The Coca-Cola Paradox | Day 327 of my 2023 Journal

The move from the Yucatan peninsula to Querétaro was also a move from a tropical climate, heavy rainfall, humid heat, and air condition to cold nights, bright sun, dry air, and lower temperatures. So we had to head out to buy some blankets to keep us warm at night. One more walk through Querétaro on a nice and cloudy day mostly spent with friends, having conversations, cooking meals, studying, and working. Really, there is not much to say about it.

So, allow me to reflect on something else.

Coca-Cola.

It is an icon. We don’t agree, maybe with the sugar content or the policies (that I honestly know nothing about), yet I must say, I am secretly a fan.

When I was a teenager, my best friend created a Coca-Cola dress punk style, and we talked about the brand's aesthetics. How it decorates, how well created it is, and how the decades of high-end ads have added to the brand, so it is now associated with happiness, beauty, and youth.

When I had cancer, Coca-Cola was my best friend: I downed four anti-nausea pills with half a liter of Coca-Cola every morning. Since then, I can only drink Coca-Cola for medical reasons. It makes me sick, the taste, unless I already feel sick, then it still works its magic.

I am somewhat sorry to admit this.

But why, really? What is it?

Something in the groups I move is pointing the finger at Coca-Cola as if it were the devil, and it is “the right thing” to be “against Coca-Cola.”

Now, I have done my katharsis of Christmas - saying out loud I hate the whole fuss - I will do the opposite with Coca-Cola and say I find it fascinating and that it has saved me several times.

Here in Mexico, I observe two things.

One is it seems to me they drink A LOT of it. It is everywhere. Whereas the food is traditional and sold on all corners, the drink appears to be mostly soft drink, and I wonder if that is the reason for the obesity I also observe on a large scale. I have no statistics, but it does SEEM to me as if there is more Coca-Cola here than in Europe.

The second thing is the retro. Coca-Cola is still sold in glass bottles, moved in old boxes on old trucks, as it was done when I was a child. I love the sight of it, and to be honest, it is the right way to do it. Why is single-use plastic still the main way of selling beverages everywhere? It seems insane.

On top of it all, it seems at least in Querétaro, they embrace the love for CocaCola, cherishing retro CocaCola items, and I loved to see this, take pictures of it, and think about it.

Maybe I should even take it so far as to have a cold Coca-Cola from a good old glass bottle on a sunny afternoon.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
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