For God, Country, and Coca-Cola

From Amazon.com:
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It
Mark Pendergrast
http://www.amazon.com/God-Country-Coca-Cola-Definitive-American/dp/0465054684/thekonformist

List Price: $24.00
Price: $16.08 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
You Save: $7.92 (33%)

"Detailed and marvelously entertaining." -- Los Angeles Times

Now fully updated, the classic account of how a bottle of sweetened caramel-colored soda water became synonymous with American capitalism

For God, Country and Coca-Cola is the unauthorized history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it.
From its origins as a patent medicine in Reconstruction Atlanta through its rise as the dominant consumer beverage of the American century, the story of Coke is as unique, tasty, and effervescent as the drink itself. With vivid portraits of the entrepreneurs who founded the company-and of the colorful cast of hustlers, swindlers, ad men, and con men who have made Coca-Cola the most recognized trademark in the world-this is business history at its best: in fact, "The Real Thing."

About the Author

Mark Pendergrast was born in Atlanta and is a graduate of Harvard University. A business journalist, he is the author of the Basic Book Uncommon Grounds. He has published articles and reviews in a number of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Sunday Times (of London), and Financial Analyst.

From The Washington Post

"An encyclopedic history of Coke and its subculture. [Pendergrast] has used Coca-Cola as a metaphor for the growth of modern capitalism itself. His research and storytelling skills are prodigious."

Paperback: 664 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Enlarged 2nd edition (March 17, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465054684
ISBN-13: 978-0465054688

How to Make The Coke Recipe

From This American Life:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/427/original-recipe/recipe

Also found at The Konformist:

http://www.konformist.com/2011/TAL_original_recipe.pdf

If you do make a batch, email us at recipe@thislife.org to let us know how it turned out (and send photos!).

As we said in the radio story, this recipe includes two parts. The recipe for the syrup, and the recipe for the 7X flavoring formula. You can scale down the recipe for the syrup if you don't want to make gallons of the syrup. You will need one ounce of syrup mixed with 5 ounces of carbonated water to make a serving of soda.

When you buy your ingredients be careful that you buy FOOD GRADE. There are lots of things you can find on the Internet that can be used in this recipe that are not food grade and will make you sick.

1) Make the 7X flavor. To make this, you'll want food grade essential oils at 100 percent strength. They can be found by searching for food grade essential oils in the grocery section of Amazon.com and other places.

For a home recipe, you can get an eyedropper and count drops the old-fashioned way, but if you want to be more precise, Steve Warth at Sovereign Flavors says he estimated each drop was .025 grams, which means you want 0.5 grams of Orange Oil, 0.75 of Lemon Oil, 0.25 grams of Nutmeg Oil, 0.125 grams of Coriander Oil, 0.25 grams of Neroli Oil, 0.25 grams of Cinnamon Oil (historian Mark Pendergrast says the original Coke recipe was made with a kind of cinnamon called Cassia).

Combine those with 8 ounces of food grade alcohol. This ingredient, we'll be frank, will be kind of a pain in the ass to find. Important: Do NOT use Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol or Rubbing Alcohol or Denatured Ethyl Alcohol. These will make you sick. You need food grade ethyl alcohol. Sometimes people swap Everclear or other neutral grain spirits for this, and our beverage guys suggest this as an easy, cheap substitute.

2) Make your fluid extract of coca. Buy whole leaf coca tea. Instructions for making coca extract from this can be found online. You don't need much. The recipe calls for 3 fluid drams, which is equivalent to 1/8 of a fluid ounce or – an easier measurement for a home kitchen – 3/4 of a tablespoon.

3) Make the syrup. Once you have your 7X flavor, and your fluid extract of coca, you are ready to mix them with your other ingredients to make the syrup. Mix your ingredients in this order: water, sugar, then coloring, then coca extract, then vanilla extract, then caffeine, then lime juice and citric acid.

Several Notes:

-- If you do not want to make several gallons of the syrup, you can adjust the recipe by reducing all ingredients by the same rate -- one half the original amount, one quarter, and so on.

-- Another important thing about this step, as we said in the radio story about the recipe, the Sovereign Flavors chemists concluded that in order to compensate for the intensity of contemporary essential oils (125 years of advances in food technology means it's possible that they're much stronger than the oils Pemberton used in his lab in 1886) the 7X flavoring addition should be reduced by 75 percent. That means, if you make the full size batch, you should only use 1/2 ounce of 7X formula instead of the 2 ounces specified in the original recipe.

-- You might want to cut down on the caffeine. We all got a strong buzz from the soda we made with the recipe, and then one of the beverage professionals pointed out that it was because it had five times the amount of caffeine of a modern soda.

-- Some ingredients are measured in fluid ounces, others are measured in ounces by weight. The team at Sovereign Flavors says if an ingredient is liquid -- coca extract or vanilla extract -- it should be measured in fluid ounces. If it's a dry ingredient, like citric acid, it should be measured by weight.

4) Make the soda. Once you have mixed the syrup, it should be combined with carbonated water at a ratio of 1-to-5 (one part syrup to five parts bubbly water) to make the soda.

Legal language we have to include here: If you're making this soda, it's entirely at your own risk. The soda companies and radio stations involved in this story make no claims about the safety of this old recipe.

Here's the press release we put out about this story.

This episode of our show kicked off a wave of international press coverage that, inevitably, included inaccuracies.

To be clear: We are not claiming that we have found the recipe used today for Coca-Cola. We believe we found a recipe that is either the original recipe made by the inventor of Coke, John Pemberton, or a version of Coca-Cola that he made either before or after the product hit the market in 1886. We believe that because it was found in the notebook of his friend, on a page entitled "Coco-Cola recipe improved," and because it was found in Pemberton's own notebook, in Coca-Cola's archives.

Much of the press about our story takes at face value Coca-Cola's statements that we have not found the recipe for Coke, present or past. But when asked if the company has actually checked to see if this formula matches the original formula - which archivist Phil Mooney assured me they still have - company spokespeople always politely sidestep the question. So it seems entirely possible that no one at Coke has checked. If they'd checked to see if the formulas match, why not say so?

Phil Mooney even admitted something interesting about the recipe in our interview: "Could it be a precursor? Yeah, absolutely." He then went on to express, as his opinion, not as fact: "Is this the one that went to market? I don't think so."

Since the original formula is no longer made by Coke, and since all the ingredients seem to be on the public record, why not release the old formula? This year, Coke's 125th anniversary, would be a great time for it!

So we stand by our story. We believe the recipe is either the version Pemberton brought to market in 1886, a precursor, or an improved version made after it was already on the market. As for our bigger point, that the ingredients to Coke's supposedly super-secret formula can be figured out without much trouble by anyone who wants to, that seems incontrovertibly true. Versions of the recipe have been published starting in the 1960's. Not to mention that a device called a gas chromatograph can tell a trained scientist the ingredients in coke or any other beverage, not with perfect accuracy, but close enough that you're in the ballpark.

The Coke Conspiracy

In an article at LiveScience.com on the reputed uncovering of the Coca-Cola secret formula, the evidence is hinted at of a famous conspiracy theory:

"The Coca-Cola Company has used high-fructose corn syrup rather than sugar in the American version of its soft drink since 1985. That was the year it scrapped the 'New Coke' formula — which spent only a few months on the market after the company was flooded by consumer protests — and reverted to a recipe similar to the one it had used up until 1985 (except switching the sweetener to corn syrup)."

This jibes with the theory that New Coke was part of a plot to switch the sweetener for Coca-Cola from sugar to corn syrup. As the theory goes, New Coke was used to give a time lapse, so consumers wouldn't notice the difference in taste in the sweetener change.

For the record, Coca-Cola has always dismissed this as an urban legend, with then Coke prez Donald Keough declaring: "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart."

Live Science spoke to Mark Pendergrast, historian and author of For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company that Makes It, and here's what he had to say: "I think it's kind of funny that suddenly there's this big flap over this when I found the formula in Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton's papers and published it in the first edition of my book in 1993. This recipe is very similar to the one I found, so I do think it's probably authentic." But he added: "It's not the recipe of the drink they're selling now. The original formula has been changed."

Doing a Google search, I uncovered the Pendgrast recipe, and indeed the recipes are similar. The Pendergrast recipe lists 30 lbs of sugar, not 30 oz as I suspected, making it 16 times sweeter than I guessed. In any case, the last missing unit of the Coke recipe from the American Life show has been uncovered to my satisfaction. Here is the recipe:

Fluid extract of Coca: 3 drams USP
Citric acid: 3 oz
Caffeine: 1 oz
Sugar: 30 lbs
Water: 2.5 gal
Lime juice: 2 pints (1 quart)
Vanilla: 1 oz
Caramel: 1.5 oz or more for color

The secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol: 8 oz
Orange oil: 20 drops
Lemon oil: 30 drops
Nutmeg oil: 10 drops
Coriander: 5 drops
Neroli: 10 drops
Cinnamon: 10 drops

Leaked Coca-Cola Recipe Is Real, but Not 'The Real Thing'
Natalie Wolchover
18 February 2011
http://www.livescience.com/12901-leaked-coca-cola-coke-recipe.html

Is This the Real Thing? Coca-Cola's Secret Formula 'Discovered'
William Lee Adams
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/02/15/is-this-the-real-thing-coca-colas-secret-formula-discovered

This American Life 427: Original Recipe
Originally aired 02.11.2011
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/427/original-recipe

Coca-Cola Formula
Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula

For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It
Mark Pendergrast
http://books.google.com/books?id=bSAChoqpnHUC&pg=PA456&lpg=PA456&dq=Mark+Pendergrast+coca+cola+recipe&source=bl&ots=JtXnnWali9&sig=Wtk6XfBpE-obG5_Gdl_EpjOl14I&hl=en&ei=lHJqTZy5C430tgPL3u2mBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mexican Coke: A Taste Test

Robert Sterling
Konformist.com
http://robalini.blogspot.com/

The times, they are a changin'. Less than two years ago, an article with the above title would immediately conjure up visions of Al Pacino in Scarface or Crockett and Tubbs in Miami Vice. Thanks to modern soda fads, however, most people would correctly deem this a review of Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico.

It was only a year and a half ago my pal Richard Metzger of DangerousMinds.net wrote an article titled "I Am a (Mexican) Coke Fiend" that signified the rising trend. As usual, Metzger knew the next big thing before the average bear, and soon drinking bottled Coke from south of the border became a hipster staple like skinny jeans or being ironic.

Of course, hoodie-wearing Silver Lakers aren't the only ones drinking the sweet brew. Indeed, the Mexican Coke market has become pretty big business that is part of a larger trend. PepsiCo has been selling versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew that are "Throwback" and Dr. Pepper has a "Heritage" label. Meanwhile, Sierra Mist, tired of being Cliff Barnes to Sprite's J.R. Ewing in the lemon-lime soda war, has changed its formula to have sugar as the sweetener. There's even a bottled version of Mexican Pepsi. Still, Mexican Coke is the Big Kahuna of the movement, in no small part due to the cult-like following Coca Cola has to its adherents. Way before iPods, iPads and iPhones gave iOrgasms to worshippers of Apple and their deity Steve Jobs, Coke has had devotees to its magical potion, made all the more mystical due to its secret formula. (The formula, incidentally, was reputedly uncovered recently on public radio, something you dear readers may not heard about due to the fact nobody listens to public radio.)

Central to the whole "throwback" soda movement is the usage of sugar over high-fructose corn syrup, a food substance that is now demonized (and probably deservedly so) on the level of trans fats, MSG and Nutrasweet. That's why the special Coke is made in Mexico: HFCS isn't used there like it is in the USA. That's because, thanks to the power of the corn producers lobby, corn syrup is heavily subsidized in the United States and is thus much cheaper than sugar. (That's the official explanation, anyway: the real reason is that HFCS is being used by the Illuminati to wipe out Americans as part of their plot to depopulate the planet.) In any case, sugar hasn't been used widely in American Coke since it returned from a brief hiatus in 1985 during the "New Coke" fiasco, even though many believe it's both tastier and healthier. The end result of the widespread usage of HFCS in America is doubly ironic: one, that now consumers seem to trust a food product made in Mexico more than one made in the United States, and two, sugar is now viewed as a healthy alternative in people's diet.

While most of the popularity of Mexican Coke can be traced to its lack of HFCS, there is another explanation that I have been a proponent of for its superior taste. It's not the sugar that makes bottled Coke better, but the bottle. Specifically, a glass bottle, unlike a aluminum can or a plastic bottle, doesn't leach chemicals that are both unappealing and dangerous into the drink. That has long been my theory, as I remember it tasted infinitely superior to Coke in any other form when glass botles were popular back in the day.

Of course, it's one thing to have a theory, and it's another thing to test it. I don't have a Mannlicher rifle and even if I did, the Dallas police probably wouldn't let me carry it to Dealey Plaza to fire it off. But I can buy a bottle of Mexican Coke and a plastic container of Coca-Cola made in the USA, and then compare them in taste. So damn it, that's why I did!

As it turns out, there seemed to be a bit of truth to both theories in my sampling. US Coke had a smoother, more refined taste than Mexican Coke did, but that worked against it, as it tasted more like syrup and less like a sweetened liquid. Likewise, there was a more metallic taste to US Coke, even though it was in plastic and not a can. All in all, Mexican Coke was the winner either way.

Or was it? Keep in mind, this was not a blind taste test, so I knew which was which. Certainly, I thought Mexican Coke tasted better, but was it a decisive advantage like I expected it to be? Definitely not. And while I think I'd probably pick the Mexican Coke in a blind taste test (actually doing such a test sounds like a little too much work for me) I can't be sure. Is it possible my mind was just playing tricks on me with my admitted biases? Definitely.

In many ways, the taste test reminds me of taking the Pepsi Challenge back in mid-80s at Vallco Fashion Park (the shopping mall haven in the tough streets of Cupertino.) I was then, as now, on team Coke (though I do not shun Pepsi) so I expected to know which was which and pick Coca-Cola with no problem. As it turns out, I did pick Coke, but it was in no way decisive or definite like I assumed it would be. Credit must be given to Pepsi: it's brew is a lot better than someone like me gives it credit for and far closer to The Real Thing than I believed. Likewise, credit must be given to Coca-Cola: sugar or HFCS, glass or plastic, this stuff tastes bitching any way you make it.

So what's the real explanation for the popularity of Mexican Coke? The corn syrup controversy can't explain it all: there are plenty of other products filled with HFCS doing fine. Perhaps it's just that my taste buds aren't as highfalutin as that snobby prick Richard Metzger? Possibly. Still, keep in mind, before I took the test, I too was a strong believer in the infinite superiority of the stuff.

I suspect the answer here isn't in the actual ingredients or the actual taste, but the process involved. Just as part of the appeal of absinthe is the elaborate ritual involved in drinking it, there is something to opening a container that's not made of industrial waste that seems pleasantly anachronistic. Personally, it reminds me of being on my grandpa's porch in Maryland as a child, having a drink on a hot summer day. Others may have their own associations. No matter the personal reason, my guess is that the psychological factor outweighs all other reasons behind the popularity of Mexican Coke.

But what do I know? My taste buds aren't the final judge of all things. I encourage you all to try this experiment yourself and give me your own report. For the record, I was not paid by Coca-Cola to write this, though I would be happy to accept a check from them...

For more on the Coke secret formula story:

Coca Cola Secret Formula!!!
Robert Sterling
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
http://robalini.blogspot.com/2011/02/coca-cola-secret-formula.html

Coca Cola Secret Formula!!!

The public radio show This American Life has discovered what it believes is the original recipe for Coca-Cola, probably the greatest corporate secret formula of all. According to Time.com:
"Producers of the radio program This American Life came across an article on the history of Coca-Cola in an old copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Coca-Cola's hometown newspaper. Published on page 2B on February 18, 1979, the article received little attention at the time. But, producers say, that's because no one realized the photo used to illustrate the story is a hand-written copy of John Pemberton's original recipe, jotted down by a friend in a leather-bound recipe book of ointments and medicines, and passed down by friends and family for generations."

The only mystery left if the recipe is true is how much sugar is to be used, though my guess is 30 oz. Another difficulty is acquiring the "fluid extract of Coca" in the original mixture, though perhaps that isn't too difficult after all. But the entire 7X secret flavoring is completely intact. Here is the complete recipe:

Fluid extract of Coca: 3 drams USP
Citric acid: 3 oz
Caffeine: 1 oz
Sugar: 30 (unclear quantity)
Water: 2.5 gal
Lime juice: 2 pints, 1 quart
Vanilla: 1 oz
Caramel: 1.5 oz or more for color

The secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol: 8 oz
Orange oil: 20 drops
Lemon oil: 30 drops
Nutmeg oil: 10 drops
Coriander: 5 drops
Neroli: 10 drops
Cinnamon: 10 drops

Is This the Real Thing? Coca-Cola's Secret Formula 'Discovered'
William Lee Adams
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/02/15/is-this-the-real-thing-coca-colas-secret-formula-discovered

This American Life 427: Original Recipe
Originally aired 02.11.2011
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/427/original-recipe

America's Favorite Park: Bear Head Lake

From Livepositively.com:

We’re proud to announce that Bear Head Lake State Park is the winner of the $100,000 grant from Coca-Cola.

Thank you for voting. We were overwhelmed by your support for America's parks. We received over 5.7 million votes with more than 28% of the votes going to the winning park. You donated nearly 500,000 My Coke Rewards points and over $25,000 through direct donations to the National Park Foundation. In addition, Coca-Cola also donated $200,000 to the National Park Foundation and $100,000 to Bear Head Lake State Park. Overall, Coca-Cola donated more than $500,000 in grants to national, state and local parks across the country this summer for new equipment such as bikes and kayaks, and the restoration and construction of activity areas.

For more than 40 years, Coca-Cola has supported America’s national parks. Through our support of individual parks and the National Park Foundation, we’ve helped maintain and rebuild 260 miles of trails so families can be active together while enjoying the great outdoors. In the last 4 years we’ve donated over 4 million dollars to national parks for restoration and renovation. Thanks again for your support of America’s parks.

Health fears over use of sweetener

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/health-fears-over-use-of-sweetener-1.929341

Health fears over use of sweetener
Coca Cola and Pepsi switched to sweetening their US products with HFCS in 1984
30 Oct 2009

A sugary ingredient that is commonly used to flavour processed foods and soft drinks could be a major cause of high blood pressure, new research has found.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is abundant in many types of foods and beverages, including fizzy drinks, biscuits, ketchup and bread, and was originally viewed as a “healthy” method of sweetening.

Its introduction 20 years ago has caused consumption of the fruit sugar fructose to rise sharply, alongside increasing levels of obesity.

Although healthy amounts of fructose exist naturally in fruit, excessive amounts of the sugar may be harmful. Studies have already shown that large quantities of fructose cause the liver to pump fats into the bloodstream that may damage arteries.

Links to insulin resistance and diabetes have been documented, with research also concluding that when people consume artificial sweeteners they have an increased desire to keep eating.

Researchers who carried out the new study in the US looked at more than 4500 adults with no prior history of high blood pressure.

Fructose intake was calculated by asking participants to rate their consumption of foods such as fruit juices, soft drinks, bakery products and confectionery.

The study found that people who ate or drank more than 74 grams of fructose per day, the equivalent to 2.5 sugary soft drinks, increased their risk of developing high blood pressure.

“Normal” blood pressure is said to be a reading of around 120/80 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) depending on age. The first figure relates to blood pressure when the heart is actively beating, the second is the reading of the blood pressure between beats.

More than 74 grams of fructose a day increased the chances of a higher reading of 135/85mmHg by 28%, the study found. It also increased the likelihood of a higher reading of 140/90mmHg by 36% and 160/100mmHg by 87%.

Since it was first developed in the United States in the 1970s, HFCS has widely replaced sugar as a result of the vast corn subsidies offered to farmers and the high price of sugar tariffs and quotas.

While there is no naturally occurring fructose in corn syrup, an enzyme was discovered in the 1950s that could turn its glucose content into fructose. This process was refined in the 1970s, leading to the mass production of HFCS. The product is also easier to blend and transport given its liquid form.

HFCS is now preferred over cane sugar among the vast majority of American food and drink manufacturers thanks to its low production costs. Coca Cola and Pepsi switched to sweetening their products with the substance in 1984, but continue to use sugar in other nations. Four main companies in the US control 85% of the HFCS market.

The use of HFCS in Europe has not been as widespread as in America. In 2005, the EU set a production quota of 303,000 tonnes a year. By contrast, the EU produced an average of 18.6 million tons of sugar annually between 1999 and 2001.

Americans today consume 30% more fructose than they did 20 years ago and up to four times more than they did 100 years ago, those behind the latest study reported yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in California.

Dr Diana Jalal, from the University of Colorado, and colleagues wrote in their paper: “These results indicate that high fructose intake in the form of added sugars is significantly and independently associated with higher blood pressure levels in the US adult population with no previous history of hypertension.”

Further work was needed to see if lowering fructose consumption could normalise blood pressure, Dr Jalal said.

I am a (Mexican) Coke Fiend

http://www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/comments/i_am_a_mexican_coke_fiend/

I am a (Mexican) Coke Fiend
08.13.2009
Richard Metzger

Okay, I’ll admit it… I’ve got a new vice and it’s a little on the embarrassing side. You see, I’ve turned into a real Coke fiend. Not cocaine, oh no, I went through that phase years ago, I mean THE REAL THING... Mexican Coca-Cola! That’s right kids, Mexican Coke is different from (most) domestic variants of the world’s most popular soft drink. In Mexican they use real sugar cane—none of this high fructose corn syrup shit south of the border—and it is SO FREAKING DELICIOUS.

Mind you, I say this as someone who has NEVER liked soda and never drank it at all (I could go years without drinking a single carbonated beverage, it’s true), but man I just cannot get enough this this stuff. It happened one day when a friend was visiting. We walked around the corner to the local bodega and my friend noticed that they had the classic glass Coke bottles with the stickers on them—“YES!”—he cried out “They’ve got Mexican Coke here!” We bought two, drank them, then went straight back and bought two more. That was a year ago and now I drink them all the time (so does my wife, another lifelong soda hater, now similarly addicted to the “Mexican brown”—as we Mexican Coke fiends call our favorite tipple).

I’ve got it easy, after all I live in Los Angeles where Mexican Coke is plentiful and cheap. Here’s some info from the A Continuous Lean blog about where you can “score” some Mexican Coke in your locale:

How do you get your hands on some of this tasty Mexican Coke? If you live in New York there are a few options. Bodegas in places like Sunset Park, Washington Heights, etc. often stock Mexican Coca-Cola as well as other versions of Coke from South American countries. The beverage store New-Beer on the Lower East Side will occasionally sell the real-deal sugar cane Coke. If you live in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico or California Costco sells Mexican Coke by the case. I have my friend Kate from Texas bring me four bottles at a time. Hope she doesn’t read this and see that I could get my Coke on the LES. Wait, that doesn’t sound right….

Is This the 1970s?

http://www.naturalnews.com/026713_Coca-Cola_caffeine_newspapers.html

Is This the 1970s? Coca-Cola Claims It Doesn't Rot Teeth - Insists It's "Kiddie Safe"
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The Coca-Cola Company's South Pacific division has been ordered to print a retraction of a full-page print ad claiming that Coca-Cola did not rot teeth or "[make] you fat."

"Coke's messages were totally unacceptable, creating an impression which is likely to mislead that Coca-Cola cannot contribute to weight gain, obesity and tooth decay," said Graeme Samuel, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). "They also had the potential to mislead parents about the potential consequences of consuming Coca-Cola."

In 2008, Coca-Cola South Pacific ran a full-page ad in a number of newspapers claiming to debunk a number of "myths" about Coke products. Kelly Armstrong, a popular Australian actress, was portrayed as the narrator in the ad, titled "Motherhood & Myth-Busting."

"Now that I've found out what's myth and what isn't, it's good to know that our family can continue to enjoy one of our favorite drinks," Armstrong said in the ad. "My boys now call me Mum, the Myth Buster!"

Claiming that Coke was perfectly "kiddie safe," the ad said it was time "to state the facts and to help you understand the truth behind Coca-Cola."

The ad identified the following popular perceptions of Coke as "myths": "It's full of added preservatives and artificial colors"; "Makes you fat"; "It was originally green"; "'Coca-Cola contained cocaine once upon a time"; "Packed with caffeine"; "Rots your teeth."

Following a joint complaint by the Australian Dental Association, the Obesity Policy Coalition and the Parents Jury, the ACCC launched an investigation into the ad, eventually concluding that it constituted false and misleading advertising. As a result, Coke has been ordered to run a corrective ad in major newspapers of every major Australian city. Among other corrections, the company must include accurate numbers for the amount of caffeine included in Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero.

In the initial ad, Coke falsely claimed that those soft drinks contained only one-third the caffeine of a cup of tea.

Sources for this story include: www.telegraph.co.uk.

15 Truly Shocking Facts about Soft Drinks

http://dentalassistingschool.org/15-truly-shocking-facts-about-soft-drinks/

15 Truly Shocking Facts about Soft Drinks

Who really thinks that much about ordering a Coca Cola or Pepsi with lunch? It’s delicious and brings a slight tear to your eye if you gulp the cold bubbles too fast. What’s not to love? The calorie count for one, but drinking soda can also lead to more health problems than a larger pant size. Inside that can or bottle, a host of harmful stuff is waiting. Read on for 15 soda shockers that may make you want to put that soft drink you’re sipping on now.

1. Sodium benzoate, a preservative commonly found in high-acidic sodas like Fanta and Dr. Pepper, can screw with your DNA. The additive can cause health concerns like Parkinson’s disease, cancer, cirrhosis and hyperactivity in children. In 2008, Coca-Cola removed sodium benzoate from Diet Coke, and plans to remove it in other soda drinks as well.

2. Sodas have a massive amount of sugar stored in that little can or bottle – as much as 10 teaspoons. A human liver can’t handle that much sugar at once and processes it into fat.

3. Soda has been known to cause serious gastrointestinal problems from increased stomach acid levels from caffeine. Not only that, but caffeine is addictive.

4. In 1994, the Journal of Adolescent Health published a study correlating sodas with bone fractures in young girls. The study concluded that there was “strong association between cola beverage consumption and bone fractures in girls.”

5. Let’s talk about diabetes and soda. The spike of energy you feel after downing a soft drink is a result of insulin being released to control the sugar levels in your body. Eventually with diabetes, you must deliver your own sources of insulin to control the levels of sugar in your body because your pancreas is tired.

6. The acids in soft drinks can wear away tooth enamel leaving your teeth to fend for themselves against other lesser, natural acids.

7. Diet soft drinks that contain saccharine can actually make you gain weight by tricking your body into eating more because sodas sweetened with saccharine actually have no calories to metabolize according to a study by Purdue University. There seems to be nothing diet about diet soft drinks when they add to your waistline.

8. Carbonated drinks can lead to cancer. When you drink a soft drink and it results in acid reflux problems or heartburn, you are actually increasing your chances in developing esophageal cancer, especially if the condition goes untreated.

9. Liquid calories are the enemy, and sodas have a lot of them. According to an article on the “liquid candy,” a 32 ounce Coca Cola contains nearly 400 calories. That’s certainly something to think about before you supersize that value meal.

10. A 2007 laboratory study led by food science professor, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D, of Rutgers University concluded that out of 11 different carbonated sodas containing high fructose corn syrup also had alarmingly high levels of carbonyls, a reactive compound believed to cause tissue damage. Carbonyls can be harmful to people with diabetes that already have elevated levels of reactive carbonyls. Ho estimated that a can of soda can have up to five times the amount of carbonyls than blood tested from a diabetic individual. Therefore, high fructose corn syrup may not be so good for you.

11. Caffeine withdrawal may make you cranky. It can give you nasty headaches and possibly cause you to chase your husband around the living room, frying pan in hand ready to strike. Just a friendly warning.

12. It’s an old tale, but Coca Cola used to contain small amounts of cocaine as its special ingredient until 1929. How much was actually in the soft drink is uncertain, but in 1885 when the product was developed there must have been more than a few people walking around with a cocaine buzz.

13. Experts have found that drinking between two and nine liters of cola a day can cause a condition called hypokalemia that inhibits muscle function from a loss in potassium. Two patients studied suffered from symptoms like fatigue, appetite loss, muscle weakness and persistent vomiting from drinking several liters of soda a day according to the International Journal of Clinical Practice. Both patients were weaned off the cola and symptoms disappeared.

14. Drinking too much coke can cause metabolic syndrome. The American Heart Association characterizes metabolic syndrome as multiple metabolic risk factors found in one individual. Some of these risk factors include elevated blood pressure, abdominal obesity, low HDL cholesterol and high LDL cholesterol and insulin resistance. Metabolic syndrome can lead to diabetes and heart problems.

15. Chronic cola drinkers can also expect a host of other health problems to follow the above mentioned and possibly others that have not been identified by health experts. Some other diseases linked to excessive soft drink consumption include gout, chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, kidney stones and tooth decay.

The refreshing crack of a can or bottle of soda may sound good, but the health risks outweigh a few moments of sugary pleasure. Researchers are finding new links to health problems and soda every year, but you have to die from something.

Stevia-Sweetened Diet Soft Drink Hits the Market

http://www.naturalnews.com/025458.html

First Stevia-Sweetened Diet Soft Drink Hits the Market: Zevia!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
David Gutierrez, staff writer
Key concepts: Stevia, Zevia and Soda

(NaturalNews) A new company called Zevia has introduced a line of stevia-sweetened, zero-calorie carbonated soft drinks, the first such products to hit the U.S. market.

Zevia soda comes in four flavors: Cola, Orange, Root Beer and Twist (lemon-lime). It contains no calories, but everything else soda drinkers have come to expect, from carbonation to caffeine (the cola contains 45 milligrams, about as much as a Diet Coke).

Because stevia has not been approved as a sweetener by the FDA, Zevia is not technically a soft drink, but rather a nutritional supplement, even though it can be found next to sodas on the shelves of 900 stores across the United States. A label on the product reads, "A dietary supplement is not permitted to disclose the amount of calories, carbs, fat, when there is zero. For that reason, Zevia does not disclose them."

Stevia is a natural sweetener derived from the leaves of a tropical American plant, and has a long history of traditional use in Brazil and Paraguay. It has been approved as a food ingredient in Japan since the 1970s.

According to Zevia co-founder Ian Eisenberg, the process of removing stevia's bitter taste and making a good-tasting soft drink was long and difficult.

"We made a lot of really, really bad soda and drank it," he said.

"There's a reason Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi don't have a lot of competition," agreed co-founder Jessica Newman. But now that the drink has been perfected and rave consumer reviews are coming in, "We are on a crusade to get people to kick the diet soda habit."

Major soft drink companies are also positioning themselves to exploit stevia's appeal as a natural, no-calorie sweetener. Cargill and Coca-Cola have already submitted a stevia product named Truvia to the FDA for approval and Coke hopes to market a stevia beverage before the end of 2008. Pepsi has introduced a stevia-based sweetener in Peru and plans to follow up with U.S. product launch this fall.

Analysts believe that both Coke and Pepsi will wait for the official FDA go-ahead before selling stevia-sweetened soft drinks.

Sources for this story include: seattlepi.nwsource.com.

FDA Approves Stevia

http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000626_stevia_Truvia_FDA.html

FDA Approves Stevia, Ends the Era of Oppression of this Herbal Sweetener
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, December 19, 2008
Key concepts: Stevia, Truvia and FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted GRAS approval for a natural, zero-calorie sweetener it once sought to wipe out from the U.S. marketplace. Following political pressure from powerful consumer product corporations (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, primarily), the FDA has once again fallen in step with the interests of Big Business and legalized a food and beverage ingredient that it once aggressively oppressed.

In this case, however, the approval of this ingredient happens to be in the best interests of consumers. Why? Because it will largely replace aspartame, an artificial sweetener chemical linked to numerous neurological disorders, including headaches, eye disorders and other problems.

It will also unleash a wave of stevia-sweetened products for consumers, and that's good news for diabetics or anyone seeking healthier products sweetened with an herbal extract rather than a synthetic chemical.

I publicly predicted this FDA decision just two weeks ago an article containing thirty-one predictions for 2009 (http://www.naturalnews.com/024976.html). The FDA's approval of stevia is prediction #8, for those keeping track. (Interestingly, at least two of the top 13 predictions for 2009 have already come true in the last month of 2008!)

The circumstances surrounding this FDA approval of stevia reveal yet again the true loyalties of the agency. When stevia threatened the profits of aspartame, it was routinely suppressed by the agency. FDA thugs seized imports of stevia at the border, destroyed millions of dollars in stevia products, threatened companies with fines for daring to sell stevia, and even ordered one company to destroy its recipe books that mentioned stevia in dessert recipes. But now, when Coca-Cola and Pepsi want stevia approved, the FDA suddenly reverses its oppression and decides to legalize the herb.

Again, this is a rare case where the FDA's decision benefits consumers, but the circumstances behind the decision were in no way motivated by consumer interest. They were motivated by corporate profits.

Betty Martini's victory

What's so profitable about stevia? Well, thanks to the efforts of Betty Martini and others who have been warning about the dangers of aspartame, word has spread across the 'net to the point where informed consumers no longer want to consume aspartame at all. In other words, the aspartame opponents succeeded in destroying the consumer acceptability of aspartame! And that led the big players (Coke, Pepsi, etc.) to look for something that would be more acceptable to consumers.

That search led them to stevia. And once Big Business got behind the herb, it was only a matter of time before the FDA caved in to commercial interests and legalized the herb.

Realize this crucial point: The FDA's decisions these days are based entirely on corporate profits and have absolutely nothing to do with science, safety or consumer interests. Remember, it was just a few days ago that the FDA declared infants, children and even pregnant women could now eat essentially unlimited quantities of mercury in fish, without any negative health consequences whatsoever! This is the same agency that says children can "safely" eat melamine, bisphenol-A, MSG, sodium nitrite and all sorts of other dangerous, toxic substances that harm human health.

So don't be fooled for a minute into thinking that the FDA's approval of stevia has anything to do with serving the People.

Stevia victory!

Nevertheless, this approval of stevia stands as a major consumer victory. And I want to take a minute to applaud three people who deserve big-time credit for spreading the word about aspartame, thereby creating demand for stevia that has finally led to its approval:

• Dr. Betty Martini (http://www.mpwhi.com/main.htm)
• Jeff Rense (www.Rense.com)
• Dr. Russell Blaylock (www.RussellBlaylockMD.com)

There are many others, of course, and even NaturalNews may deserve some credit (I've been promoting stevia for ten years now), but the main credit goes to Dr. Betty Martini who has fought aspartame for well over a decade.

In fact, the approval of stevia is paving the way for the banning of aspartame! And I predict aspartame will eventually be banned or removed from the GRAS list, but that would have never happened unless an alternative were available. Stevia is that alternative.

Is Cargill's stevia really safe?

There is some speculation that the patented stevia being used by Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other big businesses is in some way less natural than the traditional stevia we've been buying at health food stores for years. Some have wondered how their patented stevia (Truvia) could actually be patented unless there were some synthetic molecules in it.

It's a reasonable question, but at the moment, I'm not aware of any evidence of Truvia being adulterated or synthesized in any way at all. In fact, I personally welcome the ingredient and applaud Cargill for pressuring the FDA into getting this GRAS approved. There is no evidence I'm aware of that their stevia is genetically modified or altered in any way. Of course, if such evidence emerges, I'll make it available here on NaturalNews, but at the moment I'm supporting this Truvia ingredient and would even consume it myself. That's always subject to change if new information emerges, of course.

Sherry Weiss Poall, who works for the RF Binder public relations agency that serves Cargill, has been distributing safety research data about Truvia since July, 2008, but since those studies were paid for by Cargill, many people might dismiss their objectivity.

In any case, I believe that the natural health community should cautiously embrace this ingredient for the time being. It is, after all, a hugely positive move for the food and beverage industry to be able to ditch aspartame and shift to an herbal sweetener. If anything, this is a monumental victory for natural health over synthetic chemicals. It's a victory that took over a decade to become a reality, but it has finally arrived in the United States thanks to this late decision by a reluctant FDA.

Watch for stevia-sweetened products to appear on store shelves everywhere. You'll also see lots of formulations that will combine stevia with other sweeteners to provide higher sweetness with fewer overall calories (and a lower glycemic index).

Coke to unveil natural diet drink in U.S.: report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081215/us_nm/us_cocacola

Coke to unveil natural diet drink in U.S.: report
12-15-8

(Reuters) – Coca-Cola Co is expected to launch a drink in the U.S. this week containing a natural, calorie-free sweetener, the Wall Street Journal said.

Coke is pushing ahead even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as of Sunday hadn't issued formal approval of the ingredient, the paper said.

Coke plans to market three flavors of a juice drink in its Odwalla line that contain the sweetener, derived from the herb stevia, the paper said citing people familiar with Coke's plans.

Coca-Cola's rival PepsiCo Inc has several drinks ready to go in the U.S. market with the sweetener, the paper said, adding that the company is waiting for the FDA to clear the additive.

Stevia is approved for use in at least 12 countries and as a dietary supplement in the U.S., according to the paper.

After some studies suggested adverse health effects from stevia-based products, such as potential mutations in the livers of rats, the FDA concluded in the early 1990s that data weren't sufficient to allow its use as a food additive, the paper said.

Coke, Pepsi and companies they are working with told the paper that their sweetener -- called Truvia by Coke and PureVia by Pepsi -- is more highly purified than the versions of stevia used in those earlier tests, and that new data have been submitted to the FDA.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Wake Up And Smell The Slurpee®!

http://www.7-eleven.com/newsroom/articles.asp?p=2441

Wake Up And Smell The Slurpee®!
7-Eleven® Debuts Slurpuccino™ – First Coffee-Flavored Slurpee Drink

Dallas, TX, February 22, 2008 - In the mid 1960s, 7-Eleven, Inc. introduced thirsty Americans to two new beverage concepts – hot coffee to go and Slurpee® frozen carbonated beverages, two drinks that are now synonymous with the convenience giant. Combining these two top-selling ideas into one great-tasting new drink – the Slurpuccino, a coffee-flavored Slurpee -was an idea whose time has come.

The Café Latté-flavored Slurpuccino is not a milk-based product, but is caffeinated, fat-free and has only 61 calories per 8-ounce serving, unlike most frozen cappuccinos on the market. Prices are similar to any other Slurpee drink, which range from 99 cents for a 12-ounce cup to $1.69 for 40 ounces.

“Slurpee is a beverage for kids of all ages,” said Jay Wilkins, category manager for Slurpee and Big Gulp® fountain drinks. “Slurpuccino capitalizes on the consumer-driven trend of coffee-flavored products and, while it may be more of a grown-up Slurpee, we believe young adults and older teens will enjoy it as well.”

Developed for 7-Eleven® stores by The Coca-Cola Company, the Slurpuccino drink is a new beverage platform with Café Latté as the version offered. The coffee- and caramel-flavored frozen drink targets young adults ages 18-34, both male and female. More than 75 percent of Slurpee drinkers are under the age of 34.

“Coffee flavors are ‘hot’ right now, whether served hot, cold or frozen,” Wilkins said. “We sell millions of Slurpee drinks each month, plus numerous chilled coffee-flavored drinks in the stores’ cold vault. This indicates we have a very receptive customer base for the Slurpuccino drink.”

Slurpuccino also provides a “better-for-you” alternative for coffee-lovers who want to monitor calories, fat or caffeine in their diets. Compared to some other retailers’ frozen cappuccino drinks, 7-Eleven’s coffee-flavored Slurpee beverage has approximately one-third the calories, half the sugar and no fat grams. Adding a whipped topping can raise fat content by 20 grams. Compared to a cup of coffee, which contains between 100 and 175 milligrams of caffeine, an 8-ounce Slurpuccino has only 5 mg.

“Customers purchase a Slurpee drink as a treat,” Wilkins said. “Adding Slurpuccino provides a more indulgent option to our frozen beverage line-up. Customers can now indulge in a rich, great-tasting frozen coffee drink without worrying about the impact of a lot of calories or fat content.”

The new drink is expected to be offered in a hazelnut-cappuccino flavor this fall.

Coffee is the convenience retailer’s number-one selling proprietary beverage. With more than half of its customers purchasing a beverage, 7-Eleven carries about 350 different drink choices in its stores.

About 7 Eleven, Inc.

7 Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Based in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 7,500 7-Eleven® stores in North America. Globally, 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 34,000 stores in 17 countries and U.S. territories. During 2007, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of more than $46.6 billion. Find out more online at www.7-Eleven.com.

Coke, Clydesdales Score

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120112559156711183-dQtHEZ6tTO1FO8CiK0ikRRtW9RE_20080305.html

Coke, Clydesdales Score
With Super Bowl Viewers
By SUZANNE VRANICA
February 4, 2008; Page B1

A number of marketers tried to win over Super Bowl viewers with gross-out ads, but two feel-good commercials were the big hits among advertising executives and consumers.

Coca-Cola Co. had one of the most popular spots. The ad, made by Wieden + Kennedy, shows Underdog and Stewie balloons fighting over a Coke balloon during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- only to be defeated by Charlie Brown. "Awesome and exactly what a Super Bowl commercial should be," says Mark DiMassimo, chief executive of DiMassimo Goldstein, a boutique ad agency. "It's big, epic, sunny and beautiful."

"Yes, Charlie Brown finally gets the win," says Bud Kerwin, a 31-year-old salesman from Chicago.

Anheuser-Busch Co.'s Clydesdales, a perennial fan favorite, also scored among ad and marketing executives and consumers surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The Budweiser spot, created by Omnicom Group Inc.'s DDB Chicago, shows a horse failing to make the team of Clydesdales chosen to pull the Budweiser wagon. But with the help of a Dalmatian who plays the role of personal trainer, Hank the horse eventually succeeds.

"I loved it and it made me cry," says Rochelle Fainstein, a junior creative director at Havas SA's Arnold New York. "The guys and girls at my party liked that ad the most," says Steven Murry, a 32-year-old manager at the United States Soccer Federation from Chicago. "You can't go wrong with horses and dogs."

In a year in which the game ended in an upset, the lineup of high-priced commercials also beat expectations, those surveyed said. "Welcome back, Madison Avenue, you came up with the goods this year," says Dean Crutchfield, a branding expert at Omnicom's Wolff Olins.

It wasn't only the warm and fuzzy ads that did well during the game. Several gag-joke spots also stood out, including one from FedEx Corp., and several from Anheuser, long the biggest advertiser during the pigskin matchup.

FedEx's ad, via Omnicom's BBDO, features gargantuan pigeons being used as a delivery service. "FedEx always has good Super Bowl ads, and this one is on point and really funny," says John Staffen, chief creative officer at Arnold NY. "The ad was memorable and is likely to be the one talked about," says Matt Krehbiel, a 29-year-old student at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill., who was watching the game with a group of 36 students and faculty.

One spot that caused some people to laugh out loud was a Bud Light ad that shows a man with the ability to breathe fire wreaking havoc during a romantic dinner. The man accidentally sets the house, his date and her cat ablaze. "That ad was hilarious," says Eric McCue, an electrician from Hartsdale, N.Y.

The Cinderella story of the evening was Procter & Gamble Co.'s ad for Tide to Go, which features a talking stain. "Brilliant ad for a boring category," says Mr. Crutchfield, of Wolff Olins. "It resonated with me," says Kevin Quinn, 42, a small-business owner in Minneapolis. "We have all been there."

With more than 90 million people in the U.S. expected to tune into Sunday's game, dozens of advertisers had no qualms about forking over as much as $2.7 million for 30 seconds worth of ad time. Despite an increase in prices -- last year's top price was $2.6 million -- ad time for the game sold out faster than it has in years. With media splintering at a dizzying pace, the annual football game remains the biggest mass-marketing vehicle. Viewership levels are nearly double that of its nearest competitor, the Oscars.

Because some 60 spots air during the game, getting attention isn't easy. Some ads stood out for the wrong reason. A commercial created by Wieden + Kennedy for Careerbuilder.com, the online job site owned by Gannett Co., Tribune Co., McClatchy Co. and Microsoft Corp., features a computerized image of a heart jumping out of a woman's chest and holding up a sign that says "I Quit" in front of her boss.

"That was stupid and morbid," says Walter Ivers, a 39-year-old teacher in New York City.

In Careerbuilder's other spot, an animated firefly answers the call of an unhappy office worker. The two sing a duet and things are looking up -- until a cartoon spider swings down and captures the firefly. "I just didn't get it," says David Corr, an executive creative director at the New York office of Publicis USA, a unit of Publicis Groupe.

For some companies, gross-out humor worked. An ad from AMP Energy drink, which is owned by PepsiCo Inc., shows a fat man who, to start a stalled car, attaches jumper cables to his nipples and chugs the drink. "A jolt of fun," said Joseph Mazzaferro, a creative director at MDC Partners Inc.'s Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners. And E*Trade Financial Corp.'s spot, which, through the use of special effects, shows a baby talking and spitting up on his computer while making trades, got some laughs.

A spot for Victoria's Secret in which a scantily clad model reminds football fans that Valentine's Day is around the corner was a hit with some viewers. "I hope my wife watched that ad," says Simeon Roane, executive creative director at Publicis. Victoria's Secret is owned by Limited Brands Inc.

Volkswagen AG's Audi, which returned to the game after almost 20 years with a Godfather-themed spot to promote its new R8 sports car, was seen as the winner of the ad battle among the car companies. The ad shows a man awakening with grease all over his sheets and hands and finding the front end of a car under his sheets. "Unique ad and a great way to sell a car," says Gradwell Sears, an art director at Arnold. Perhaps more importantly, almost a dozen people surveyed said the car was "hot."

Ads from General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. lacked flair, many of the ad executives and consumers we talked with said.

Typical for Super Bowl ads, a number paraded celebrities across the screen, including actress Carmen Electra, baseball star Derek Jeter and NBA luminaries Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade. But only a few managed to truly entertain, according to the ad and marketing executives surveyed. Among the successes was funny-man Will Ferrell in a spot for Bud Light playing a character from his new movie "Semi-Pro."

An ad for Diet Pepsi Max featuring Missy Elliott, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes and Macy Gray, all nodding off until they are revived by drinking Diet Pepsi-Max, had some watchers tapping their toes. "A lot of fun and entertaining," says Tiffany Tyler, a 26-year-old student at the Kellogg School of Management.

A star-driven ad that failed to live up to expectations for those surveyed was one from PepsiCo's SoBe Life Water that shows lizards dancing with model Naomi Campbell. "I thought I was watching an ad for Geico," says Bill Ward, professor of marketing at Alfred University's College of Business.

The biggest fumble of the night with viewers was by Salesgenie.com, a company that provides databases to marketers. More than half-a-dozen ad executives found the company's animation spots offensive. In one ad, a married panda-bear couple speaking with Asian accents worries that they may go out of business but are saved by a panda psychic who recommends Salesgenie; the other ad shows a white boss berating an Indian salesman, Ramesh, who has eight children.

"Its hard to imagine that a company would be that insensitive," says Rita Rodriguez, chief executive of the Brand Union US, a branding firm owned by WPP Group PLC.

First-Timers Excel in Super Bowl Ads

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8cpWAqKFk116UzfnJ1nZqgEjyGAD8UJC4OG0

First-Timers Excel in Super Bowl Ads
By SETH SUTEL
2-4-8

NEW YORK (AP) — The Super Bowl can be a scary but rewarding place, and not just for the football players. This year several first-time advertisers, including Planters nuts, showed they've got what it takes to compete with marketing powerhouses like Anheuser-Busch Inc.

Cars.com and Bridgestone Firestone North America also turned in solid freshman performances, but some of the most memorable entries came from Coke.

Back in the game last year after an absence of nine years, Coca-Cola Co.'s main brand was an even bigger presence this year. A spot playing on the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade featured giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters chasing after an inflatable bottle of Coke, high over the rooftops of Manhattan.

Another Coke spot featured political rivals James Carville and Bill Frist, getting over their differences with a Coke — then tooling around Washington on Segway scooters.

Rival PepsiCo Inc. had several spots in the game as well, some of them more quizzical. A spot for Pepsi's Diet Pepsi Max featured a series of people nodding off to sleep, including a man at a deli counter with a preposterously large comb-over, who are revived with a jolt of caffeine.

The odd bent of the Pepsi commercials led one set of reviewers, a panel of MBA students led by Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, to declare that "Coke got the better of Pepsi" this year.

Also scoring high on Calkins' list this year was a spot for Tide to Go, a portable cleaning product from Procter & Gamble Co. In the ad, a distracting stain on a job applicant's shirt winds up blowing his interview.

Kraft Foods Inc.'s Planters nuts division delivered a clever ad featuring a plain-looking woman sporting a full monobrow. She still manages to drive men crazy with a secret scent — essence de cashew nut, applied by liberally rubbing cashews against the neck.

Cars.com, an online classified ad company owned by Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and other newspaper publishers, employed car shoppers who didn't have to resort to a "plan B" to get what they wanted from the car dealers. Options included a medicine man who could shrink heads.

Fellow first-timer Bridgestone Firestone North America didn't take any chances in missing out on viewers' attention. It employed exercise guru Richard Simmons, Alice Cooper, an albino snake and a band of screeching animals to make a point about the road-gripping qualities of its tires.

Job-search site CareerBuilder.com returned not with the cast of monkeys it used for several years, but with an ad featuring a bored office worker whose heart jumps out of her chest, struts down to the boss's office and jumps up on the desk with a little sign saying, "I quit."

The Super Bowl audience is by far the largest delivered in any medium. It included 93 million viewers last year. Such numbers are even harder to come by these days now that a writers' strike has knocked many scripted dramas off the air.

They're also expensive: Advertisers pay as much as $2.7 million for 30 seconds of air time, and the price edges higher nearly every year.

Anheuser-Busch Inc. was once again the largest advertiser in the game, with a series of humorous spots for its Bud Light brand and a heartfelt "Rocky"-inspired story of a Clydesdale horse that doesn't make the first cut for the carriage team, but succeeds after a year of training with an unlikely coach, a Dalmatian dog.

All of Anheuser-Busch's other spots focused on its Bud Light brand and were heavy on sight gags, including guys sneaking beers into a wine-and-cheese party with a loaf of French bread and a big wheel of cheese, a group of hapless cavemen who invent the wheel to bring their cooler of beer to a party, and a guy who gets fire-breathing power from drinking Bud Light, with some unfortunate side effects.

Bud Light pushed the envelope with a late-airing ad featuring Will Ferrell in character for his upcoming basketball comedy, "Semi-Pro." The comic extols the beer's ability to refresh the palate — "and the loins."

Is Coca-Cola Putting Stevia On The Fast-Track?

http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=7221

Is Coca-Cola Putting Stevia On The Fast-Track To Approval As A Sweetener?
Jimmy Moore
June 2, 2007

The following is a reprint from the blog "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb":

Did you know Diet Coke in Japan is sweetened with the plant-based stevia?

About a year ago I blogged about the controversial all-natural sugar alternative called stevia. At the time, I lamented that stevia was not approved by the Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) to even be called a sweetener...yet! But that may be about to change if a joint venture with The Coca-Cola Company and a major food additive business has anything to say about it (and you KNOW they will because money talks!).

This USA Today story notes that Coke as well as Cargill Foods have decided to take a serious look at a sweetener they want to call rebiana (a shortened word used for Stevia Rebaudiana). Remember that name they have come up with because it's the term these companies are going to be using for stevia soon and it's been three years in the making.

For people who are livin' la vida low-carb and choose to avoid the use of the chemical-based sweeteners that dominate the marketplace, such as saccharin (Sweet 'N Low), aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal), and sucralose (Splenda), many of us have been using stevia instead because it contains ZERO calories and carbohydrates. That's certainly impressive nutritional info for a natural alternative to sugar.

But it's gonna be a bit of an uphill battle to get stevia approved since the FDA has come down so strongly AGAINST approving it while this list of sugar alternatives get a free pass--all of which are made from chemicals. But there are still a lot of people who have concerns over the safety of these products (and I get e-mails from people ALL THE TIME about my support for Splenda--get over it already people. That stuff helped me overcome morbid obesity, so leave it be!).

As a result, that's the allure of having commercial acceptance of stevia in a popular product like Diet Coke. With crazy new product concepts like the vitamin-infused Diet Coke Plus (made with aspartame), the "calorie-burning" Enviga (also sweetened with aspartame and a touch of ACE-K), and their marketing darling of the moment Coke Zero (yep, you guessed it, sweetened with aspartame and ACE-K), this idea of making a Diet Coke with Stevia is the best thing they've come up with since my favorite sugar-free soda Diet Coke with Splenda was released to the market (although they've never given it the proper marketing IMHO!).

Interestingly, stevia IS already being used in Diet Coke--in Japan, where stevia boasts a robust 40% of the sweetener market, as well as in Brazil, China, and nine other industrialized countries. So what's taking America so long to get going with this in this country already? The FDA needs to get its head out of their backside and approve stevia as a sweetener.

Are they afraid of the competition it will give that disgusting NASTY-tame? If so, then GOOD! They should be because it's high time people have other alternatives. I'm tired of seeing Nutrasweet in EVERYTHING sugar-free/low-carb I would want to purchase. Put Splenda or stevia in some of these products already! There's a bunch of us who don't like aspartame at all!

Currently, the Coca-Cola Company has been seriously looking at this since 2004 and last week filed a total of 24 patents to begin removing the sweetest parts of stevia so they can come up with the perfect taste and blend of rebiana to be used in their future versions of Diet Coke.

It's not yet known if this new sweetener will eventually be phased in to replaced aspartame or if it will be mixed with ACE-K or other sweeteners in totally different products altogether. But clearly Coke is ready to put stevia on the fast-track to FDA approval.

As for Cargill Foods, they intend to use this stevia-based sweetener in foods like yogurt, cereal, ice cream, and other sugar-free sweet treats. This is expected to be a huge undertaking that could quite literally shake up the food and beverage industry unlike anything that has come along in the past few decades. This is long overdue in America and I can't wait to see it come.

A Cargill representative said this was a "significant investment," so don't expect them to take no for an answer from self-serving interest groups who will oppose the use of stevia in this manner to cover their bedonkadonks with the artificial sweetener companies. That's why Cargill has already begun the process of petitioning the FDA to use stevia as a food additive. It's gonna be difficult, but I'm confident they'll get approval. Stay tuned!

Although Coke is saying the stevia they have tested in several of their products has performed just as well as the aspartame and sucralose for sweetness, I'm not as convinced about it. Sure, stevia is an excellent product and I have used it myself in various forms, but the black licorice-like bitterness can be a real turn-off to some people. The blend will have to be perfect.

I'm sure if stevia finally does make it into a Diet Coke product in the next few years that they'll make it taste as sweet as possible by very likely using an ACE-K blend. It'll probably resemble the aspartame/ACE-K blends that dominate the Coca-Cola line of sugar-free products today. This will be a HUGE step in the right direction for the world's #1 beverage maker (although I wouldn't mind having more Splenda-sweetened options, too--HINT HINT!).

If rebiana becomes a household name thanks to Coke and Cargill Foods, then you can expect PepsiCo, Dannon, and other rivals in the sugar-free/low-carb market to develop their own versions of stevia-sweetened products--perhaps they'll be allowed to actually call it stevia. Actually, if they're smart, then they'll start working on this NOW!

I've long held that having an "all-natural" sweetener like stevia is already on the cutting edge and it's only a matter of time before it is as widely used in the United States just as it is in Japan today. It's not a matter of if, but when. I can't wait to try a Rebiana Coke with a green stevia leaf on the can as a logo to distinguish it from the other versions. This will be the most unique diet soda product to ever release!

Are you ready for a Diet Coke made with stevia?

Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071030/ts_afp/consumerhealthfoodchildren

Sleeping pills for kids top global list of bad products
Tue Oct 30, 2007

Sleeping pills advertised for children, dangerous toys and bottled water taken from local reservoirs are among the world's worst products, a global consumer group said Monday.

In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children.

The company ran a television advertisement in the United States which used images of children, chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.

The "back-to-school" advertisements, which complied with US law, promoted the sleeping pills to parents without including health warnings for children, Consumers International said.

"This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour," the group said.

Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.

Kellogg's, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods.

"Kellogg's are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt," Consumers International said.

"Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg's have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late."

Toymaker Mattel was also named over the global recall of more than 19 million products made in China because of high lead levels and small magnets.

Last month the US toymaker apologised to China, saying the vast majority of recalls were due to design flaws and had nothing to do with where the toys were manufactured.

"This is a classic case of avoiding accountability and shifting responsibility on a global scale," Consumers International said.

"Wherever the fault lies, the safety of consumers was compromised and this should be the full focus of Mattel's attention, not finger pointing and not blame dodging."

Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organisations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust.

"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible," the group's director general Richard Lloyd said.

"In highlighting their shortcomings, Consumers International and its 220 member organisations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."

The awards, which were announced at Consumers International's World Congress in Sydney, were whittled down from submissions by consumer organisations around the world.

Criteria for final selection included the size of the company, the scale of sales and marketing, the impact on consumers, and the potential for change by the corporation.

Aquafina labels to spell out source - tap water

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070726/hl_nm/pepsico_aquafina_dc

Aquafina labels to spell out source - tap water
By Martinne Geller
Thu Jul 26, 2007

PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry.

According to Corporate Accountability International, a U.S. watchdog group, the world's No. 2 beverage company will include the words "Public Water Source" on Aquafina labels.

"If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do," said Michelle Naughton, a Pepsi-Cola North America spokeswoman.

Pepsi Chief Executive Indra Nooyi told Reuters earlier this week the company was considering such a move.

Pepsi's Aquafina and Coca-Cola Co's Dasani are both made from purified water sourced from public reservoirs, as opposed to Danone's Evian or Nestle's Poland Spring, so-called "spring waters," shipped from specific locations the companies say have notably clean water.

Coca-Cola Co. told Reuters it will start posting online information about the quality control testing it performs on Dasani by the end of summer or early fall.

"Concerns about the bottled-water industry, and increasing corporate control of water, are growing across the country," said Gigi Kellett, director of the "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign, which aims to encourage people to drink tap water.

San Francisco's mayor banned city employees from using city funds to buy bottled water when tap water is available. Ann Arbor, Michigan passed a resolution banning commercially bottled water at city events and Salt Lake City, Utah asked department heads to eliminate bottled water.

Critics charge the bottled water industry adds plastic to landfills, uses too much energy by producing and shipping bottles across the world and undermines confidence in the safety and cleanliness of public water supplies, all while much of the world's population is without access to clean water.

But industry observers said such opposition is unlikely to drain U.S. sales of bottled water, which reached 2.6 billion cases in 2006, according to Beverage Digest. The industry newsletter estimated that U.S. consumers spent about $15 billion on bottled water last year.

"Consumers have an affection for bottled water. It's not an issue of taste or health, it's about convenience," the newsletter's publisher, John Sicher, said. "Try walking up (New York City's) Third Avenue on a hot day and getting a glass of tap water."

Dave Kolpak, a portfolio manager at Victory Capital Management, said the environmental objections will have little impact on the bottom line for either Pepsi or Coke, though he admitted it could slow the market's growth rate.

"Pepsi and Coke do not make a lot of profit" on bottled water, said Kolpak, adding that people may talk about the issue, but will likely continue buying some bottled water. Victory Capital owns about 3 million shares of PepsiCo among its $62 billion under management.