10 Famous Coca-Cola Myths

With a company as large and well-known as Coca-Cola, a few baseless rumors are bound to spring up, but Coke seems to have collected an especially vast amount of strange gossip even for an organization of its renown and size.

Have you heard that Coca-Cola spelled backwards is actually a secret anti-Muslim message written in Arabic? Or that a can of Coke will dissolve a steak in 48 hours?

10 Famous Coca-Cola Myths (Slideshow)

Maybe you've gotten a little case of the chills after hearing that some mysteriously kind terrorists are running around warning waiters to avoid drinking Coke after a certain date?

None of these rumors are true, but they and plenty of equally-strange stories have been widely spread. While some of them have a grain of truth, others are entirely fabricated. We're not really sure why anyone would go around making up stories about Coke when there are enough strange-but-true facts to more than make up for these stories proving to be false. For instance, Coke really did used to contain cocaine, it was marketed many years ago as a "nerve tonic," and was believed, once upon a time, to cure morphine addiction. It can also actually be used as a not-too-shabby ingredient in a glaze for ham.

One absolutely factual rumor? If you and a friend say the same thing at the exact same time and your friend tells you, "Jinx! You owe me a Coke," you really do have to buy them a Coke as soon as you can or the jinx won't be lifted. That one's real.

Curious if Coke is really vegetarian? Want to know if you should be using it to strip motor oil and clean your car's engine?

Take a look at our 10 Famous Coca-Cola Myths Slideshow to find out which of the rumors you may have heard have a basis in truth, and which are completely false.

This article was originally published on March 17, 2013.