What the heck is in the water coolers at Coca-Cola headquarters?
First, they give us the boneheaded "Drink, Choose and Live" campaign that to win "Sing Like an Idol" among other prizes, actually required the consumption of 4160 12 pks of Coke, 49,920 12 ounce cans, for a whopping 7, 238,400 calories which would add 2068 pounds on the typical human body and one would have to consume 151 12 ounce cans a day to keep pace with their supply over the course of the contest; note to self--DON'T try this one at home kids, after nearing 75 cans you would develop hyponatremia; your kidney's would quit and you would die! OOPSY, someone at Coca-Cola overlooked a few factoids and the silly matter of HUMAN HEALTH!
Anywho, I digress, meanwhile back at Coke headquarters the rest of the management team was putting their head together and came up with Enviga! Ah, sounds so uplifting, invigorating and tempting...AND it burns more calories than you consume! Yes, that's right folks, a workout in a can, a diet in a beverage--a Miracle cure to save you from the fat of the land and deliver you the body of your dreams!
For $1,500 a year in Enviga purcahses (and this time you are actually suppossed to DRINK what you buy vs the "DRINK, choose, live" campaign where Coca-Cola meant BUY, choose and LIVE!)
Thank goodness that someone is looking out for us! The Center for Science in the Public Interest sued Coca-Cola. (wonder if they will call these folks publicity hungry like they did me? I am sure Cokes' sassy mouthpieces will come up with some clever what to cast the blame on these folks while trying to make themselves look like the saviors of the Obesity Pandemic!)
Enviga consists of carbonated water, calcium, concentrated green tea extract, various “natural flavors,” and ingredients typically found in diet soda, such as caffeine (three diet colas’ worth), phosphoric acid, and the artificial sweeteners aspartame and acesulfame potassium. The company says its green tea extracts are high in an antioxidant called epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG.
Many of Enviga’s claims are based on a 72-hour Nestlé-funded study of 31 people who were given a drink containing amounts of EGCG and caffeine equivalent to three cans of Enviga. On average, those subjects expended more energy, according to an abstract of the unpublished study. In any event, none of the 31 were overweight or obese—in fact all were quite lean to begin with. In other words, the company’s test may have detected some slight evidence that it increases calorie burning slightly—but only in a short-term test of thin people who were given a strictly controlled diet. And when the study was presented at a conference of the Obesity Society (publishers of the journal Obesity and also known as NAASO), the society disputed the study’s conclusions, insisting “it is improper to state or imply that the results of this study supports any weight loss” claim.
No test of Enviga lasted more than three days. One European study found that EGCG and caffeine did not increase energy expenditure after one month and did not help people lose weight. One longer-term Japanese study did show that a tea fortified with EGCG and caffeine helped people lose more weight than a control tea, but then again, the study was conducted by a tea company and the subjects of the study were 38 of that company’s male employees.
Enviga costs between $1.29 and $1.49 per can, and the company suggests that the maximum effect is gained by drinking three cans a day, or about $1,500 worth of the soda per year.
“There is no clear evidence that what’s in Enviga will help you control your weight,” said CSPI senior nutritionist David Schardt. “You’d be much better off giving up non-diet soda, which costs nothing to do, or by joining a gym, which is typically less expensive than paying for 3 cans of Enviga a day.”
CSPI will be represented by its litigation director Stephen Gardner, and by Mark Cuker and Michael J. Quirk from the firm of Williams Cuker Berezofsky, based in Cherry Hill, N.J.
“This deceptive marketing campaign needs to be nipped in the bud before many more millions of Americans get ripped off,” said Cuker. “Enviga burns more money than calories.”
CSPI’s litigation unit, formed in 2004, seeks to stop deceptive labeling or marketing campaigns or other practices that harm consumers’ health. It’s a strategy that helped spur KFC to drop artificial trans fats for deep-frying, and has resulted in improved labeling of products made by Tropicana, Quaker, Frito-Lay, Procter & Gamble, Kraft, and Cadbury-Schweppes. CSPI is soon likely to file a major lawsuit aimed at stopping Kellogg and Viacom (parent of the Nickelodeon television channel) from marketing junk food to young children.
“If the Food and Drug Administration were at all credible, major corporations like Coca-Cola and Nestlé wouldn’t try to take consumers to the cleaners like this,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “Imagine—two of the companies partly responsible for the general fattening of America are now urging us to pay them $4 a day to slim down with Enviga. The chutzpah!”
don't you just LOVE that comment!
Article from ABC News:
Dr. David Katz, ABC News medical contributor and associate professor at Yale University's School of Public Health, said Enviga's calorie burning claims are based on insufficient research.
"It's putting marketing hype ahead of science," Katz said. "The science here is not ready for primetime. There is a hint in animal research and in very early studies that EGCG can boost metabolism a little bit, but we don't know if that contributes to weight control."
And finally, yesterday during the SuperBowl, the boneheads in the Coca-Cola executive box did another misstep! I am going to be very arrogant and assume that this ad was a direct message to me, but they actually ran an ad called "Coca Cola VICE"! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16566275/
The commerical shows a SKINNY guy drinking Coke running around doing random acts of "kindness"--giving others Coke, putting out fires and spinning protesters around and the song playing in the background is saying "you are going to be remembered for the things you say and do" and "give a little love, it all comes back to you"
Well, they got it right this time. YOU are going to be remembered for the things YOU say and DO Coca-Cola. YOU gave us Coke that IS the #1 diet vice that is responsible for the global Obesity Pandemic and you WILL be remembered for it.
You gave us Enviga that is nothing short of a rip-off con-artist-like SCAM and you WILL be remembered for it.
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