Drinking your way to XXXL

A New York Times article (You Are Also What You Drink) discusses some of the hidden health implications of the beverages we choose to drink.

Nearly a quarter of the calories consumed by the average American over the age of two come from beverages, but because beverages have “weak satiety properties”—although they provide calories, they don’t affect your appetite—people typically don’t account for those calories when making food choices.

This particular attribute of “hidden” calories—perhaps a more accurate term would be unaccounted calories—is particularly distressing considering the beverage industry’s recently publicized interest in marketing healthy sodas. Specifically, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have both announced plans to market “sparkling beverages” that are fortified with vitamins and minerals: Diet Coke Plus and Tava, from PepsiCo. According to the International Herald Tribune article:

Tava will contain vitamins B3, B6 and E, and chromium. Diet Coke Plus will contain niacin, vitamins B6 and B12, magnesium and zinc.

Including these vitamins and minerals in their products allows these companies to make related, generic health claims like: “a good source of zinc!” Perhaps that will be enough to convince someone in the supermarket that there are some benefits to drinking a soda. But in my opinion it’s ludicrous to think that there are any health benefits related to drinking soda, unless you count reaching your daily intake of high fructose corn syrup.

These types of health claims have been popping up all over the place. I was just at a restaurant this evening where I saw the Heinz Ketchup bottle with a health claim about lycopene, an antioxidant. A quick use of Google later this evening revealed that there’s actually a term for this kind of health claim: A Qualified Health Claim. In this case, a qualified health claim about the benefits of tomatoes in Heinz products.

A quick read of the ingredients in the Heinz Ketchup revealed high fructose corn syrup as the number three ingredient, behind “tomato concentrate made from red ripe tomatoes” and “distilled vinegar”.

Oh, and another thing I learned tonight is that something like orange juice that’s been fortified with calcium is called a “functional beverage”. I guess juice from regular oranges just doesn’t cut it these days.

Tags: Coca-cola, pepsico, soda, beverages, high-fructose-corn-syrup, heinz, ketchup, health-claims, qualified-health-claims, functional-beverages, obesity