14 DAY TRIAL // The American company has recently received a notice from the FDA, saying that it's inappropriate for it to label it's newest product with the Diet Coke Plus mark. The agency is particularly mixed up over the “Plus” part of the name, which in legal terms implies that the product has vitamins or minerals, or any other kind of supplement that could actually do people some good. Instead, it only contains trace amounts of each, which have led to the warning. In addition, the company got another notice from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) last month, in which it was being sued for deceptive health claims concerning its VitaminWater product line.
The FDA warning has also told Coca-Cola that adding just trace amounts of minerals and vitamins to its products doesn't turn the soft drink into a healthy beverage. In fact, it's more likely to cause harm than good, but the main problem with this is that Americans love junk food and drinks, even though they are perfectly aware of the impact they have on their health.
And the game that the famous company is playing, of making people think that its products are actually healthier than others, is of the most dangerous kind, because it prompts even more people to buy. That can't be but good for its profit, instead it's very bad and potentially disastrous for the people.
In the CSPI suit, the organization draws attention to the fact that VitaminWater is a very big name for a low-quality product, which in fact has similar amounts of sugar and calories in it as regular, not Diet, Coke. The label on the product says it contains 13 grams of sugar per serving, which seems great until you learn that the serving is 8 ounces. A regular serving contains 20 ounces of soda, and the total amount of harmful substances you ingest with each bottle is 3 grams of sugar and 125 calories, compared to the 39 grams of sugar and 140 calories that can be found in a can of Coke.
The main problem is not that the company cannot bottle healthier products. In other countries, mostly in Asia, it actually serves real green tea in green tea bottles, instead of chemicals like it does in the United States. It has a large line of water products that are not sweetened or otherwise modified. But for the company to launch such products in the US would be financial suicide, as the public apparently has no interest in feeding itself properly.