“CAN THE CAN!” SAYS ELON MUSK ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Elon Musk has posted to X about his addiction to Diet Coke and the potential hazards of drinking several cans of the low pH ultra processed drink a day. Consulting his AI app, “Grok”, he commented: “Clearly I need to switch to glass bottles…”

Among other harm factors such as neurotoxicty from aspartame, Musk highlights an issue GO Kombucha raised a year ago; namely the results of a 2023 lab study into the effects of packing and transiting low pH, acidic drinks in porous polymer plastic-lined aluminium cans. It concluded: “The coating fails to fully prevent aluminum from contaminating the drinks”.


It found the amount of aluminium leeched into a can’s contents depends on level of acidity (the pH of kombucha is the same as Diet Coke), temperature during storage/transit, use-by date, whether contents are heat-treated once sealed in the sealed can (heat increases corrosion)…

The findings confirm what some of us in the kombucha sector have long suspected but whom most - in the rush to switch from glass to cans to reap cost and storage savings - continue to ignore; namely, the counter-intuitiveness of acidified, bacterially alive/active tea in porous plastic-lined cans.


As the anniversary of posting our report nears, I had hoped that the industry’s self-appointed trade organisation KBI and its membership of brewers and manufacturers - especially of canned “kombucha” sold in multi-packs that encourage consumers to drink several cans daily, leading to trace amounts of aluminium and millions of microplastics and chemicals from the plastic lining itself building up in the body - might have taken heed and even acted upon, such as informing its members of the potential harm to consumers' health:


Elon’s intervention may prompt some to act, but the onus is on kombucha canners to prove their products are safe if they are not to kick the can further down the road and store up a potential health timebomb for the future…