavors do not. Manufacturers employ various polysaccharides — such as carrageenan, alginates, or tree gums — to disperse these flavors as miniscule droplets through a beverage. Brominated vegetable oils are a somewhat more controversial class of additives. Incorporating bromine into the molecular structure of a vegetable oil increases its density, so that a flavoring oil dissolved in it will not rise and separate from the water. Drink makers commonly use it in fruit-flavored beverages; it has the added effect of producing cloudiness, making the soft drink resemble fruit juice. The results of animal tests have raised some eyebrows, because when brominated vegetable oil is deposited in tissues such as the heart, there can be adverse effects. The amounts that researchers used in these studies, however, were far greater than the amounts humans are exposed to. Sucrose acetate isobutyrate mixed with vegetable oil is an alternative to brominated vegetable oils, and many manufacturers favor it. It is excellent in creating stable, cloudy beverages, and it effectively prevents flavoring oils from rising to the top and forming an unsightly ring at the neck of the bottle.