A coroner in New Zealand has listed Coca Cola as a substantial factor in the death of a woman in her thirties. She drank at least 8 litres of Coke every day and died of cardiac arrest. She exceeded the guidelines for sugar and caffeine consumption every day she drank the massive amounts of Coke. She didn’t just exceed the daily recommended limits she probably set records for over-consumption of caffeine and sugar.
The Coca Cola corporation is disputing the coroner’s report because they did not make the woman drink litre after litre of Coke every day. They did not go to her house with free bottles or threaten her family if she didn’t consume her daily minimum. The woman bought the Coke and the woman drank the Coke. Consumer groups in New Zealand are calling for warning labels on Coke.
Consumer groups in Canada and the United States have tried to blame fast food producers for our expanding waist lines. Consumer groups have also tried to blame credit card companies and banks for our huge consumer debt levels. Are banks and fast food restaurants to blame because I have too much debt and I am chubby?
Let me say that Colonel Saunders was a genius. His fried chicken calls to me when I sleep but he did not put anything addictive in the secret recipe that forces me to want more. There are no subliminal messages in his television commercials. The food tastes great and I want to eat it. The same goes for McDonald’s french fries. What a wonderful thing they are. They are so tasty and so salty that I think they have invented a way to make salt taste saltier.
Credit card companies advertise great offers such as 6 months no interest on balance transfers when you open a new card. Banks offer credit card consolidation loans and lines of credit with only minimum monthly payments required. I receive offers all the time in my mailbox, email, when I am checking accounts on-line and of course when I am standing in front of the bank teller.
Who is responsible for all my debt and my problem with fast food? Have I been tricked by fancy marketing? Have I been tricked because of the fine print in credit card statements and the lack of nutrition labelling on my Whopper wrapper? Have I been led astray by the flashy tv commercials showing people having fun with friends at a fast food restaurant or enjoying time on a tropical beach now because they charged it instead of saving for it?
How have the credit cards and banks been able to render us helpless to ask questions? Why have we stopped asking questions if we don’t understand how our credit works? The bank has people to talk to and all we have to do is make an appointment. Every fast food chain has their nutrition content on their websites and somewhere in the restaurant and all you have to do is ask to see it.
I have moved credit card balances to my line of credit. I have used my line of credit for wants instead of needs. I owe a lot, $19,800, on my HELOC (home equity line of credit) but no one made me run it up. The extra weight I carry from eating KFC and McFries and all the money on my HELOC was my own decision.
The poor woman in New Zealand drank her self to death using Coke instead of alcohol. Many of us are compromising our futures by paying interest we can’t afford for stuff we don’t need but really want to have. No one made her drink the Coke. No one makes you have debt . All you have to do is educate yourself. Why do so many people feel that we are not responsible for our own actions because the decisions involve thought?
Somewhere there must be a consumer protection group who feels that we can no longer be responsible for our own decisions because some big corporation has made us that way.
When will this blaming of “others” end? I am rather surprised that we can blame corporations (faceless, at that), for things that we as consumers choose to do.
No one forced anyone to do anything. I used to LOVE KFC and junk food, but I’ve since weaned myself off that stuff, and I haven’t tasted any of that since.
Did anyone force me to eat healthier and to do it? No, it was willpower against temptation.
We can even throw guns, cigarettes and gambling into the mix here — are they not responsible either, for their actions? Is it the gun manufacturer who should be booed?
Then you get the other side of the coin if the government starts regulating too much in our lives — “Oh I don’t like it when they tell me I can’t buy a gun any more!” .. or “I don’t want the government to tell me that I can’t buy junk food any more. I LOVE IT!”
Ridiculous. We should all start acting like grownups.
The Coke drinking woman had to have all her teeth removed several years ago because of the acid in the pop but she still wasn’t prepared to make changes.
As for acting like grownups….
I think you are American. Your government is facing another financial crisis with the sequester deadline looming so they will be going on another vacation soon. Any business, other than a publicly funded one, would be out of business if they took vacations when there was work to be done.
Exactly, it’s usually a lack of self-control and discipline that leads to both negative outcomes.
I think the lack of control in one area is often an indicator of lack of control in the other area.
“She drank at least 8 litres of Coke every day and died of cardiac arrest.”
Holy crap! How much did this woman weigh?
Yeah, people need to step up and control themselves. Blaming others for your issues drives me nuts. I’m not sure what its like in Canada, but in the US, every 3rd or 4th commercial on daytime TV is for some sleazy lawyer encouraging you to sue the shit out of someone for stubbing your toe or other nonsense.
It is harder to sue someone here and if you bring up a frivolous case you may get stuck with all the costs.
Coke says that warning labels are not required and that her family should have taken some action several years prior to her death when all her teeth were removed because of the acid.
Some people think we need warning labels on everything.
“It is harder to sue someone here and if you bring up a frivolous case you may get stuck with all the costs.”
This is good policy. People have been trying to pass similar rules here in the states, but since lawyers don’t like those measures and a significant number of our lawmakers are lawyers, they never go through.
I do love watching you crazy Americans on the news. What will your government do with the sequester deadline looming? Go on vacation of course.
I think there ARE things in the foods you love that DO make them addictive. Marketers commit millions of dollars each year to figuring out how to make consumers buy more of their products. What are the addictive ingredients? Fat and sugar! Humans are conditioned to crave fat and sugar so that they won’t starve. This may have worked well in paleolithic times, but no so much today, when food is plentiful
I recently read three books on food that really opened my eyes. 1. Fat Chance, by Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist who talks about how all of our sugar-laden foods contribute to obesity. 2. Wheat Belly, by William Davis, a cardiologist who says that sugar and wheat have caused the obesity epidemic. The bread we eat today is not “our grandmother’s bread,” meaning that it’s been so hybridized and messed with that whole wheat bread today is nearly as bad as white bread in terms of how rapidly it’s converted into glucose. and how even supposedly “healthy” foods are laden with sugar, something I found to be very true when I checked the sugar content of the Stonyfield organic yogurt I was in the habit of buying. 3. The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.
Actually, I nearly always hear people saying it’s the individual’s fault for stuffing themselves with food and I RARELY hear anyone shining the spotlight on the food companies and their marketers for smooth-talking us all into unhealthy choices. Yes, of course, we all share responsibility for making our own food choices, but the tables are rigged by cute little cartoon figures to sell children’s sugary cereals while the forlorn broccoli wastes away in the fresh produce aisle with far fewer takers. Moms are seduced by ads showing how easy and convenient Hamburger Helper is. The food industry has a sophisticated and well-funded advertising/marketing budget, and if you don’t believe this affects our food choices, you’re fooling yourself.
I am addicted to crunchy salty fried things.
The food industry are incredible marketers but are we dumb or lazy that we ignore the health consequences? The evidence against processed food is there. Can a slick marketing campaign make us ignore good science and facts?
I do agree that people are responsible for their own poor decision making.. But I see nothing wrong with a little bit of social engineering. We do it already in the states with cigarettes. They are clearly marked as “dangerous”, and minors cannot purchase them.. To discourage folks even further from buying them, federal and state goverments levy heavy taxes on cigarettes, making them so expensive that people won’t buy them..
I have heard the idea floated of a “fast food tax” that would work in a similar way. Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with the concept..
-j-
We Canadians have a lot of sin taxes. That is what they are called. Booze, smokes and junk food are all taxed. A bag of chips or a case of pop from the supermarket are all taxed but a bag of potatoes and a can of juice are not. We still have a lot of very unhealthy Canadians.
“The food industry are incredible marketers but are we dumb or lazy that we ignore the health consequences? The evidence against processed food is there. Can a slick marketing campaign make us ignore good science and facts?”
In answer to your questions, no, I don’t think we are dumb or lazy: we’re human! And being human, we are imperfect beings subject to temptation. It’s a lot easier to achieve goals that are short-term; much harder to refrain from doing something indefinitely, or for a lifetime.
And yes, slick marketing, drummed into us incessantly on TV, in magazines and all around us, can make us forget the consequences, especially when nothing bad is mentioned about the food products they’re trying to sell us.
It’s easier to choose to believe marketers’ claims that this greasy, fried, fat-laden, salty and/or sugary sweet product is a good thing to buy becus damn it, it tastes good (!) and we WANT to eat it, so let’s not challenge what they say, science notwithstanding.
The marketers have me in their grips. If the roads weren’t icy I would have driven to the store for Lay’s potato chips and Helluva onion dip last night. There seemed to be a lot of potato chip commercials on tv last night.
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Yes, the food industry is good at marketing. But I think people are just lazy. Most people don’t cook any more, they go out to restaurants or buy processed prepared food and eat that. After I learned how to cook, I was able to start changing my diet to eat healthier foods and wound up losing a lot of weight. And I saved money. Had I kept eating out at restaurants, I probably would have been gaining weight.
Many don’t know how to cook but I think we want everything right now and no one wants to wait. You can buy fully cooked mashed potatoes at all supermarkets now. How hard is it to peel a potato?
Weight gain with processed foods is to be expected and there is also so much sodium that blood pressure is rising all over the country.