Health Conscious Capitalism

Every day I check out Relevant Magazine for the possibility of an insightful article and some interesting news slices.

The other day there was a slice about how soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi inparticular, are realizing they need to start shoving out healthier beverage alternatives if they want to counter act the slump in their cola sales.
More and more people are trying to make smart eating choices and high fructose corn syrup (also known as pure-liquid-evil) sweetened sodas don't fit in to that catagory. Coca-Cola exec E. Neville Isdell maintains that diet sodas should be seen as "wellness" drinks, but polls show that very few Americans agree.
This isn't suprising considering Aspertame (the sweetner in all diet Sodas, with the exception of Diet Rite and Diet Coke with Splenda) has been linked with Multiple Sclerosis, memory loss, and possibly cancer.
The new "wellness" beverages, Diet Coke Plus and Tava (from Pepsi), will feature vitamins and possibly caffine. The draw for Diet Coke Plus is that it will, perportedly, taste very much like regular Coke (not much of an attraction, personally), while Tava will feature exotic flavors (I'm guessing that means fruit flavors...let's hope it's not a vitamin infused version of Jazz).

The drinking trends also have soft drink companies scrambling to find a healthy, no-calorie sweetner. When I finished this article I thought, "Ha, capitalism wins again."
I'm not holding my breath for a cheap and healthy beverage coming from either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but it's nice to know that they're trying. Huzzah for consumer influance!

Interestingly, the same day I ran across Enviga, which is flavored green tea hopped up on caffeine. There's also like 20% of the suggested calcium intake and a whole bunch of antioxidants. And considering the fact that they suggest drinking this stuff three times a day to maximize it's health benefits you would actually end up almost your entire daily dose of calcium and more antioxidants than any normal human being needs.
Unfortunately you would also become a caffeine addict and die from a massive overdose.

I'm a lethargic person, due to health issues (which is why the semi-obsession with cheap and easy health food) I just never have any energy...at all. There are always wonderful people trying to bottle it, but usually that involves high-fructose corn syrup - which, if you didn't catch it earlier, was placed on earth by the devil. Seeing an energy drink that was fructose free I decided it was worth a try and bought one.
I drank it the next morning and I felt nice and energize, but not jittery, just as the can had promised. So on my lunch break I bought two more cans and downed one of them.

Holy cow. I have never been so wired. I couldn't go to sleep until 12 something and I woke up this morning still feeling the effects.

I'm not saying I won't keep a can or two handy for sluggish mornings, or that I might even take a second in the afternoon if I was planning on doing something that involved intense physical activity (like cleaning out my car) but just to feel more awake at the office? Not worth it.

Ironically, in the same day that I realized the beverage industry is becoming more and more health conscious the fast-food industry is bent on introducing even bigger burgers despite recent criticism for being the cause of all that is obese in this world.

Sometimes people just don't get it.