Boil Coke, Get Sludge: Experiment Ends In Pot Full Of Black, Sugary Goop No One Would Want To Eat
Most people think nothing of opening a can of happiness and downing its entire contents. Coca-Cola is a veritable American staple: How could the kind-hearted folks at Coke give us something to drink that would do our bodies harm? What’s a little sugar, anyway? As it turns out, if you boil Coke, you may answer differently.
YouTube user CrazyRussianHacker ventured to find out (though in a not-so-crazy-still-Russian-not-altogether-hacky sort of way). The experiment begins by bringing a one-liter bottle of Coke to a roaring boil. What begins as a normal reduction process, as the water in the soda evaporates in the form of steam, ends with a dirty pot caked in a black, tarry sludge. Our friend CrazyRussianHacker then shows its heavy viscosity as he kneads the goop with a spoon. But it gets worse.
While the black goo may look off-putting, there’s no two ways about it: The same stuff that’s in that pot would, at one point, have made its way into your stomach if you were to drink the liquid straight from the bottle. A combination of sugar, chemical additives (listed notoriously as “natural flavors”), and caramel coloring make for a gunky, shiny pudding you wouldn’t feed to your dog. Yet we still think we’re doing ourselves a favor by drinking it.
Later, CrazyRussianHacker goes on to pour a two-liter bottle into an even larger pot, and, well…you can guess what happens. I don’t see any happiness in that pot, do you? Maybe it evaporated with the water.