About the denaturalization of natural substances

A natural substance that has been globally desnaturalized and frivolized is the "kola" or "cola".
Kola drinks are made (elaborated) from the kola nut, fruit of a tree of the Sterculiaceae family, the Kola vera. It is a pinkish-red fruit, the size of a golf ball, and the consistency of a green apple. It grows in the forests of Western Africa and Guinean coasts and was incorporated into the traditional culture of these countries since ancient times. The kola fruit is bittenand chewed for a while until it is swallowed. It is used as a suppressant of hunger and sleep and as a stimulant. It is more a habit than a food, similar to drinking coffee or smoking.
Due to its intense bitter taste it is necessary to get used to it as a child. For adults who never consumed it, it is difficult to start the habit.
Like other natural products originated in traditional societies, the culture of the kola is deeply imbued with spiritual elements.
The kola is used, not only to avoid fatigue or sleep, but also as a central element in the rituals of the peoples of the coasts of Guinea in Africa.
In recent times, and as a consequence of the expansion of savage capitalism in the United States, at the end of the nineteenth century, and beginning of the twentieth century
the kola nut was first used to make soft drinks.
In some cases, it was utilized to manufacture beverages
that included a "mixture" of Kola and Coca syrups (the leaf of the Coca plant) together with sugar. The success of these "Kola-coca" beverages led the soft drink industry to experience an "explosive boom". The suppliers of the main raw material (the Kola) were in West Africa and for many years the soft drink industry depended on these countries. The main exporters were Ghana, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, etc. The first importing market was the United States. In recent years, production has declined because artificial chemical formulas substitutes for real fruit have been developed.
 In the 1990s, the global market for queues amounts to more than 3,000 million dollars per month. Although the topic is usually not discussed, the case of colas is one of the clearest and "globalized" examples of "denaturalization" of a natural product.
Thesel products (sugar, cola and coca) were transformed and combined to create an artificial mixture that generates multiplied addiction.
It was an infallible recipe to create addicts. Later it was necessary to eliminate coca, due to its loss of prestige in the central societies. In some cases, "cocaine" was replaced by "caffeine".
The remaining soft drink was modified to maintain its addictive character, including, besides the kola, other substances that caused the desired effects. The secret nature of the formulas and the millionaire sums that have been handled at all levels allowed to evade the bromatological controls that are applied to other substances in many countries. There is no doubt that the consumption of colas is one of the most widespread vices of modern society. However, nowhere is it treated as such. In America (and in the rest of the world) the kola was introduced as an imported denaturalization product more than a century ago
It may be appropriate to reintegrate it into the African culture so that it becomes meaningful again as an element of the new African societies of the twenty-first century.
From the book "Amerrique, the Orphans of Paradise", D.Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones