Vitaminwater [General]

2010 Aug 6
Article about Coca-Cola's defense against a class action suit over their health claims about vitamin water.

According to Coke, no reasonable person would think that vitaminwater was healthy despite their efforts to market it as such.

www.huffingtonpost.com

2010 Aug 7
Coke isn;t responsible for education. Read the label! Sure, it's 'better' than a Coke, but it's not the holy grail...they market, they earn...Drink water.

2010 Aug 7
I really like this stuff (Glaceau Vitaminwater) and it's what I buy if I get desperate when I'm out. You see, it's a bit painful to pay for bottled drinks for me. I'm a tap water person. The Coca Cola ownership is nowhere to be seen on the bottle and is news to me. It would have, in fact, swayed me from buying it. Coca Cola bought the company in 2007 for 4.1 billion. Huh, who knew?
I should have known something was up when they started to advertise at gas stations.

I do read labels (though obviously not newspapers in 2007) and, for something Coca Cola owns, the ingredients - surprisingly - aren't all crap. I have never downed a bottle and thought "Ah, good, my vitamins for the day. Done." but I find it hugely refreshing and invigorating. Oh, but then maybe that's due to being hugely thirsty whenever I've had one. Hmm.

Now I'll have to trespass on people's property and suck on their garden hose when I'm desperate. :)

2010 Aug 8
Continuing with my observations of France . . . no vitamin water there. No diet pepsi either. But lots of coke and diet coke. And lots of Fanta.

See this article on Fanta's popularity worldwide:

www.slate.com/id/2262956/


2010 Aug 8
"Coke isn;t responsible for education"

WTF?

The sickest part of this thing is that the advertising DOES seem to be attempting to "educate" people on this stuff.

This does not in the least seem to be a frivilous suit, and coke's response so far seems to be rather bizarre

2010 Aug 12
Fanta definitely has been popular for a while. The "Fanta Girls" ads are very European, and show the same zany apprach to selling fun drinks as Orangina has for a while.

What susprises me is that vitaminwater doesn't have the Nutrition Facts label which I thought was mandatory by law.

The article does show the puzzling side of Coke's argument, which isn't even a defence since it doesn't seem to stop the factual grounds of the complaint.

2010 Aug 12
This is a little off topic ... but I need to share.

Why Fanta doesn't sell well in NA, by Yessi:
1. They don't sell lemon flavour
2. They use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar, which has a slightly different taste (strangely sweeter?)

Anyone who wants to try real Fanta can probably find some at Nicastros or other European grocery stores. I think I've found Fanta de Limon there before.

Also: I second Niall's questioning about how vitaminwater doesn't carry a nutritional label. I've always wondered how a few drinks like this can get away without one.

2010 Aug 12
The answer to the missing nutritional info is simple (though I don't really understand the logic behing it) : this stuff is marketed as a "health product" and not as "food", so it doesn't need to have complete nutritional info. Just like cough syrup doesn't need nutritional info. Most energy drinks are considered health products for the purpose of those regulations.

Don't ask me how a company manages to get those drinks recognised as a "health product" though...

2010 Aug 12
That's awful.

2010 Aug 12
Quote : Don't ask me how a company manages to get those drinks recognised as a "health product" though...

Because pretty much all government regulations are a massive joke, and Big Business has the keys to the city.

2010 Aug 12
Yeah, I guess you're right.
I enjoyed my 10 seconds of naivety.

2010 Aug 12
Actually, Fanta is quite popular in Metro Detroit. Seriously, not a slight or a joke here, but I used to work there and you could get it in 2L bottles pretty much every where.