The New Faces of Coke(medium.com)
medium.com
The New Faces of Coke
https://medium.com/the-death-of-the-sugar-industry/the-new-faces-of-coke-62314047160f
32 comments
Oreo has a line of cookies called Thins which is thin cookies with cream filling in a 10 oz. package rather than a 16.6oz package for the same price. I often ask myself knowing that I can get more for the same price how much is the price to my health. So once in a while I will buy the mint Oreo Thins. Nothing beats an Oreo, that is fact.
I often wish restaurants had the same deal. A person should be able order a normal portion or just order a smaller portion paying the same price. I want the side of garlic roasted mash potatoes but I only need four bites so give me 1/2 the serving and charge me $4, I don't care. Restaurants have fallen into a trap of having to put a huge amount of food on a plate. A customer should be given the option to state how hungry they are, they are paying for the ambiance, experience, and food that can't easily be made at home not just the quantity of food.
I was a private yacht (120ft) chef for 6 years. I cooked everyday lunch and dinner for an older couple cruising anchorages and marinas on the Eastern Seaboard, Bahamas, and Caribbean months at a time. I'd make plain simple food everyday and serve leftovers knowing there are very few chefs on salary making more than I did. I served small portions and figure if they were hungry they would ask for more. It takes a lot of courage for a chef to make plain food and serve small portions of it. They know if they have guests on board, I'm in the mood to do something fancy like a Beef Wellington, or it is a special occasion, I can turn on the intensity, but nobody wants that all the time.
I often wish restaurants had the same deal. A person should be able order a normal portion or just order a smaller portion paying the same price. I want the side of garlic roasted mash potatoes but I only need four bites so give me 1/2 the serving and charge me $4, I don't care. Restaurants have fallen into a trap of having to put a huge amount of food on a plate. A customer should be given the option to state how hungry they are, they are paying for the ambiance, experience, and food that can't easily be made at home not just the quantity of food.
I was a private yacht (120ft) chef for 6 years. I cooked everyday lunch and dinner for an older couple cruising anchorages and marinas on the Eastern Seaboard, Bahamas, and Caribbean months at a time. I'd make plain simple food everyday and serve leftovers knowing there are very few chefs on salary making more than I did. I served small portions and figure if they were hungry they would ask for more. It takes a lot of courage for a chef to make plain food and serve small portions of it. They know if they have guests on board, I'm in the mood to do something fancy like a Beef Wellington, or it is a special occasion, I can turn on the intensity, but nobody wants that all the time.
Most restaurants will serve a half serve plate, especially if you pay the same amount. Just ask for it.
The thing is that isn't what happens and Coke knows that.
First they can sell the smaller cans for more money for the same amount, which doesn't matter from cost of making it, but does matter to the amount someone will consume.
It's the same rationale behind 99% payouts of slot machines in the casino. It just allows someone to play longer.
Soda is loaded with sugar and nothing else. It has to be extreme moderation to not have an effect on someone's health (relative to what we think of as normal now). Coke is trying to reframe soda as somehow ok.
One way to do that is to have small cans and say 'no problem they cans are obviously tiny'. Someone will buy them and drink as much as they want anyway because what they want isn't to take a long term view of their health, they want a rationalization. That is what Coke is offering and it does happen to be what people want.
First they can sell the smaller cans for more money for the same amount, which doesn't matter from cost of making it, but does matter to the amount someone will consume.
It's the same rationale behind 99% payouts of slot machines in the casino. It just allows someone to play longer.
Soda is loaded with sugar and nothing else. It has to be extreme moderation to not have an effect on someone's health (relative to what we think of as normal now). Coke is trying to reframe soda as somehow ok.
One way to do that is to have small cans and say 'no problem they cans are obviously tiny'. Someone will buy them and drink as much as they want anyway because what they want isn't to take a long term view of their health, they want a rationalization. That is what Coke is offering and it does happen to be what people want.
It seems like you're suggesting that people are buying the small cans of Coke based on endorsements like this one, and then chugging three cans in one go to make up for the super-sized drink they'd otherwise have gotten.
What exactly is that assumption based on?
It's been abundantly demonstrated that smaller servings do help people follow through on efforts to reduce their food intake. I don't see any reason Coke should be different.
What exactly is that assumption based on?
It's been abundantly demonstrated that smaller servings do help people follow through on efforts to reduce their food intake. I don't see any reason Coke should be different.
> Coke is trying to reframe soda as somehow ok.
The whole industry is continuously doing that for processed foods. It's called nutritionism. Margarine is still around, after provoking cancers and heart disease, isn't it? Now enriched with omega-3.
The whole industry is continuously doing that for processed foods. It's called nutritionism. Margarine is still around, after provoking cancers and heart disease, isn't it? Now enriched with omega-3.
I don't like it. Personally, I'm of the opinion that all beverages should be basically sold in three sizes: a small refillable "I'm in a hurry" travel size (say, 0.5 - 1L), a standard refillable daily-use container (say, 2 - 2.5L) and a refillable family container (say, 5L). Additionally, there should be an option to refill your bottle. It could be even metered by 1ml or something. The pre-bottled versions should be adequately more expensive - taxed with a recycling fee, and then taxed again with a "we know you ain't gonna recycle anyway" pollution fee.
I think pretty much every kind of food stuff that you buy regularly - things like ketchup, or oil, or spices, or pickles, etc. - should be available this way.
Because if you step outside your daily routine and look at the shopping experience, you'll see that it's absolutely ridiculous how much packaging you buy and throw away all the time, week after week. If you know that you're using, say, a 500ml of ketchup every week, you should be able to get a 2L bottle and refill it once a month instead of having to buy and throw away 6 bottles a month like you do today. Now take that and multiply it by all the other things you use like this - sauces, sodas, etc., then multiply by the first-world population (say, ~1B) and divide by average family size (say, 3), and you'll get billions of bottles going straight to landfill every month. This is just wrong.
The absolutely worst offenders are catering companies, who far too often think: "hey, we don't know exactly how much people will want to drink, so let's go for the least common value and buy a hundred thousand 0.5L bottles". Or the standard catering/hotel stacking mug size which ensures your guests will waste a lot of bagged tea trying to quench their thirst.
The second worst is bottled water. Especially in big cities, where municipal water is often cleaner than the supermarket one, buying bottled water is pure insanity - and yet people keep doing it all the time.
I think pretty much every kind of food stuff that you buy regularly - things like ketchup, or oil, or spices, or pickles, etc. - should be available this way.
Because if you step outside your daily routine and look at the shopping experience, you'll see that it's absolutely ridiculous how much packaging you buy and throw away all the time, week after week. If you know that you're using, say, a 500ml of ketchup every week, you should be able to get a 2L bottle and refill it once a month instead of having to buy and throw away 6 bottles a month like you do today. Now take that and multiply it by all the other things you use like this - sauces, sodas, etc., then multiply by the first-world population (say, ~1B) and divide by average family size (say, 3), and you'll get billions of bottles going straight to landfill every month. This is just wrong.
The absolutely worst offenders are catering companies, who far too often think: "hey, we don't know exactly how much people will want to drink, so let's go for the least common value and buy a hundred thousand 0.5L bottles". Or the standard catering/hotel stacking mug size which ensures your guests will waste a lot of bagged tea trying to quench their thirst.
The second worst is bottled water. Especially in big cities, where municipal water is often cleaner than the supermarket one, buying bottled water is pure insanity - and yet people keep doing it all the time.
I'm with you on this one. As a diver, seeing all this fing garbage in the sea makes me angrysad. I have had some success telling my friends about this problem (don't be too annoying with it) but I think the real solution is a plastic replacement such as the one made from shrimp shells or something.
In the 1990s there was a company with machines that provided refillable soda bottles at local supermarkets, but for whatever reason they disappeared.
I'd argue that no, ice cream is not worse than coca-cola. Few things are.
Why do you say that? Is it because of the phosphoric acid or something else? It's definitely true that typical ice cream has more sugar per gram than Coke.
Comparing typical servings, a pint (416 grams) of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia has 84 grams of sugar, while one 20 oz (567 grams) bottle of Coke has 65 grams of sugar.
Comparing typical servings, a pint (416 grams) of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia has 84 grams of sugar, while one 20 oz (567 grams) bottle of Coke has 65 grams of sugar.
This mentality is called reductionism, but it's not just the presence of sugars that matters, it's also what kind of sugar and in combination with what else. Sodas like Coke or Pepsi contain other things as well, besides the high fructose corn syrup which is the worst sugar you can find, or the phosphoric acid, things like Bisphenol-A, Sodium Cyclamate and 4-MEI.
Ice cream can be mostly made of natural ingredients, like milk, in which case it would get its sweetness from the lactose in that milk. Ice-cream can also be made of fruits, like peaches, or coconuts. The ingredients can be all organic and ice-cream can be made at home. Furthermore, after one cup of ice cream, most people are done, whereas Coke drinkers can drink more than half a gallon per day, because it is engineered to create addiction.
Of course, ice-cream can be made from processed ingredients as well and with plenty of HFCS or other cancerogenic and diabet-inducing ingredients. But reduce the problem to one ingredient or another and you end up missing the forest from the trees.
Ice cream can be mostly made of natural ingredients, like milk, in which case it would get its sweetness from the lactose in that milk. Ice-cream can also be made of fruits, like peaches, or coconuts. The ingredients can be all organic and ice-cream can be made at home. Furthermore, after one cup of ice cream, most people are done, whereas Coke drinkers can drink more than half a gallon per day, because it is engineered to create addiction.
Of course, ice-cream can be made from processed ingredients as well and with plenty of HFCS or other cancerogenic and diabet-inducing ingredients. But reduce the problem to one ingredient or another and you end up missing the forest from the trees.
"When you’re watching your favorite Food Network show and Coca-Cola is used as an ingredient, do you know that Coke is paying the chef? It never occurred to me."
Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot.
Also Coca-Cola as a glaze for food doesn't strike me as particularly better or worse than using barbecue sauce or ketchup or anything of the other sugary things we eat every day.
Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot.
Also Coca-Cola as a glaze for food doesn't strike me as particularly better or worse than using barbecue sauce or ketchup or anything of the other sugary things we eat every day.
The striking thing is this:
Also, Coke has been around as an ingredient for a long time in BBQ because BBQ sauce has to have... sugar.
virginia willis and 9 others recommended
Also, Coke has been around as an ingredient for a long time in BBQ because BBQ sauce has to have... sugar.
"Also, Coke has been around as an ingredient for a long time in BBQ because BBQ sauce has to have... sugar."
and acidity. it's kind of perfect.
and acidity. it's kind of perfect.
From now on, I shall think of coca-cola forever as a BBQ precursor substance.
They have been marinating ribs in coke overnight in places like the Caribbean now for decades. We were doing it in the mid nineties and I always thought it was a traditional recipe. One night in coke, then another night in a Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, makes for some good ribs.
I wonder, does the acid in the soda help tenderize the meat? Or is it purely for the flavor.
"Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot."
You're correct on labels but there isn't really a generic version of Coke that tastes the same. It's not unreasonable to think a professional chef would specifically want Coke over another cola.
You're correct on labels but there isn't really a generic version of Coke that tastes the same. It's not unreasonable to think a professional chef would specifically want Coke over another cola.
One cannot help but wonder if the Soda industry is/will become the Tobacco industry of 50 years ago.
While not limited to the Soda industry, this sentiment is expressed pretty vividly (even comparing testimony, marketing etc.) in the documentary Fed Up[1]. Worth a watch if this sort of thing is interesting to you and currently available on Netflix.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/
When there's strong suspicion you once hired militias to attack and intimidate unions [0] [1], paying off health experts feels a bit tame. It's still interesting to see how they went about it though, pushing the idea that exercise is more important in weight loss than your diet is pretty sneaky (and a patent lie).
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr....
[1] http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr....
[1] http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm
> [...] making herself available as an expert for news outlets. If a story says something negative about artificial sweeteners, Flipse said she might contact the PR agency and ask, “Do you want me to do something about that?”
What does "do something" mean? That statement reads like a fairly blatant request for a bribe.
What does "do something" mean? That statement reads like a fairly blatant request for a bribe.
First, a quick aside. I was surprised to see this, way to go Medium! http://i.imgur.com/XwJRGKV.png
Now onto an actual on-topic comment:
This comes at no real surprise to me. I'm certain Coke isn't the only soda company to be paying people off. Let alone the only company. It's nice the author researched enough into the people and the not-so-subtle advertising going on; but really... anyone with public outreach is a potential advertiser and if they're mentioning a name-brand product, you'd likely win a bet that they received a donation in some form or another.
The problem should be that these sorts of implicit bribes are legal in the first place.
Now onto an actual on-topic comment:
This comes at no real surprise to me. I'm certain Coke isn't the only soda company to be paying people off. Let alone the only company. It's nice the author researched enough into the people and the not-so-subtle advertising going on; but really... anyone with public outreach is a potential advertiser and if they're mentioning a name-brand product, you'd likely win a bet that they received a donation in some form or another.
The problem should be that these sorts of implicit bribes are legal in the first place.
I drink a fair amount of diet coke/coke zero, so I've looked into aspartame more than a few times, and I have never come back concerned. I haven't seen a study that points a serious health risk to consuming aspartame found in a consumable amount of diet soda, yet it remains controversial, scary, and evil, as this article indirectly implies. This is a common belief too.
So, if the science refutes claims of danger, yet the belief persists, why shouldn't Coke promote its safety? It is one thing if a company is promoting bunk research to get away with something, but I really don't see the problem here.
So, if the science refutes claims of danger, yet the belief persists, why shouldn't Coke promote its safety? It is one thing if a company is promoting bunk research to get away with something, but I really don't see the problem here.
Yeah, the aspen tame thing really got me wondering about the ethics here. It is one of the most attacked substances, yet it appears basically harmless.
If we assume it is in fact harmless, then it is actually quite ethical of Coca Cola to spend money defending it.
If we assume it is in fact harmless, then it is actually quite ethical of Coca Cola to spend money defending it.
This article is basically an ad for a company that makes anti-tobacco and anti-sugar ads as a service. And somebody is paying them for that. Why won't they reveal the truth behind their anti-Coke propaganda?
Seriously, there's a difference between lying and product placement. Using Coke as an ingredient in barbecue sauce is completely different than saying "sugar helps me lose weight", and this article doesn't care. It's lazy at best.
Seriously, there's a difference between lying and product placement. Using Coke as an ingredient in barbecue sauce is completely different than saying "sugar helps me lose weight", and this article doesn't care. It's lazy at best.
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Reading this article made me want to get a glass of Coke from the fridge.
Great convo ya'll, thanks for sharing the article.
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“Sometimes only the real thing will do when it comes to soda, so I am a big fan of the new Coke mini can! It is real soda classic, but it’s in a cute portion-controlled can that keeps my bubbly treat to only 90 calories!” - Sarah Bedwell
I would argue that this is actually the kind of endorsement we should be encouraging. It re-frames a soda as a treat that should be consumed in moderation instead of guzzled from a supersized bucket. Ice cream is worse than soda, but it doesn't get nearly the negative attention because everyone knows it's an unhealthy treat.