"coca" news and stories

Lately I have been more of a savory breakfast/brunch person, and especially in the summer, pancakes seem awfully heavy for a hot, late morning meal.

However, I could not stop staring at this stack of banana pancakes from one of my favorite LA food bloggers, Acme Instant Food. For some reason, the way they are plated and photographed breathlessly sigh "summer" to me (even though banana pancakes definitely sound like a fall breakfast). The pancakes are lazily laying all over each other as if just after a playful *ahem* "romp, glistening with syrup, and with coca nibs and pecans carelessly scattered all over. Makes me just want to drape myself on a chaise lounge by the pool.

Bolivian coca growers are urging the Coca-Cola Co. to eliminate the word "Coca" from the name of its popular soft drink because of the leaf's importance in that Andean nation's culture.

A commission representing the coca industry passed a resolution earlier this week urging the Atlanta-based soft-drink giant to strike "coca" from its name and asking the U.N. to decriminalize coca leaf. The resolution demands "international companies that include in their commercial name the name of coca (example: Coca Cola) refrain from using the name of the sacred leaf in their products." Bolivia's coca farmers have yet to weigh in on the controversial energy drink Cocaine.

For its part, Coca-Cola said that its trademark is protected by Bolivian law. The company also repeated past denials that the soda has ever used cocaine as an ingredient.

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A small company in southern Colombia has recently started manufacturing a carbonated soda made with the extract of coca, the stimulating shrub from which cocaine is made. The company, Empresa Colombiana de la Coca, is owned and operated by a group of Nasa Indians, an indigenous people that have used coca leaves for centuries. The soda, called Coca-Sek, has apparently won the approval of local tasters and the "tea-like" flavor is supposedly somewhere between 7-Up and ginger ale, according to a recent AP story. The name is Nasa for "coca of the sun."

The soda's release is also a political statement, as area stores have refused to sell Coca-Cola in protest of the company's treatment of local union leaders. While the soda is legal to distribute in some areas in South America, its producers are doubtful that it will reach the U.S. anytime soon. They currently have a limited distribution outfit and are in the process of acquiring a truck of their own.

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