To the Root Beer/ Sarsaparilla - White With Foam. Why are the colas still with us?

For me, it is the foam. That is an American birthright wrongfully stolen by the FDA, if it is so that there is no connection between the rats, this particular substance of safrole, and human cancer. Site agreeing thas safrole contributes mightily to our foam: www.foodreference.com/html/frootbeer.

Was the safrole ban really necessary? Apparently the FDA only used "reports" of the effects of safrole on people, and not testing. See site at Sassafras Tree: The Tangled Roots of Groups, and discussion there. Say it isn't so, FDA. Your credibility is on the line, thinks the Safrole Fan Club (SFC), recording secretary reporting.

Read about Sioux City Sarsaparilla, Chicago's Canfield's Sarsaparilla, and Pepsi, at www.interestingideas.com/ii/rb. Isn't coke recommended as a toilet cleaner? See urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_coca_cola. And as grout cleaner? See members.tripod.com/~Barefoot_Lass/cola. And we worry about sassafras??

All agree there is a long history for sassafras here - see root beer history at tn.essortment.com/historyrootbeer_rhnc.And you can brew your own, to a degree (safrole?) See greydragon.org/library/brewing_root_beer.

Now, here's an oddity. This is a question and answer site, and one of the questions is whether root beer causes cancer. There is no answer. Go to www.root-beer.org/questions. for the Encyclopedia Rootanica on the issue of whether root beer causes cancer. Leave off the question if you are not prepared to answer it, please. FDA is clear that safrole is such a human carcinogen that it is banned - gasp. See later posts.

The safrole fan clubs do invite the FDA to lay out its 1960's testing procedures, and its conclusions whether rats are intrinsically averse to safrole so of course rats would get tumors, and what else was used to make a connection to people. Thank you.
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Six of one: SIX OF ONE, HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER -- Look up "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985) at alibris.com/. Don't stop there. See www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/627. for the half dozen.