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Coke Discloses Millions in Grants for Health Research and Programs
New submitter erinrivers11 writes: Following criticism that Coke has supported research that plays down the role of soft drinks in the spread of obesity, the company released a list showing nearly $120 million in grants to medical, research and community organizations. The Times reports: "The list, published Tuesday on the company’s website, details hundreds of Coke grants, large and small, to a variety of organizations since 2010, including physician groups, university researchers, cancer and diabetes organizations and public parks, and even a foundation for the National Institutes of Health."
This is how you manipulate people opinions by let others people tell that everything is ok or everything is an hoax.
For years the tobacco industry did something along the same lines.
It's the calories stupid.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
And if you had found out: "Despite selling its products to literally billions of people across the globe (and making billions of dollars by doing so), Coca-Cola does not actively fund any analysis or research into the long-term health effects of its products or their ingredients, or assist in any community efforts to deal with potential negative consequences of using its products", would you be somehow less-alarmed? Personally, I'd find that to be a whole lot worse. Like, "reckless disregard for the well-being of its customers" worse.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Oh, the irony!
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
It does not matter how much they spend on neutral research for general healthcare, they spent money on 'targeted research' (I won't call it science) to the benefit of their own business interests.
Keep in mind that the Coca-Cola company had a gross profit of $28,010,000,000.00 for fiscal year 2015 with a profit margin of 66%. $120,000,000.00 in grants amounts to .042% of their gross. For them, this is cheap window dressing. Do no mistake this for good corporate citizenship.
Sodium benzoate causes cancer. They knew about it for years. When it looked like the whole story was about to break, they *silently* pull it and replace it with potassium benzoate.
Does that cause cancer? The jury's still out, but the signs aren't good.
Bottom line is, there's little doubt that KO pumped Americans full of carcinogens for decades. And the "new" alternative is highly suspect.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
With public sponsorship of research dwindling, many governments are forcing researchers to seek industrial partnerships and to work towards commercialization rather than basic science only. Researchers in fields like food and diet must often partner with producers, so as long as they declare all funding sources I don't have a problem with it. The alternative is to increase public funding of research, but that would cut into leader's pet projects...
Of course Coca Cola is the personification of "evil big food" and they will do whatever it takes to keep making money as water running from the tap. Its amazing how much money one can make from selling flavoured sugar water plus some advertising.
But the negative effects of increased sugar intake is nothing new. For several years the anti-fructose movement has been making noise and has been showing increasing insight is the underlying mechanisms. Famous example spokesperson of this movement is Dr Lustig, and googling his name alone gives a boatload of references.
But where is the response from society (not from some smart commercial brands), where is the education in schools, in children's TV programs, in popular scientific programs, in journals being read by large percentages of the population. And when will we start listening to this??!!
We still buy all this processed junk, with the bright coloured labels promising everything and being "fat free". We as a society have to immediately start buying other food products. More "real" unprocessed foods, and please leave those products with added sugar packaged in plastic in the store. Spend more time buying, cooking, eating and ENJOYING this food.
The industry will make whatever we buy. Self regulation from their side is an illusion.
So WE need to change.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
If you want healthy masses, fresh produce needs to be much cheaper.
Our current mainstream food system is not capable of delivering cheaper fresh produce, because it depends on it being produced in centralized locations so that it will fit into the distribution system. What is needed is a return not just to distributed food production, but also seasonal food consumption. This whole idea that you should have vegetables out-of-season year-round and nation-wide is unsustainable and also requires that we produce less-desirable vegetables because they travel well.
Americans are so stupid that if the produce shelves aren't completely packed, they think something must be wrong with what's there, and they'll shop at a different store. What we need to fix is American stupidity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Decades ago, indirectly, with the advent of subliminal advertising.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
OK, I'm going to help you guys out. Give you something healthy, delicious and refreshing to drink that won't make you fat, ruin your teeth or cause you to grow a tumor the size of a pillbox hat on your head. Stay with me.
1) Get a soda stream. They're cheap now, and I found mine at a garage sale. Staples, Target and others still sell the CO2 tanks, and if you're clever you can figure out how to get your own refilled on the cheap.
2) When you make the soda, just leave it as plain carbonated water and stick it in the fridge. By the way, you can "overcharge" soda with a SodaStream so that the carbonation levels are much higher than regular pop. This is what I do because I like that carbonated "burn" you get. The SodaStream bottles have special caps so that the carbonation doesn't escape, so you can always have some good fizzy water at the ready when you want it.
3) Brew up some green tea with a good amount of ginger. It can also be fruit-flavored for a little sweetness. When my wife makes jam, I save some of the fruit juice left over and put that in, too. Make the tea STRONG because it's gonna be your flavoring syrup for the drink you're making.
4) Now this is the kicker: When the tea cools, shake some cayenne pepper on it and stir it in. This you have to do by taste because people tolerate different levels of hot. I know it sounds weird, but trust me. You gotta add the cayenne pepper to the flavoring mix (although one of my friends waits until after he's mixed the flavoring with the soda water to sprinkle the cayenne pepper, because he thinks he's a bad-ass, but really he ain't shit. I could totally kick his ass if I were 15 years younger. He also puts a little ginseng in the tea, but I don't do that because I don't have any trouble in that area, if you get my drift.
5. When you're ready for a great drink, pour a nice glass of the soda water, and then pour a little of the tea/ginger/fruitjuice/cayenne pepper mix in and stir. It'll foam up a bit creating a nice little "head" in the glass. The flavoring mixture stores very well in the fridge, just shake it up when you're ready to add it to the soda water.
I'm telling you, this stuff is like ginger ale with a hard-on. It's like Dr Pepper, if Dr Pepper were played by Peter Capaldi. You can drink it all day and it won't make you fat, and the ginger and cayenne pepper are healthy as hell. You'll doubt me, but hand-to-god, when I drink this stuff my sinus allergies get better. It's good for digestion and it will save you a ton of money over store-bought soda pop. I mean hundreds of dollars over the course of a year.
Fuck Coke.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's in the same paragraph where we're advised that embattled multinational companies need AC White Knights to come to their rescue straight away, of course.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"...what I really don't understand... is how, with Coca Cola's flavo(u)r changing so little over the years, nobody seems to have reverse engineered a clone that actually tastes like Coca Cola." I think they have, lawyers keep those clones off shelves.
I am 53 and obese. Think Cartman from South Park large. I didn't get this way from drinking Coke and eating donuts. I got my excess weight from overeating and drinking lots of beer. I do enjoy a Coke now and then. While not a cure, it always helps a hangover. My point is, I don't care if Coke is good or bad for me because I only drink it once every couple of months when I feel like it. This obsession with demonizing anything that could possibly be bad for us is crazy. Do people abuse Coke, sure, just like I used to abuse beer. But that's their problem. Anyone who is dumb enough to not take a close look at what they put in their mouths deserves whatever comes their way, me included. By the way, I am eating healthy now, working out and I have all but stopped drinking beer. Leaving the beer alone was tough but I feel so much better.
The Romans used to say 'Where the teeth go, the bones follow'
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I've used it to clean rust of metal. I thought it was a myth until I tried it and it work much better than I had expected. It's also a great grease remover! As for drinking it, blech - I can't understand how people can drink all this sugary shit and wonder why their health is slowly deteriorating.
It's just another negative externality from the corporate pirates raiding society of all it's value.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Cola is not the singular reason, and shouldn't be treated as such.
No, but beverages really are the worst place you can cram a whole bunch of sugar, because your body takes it up most rapidly when you do that. The only way to get it into your bloodstream faster is via IV.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The summary misrepresents the article. Coke disclosed the list to offset the idea that they were funding research to downplay obesity and Coke links.
The list was released after the company’s chief executive, Muhtar Kent, promised to be transparent about its partnerships and support for scientific research related to obesity. The move was prompted by criticism that the company has used its vast resources to play down the role of Coke products in the spread of obesity ...
Nowhere in the summary does it say that all the research it funded supported a specific conclusion. Rather, just it implies the opposite, that Coke funded everyone.
“What I find most remarkable about this list is its length and comprehensiveness,” said Dr. Nestle, author of the book “Soda Politics.” “No organization, no matter how small, goes unfunded. Any scientist or dietitian who is willing to take Coca-Cola funding gets it.”
The only problem with this list is the conflict of interest in taking funding from a beverage company to study the effects of the beverage in diets.
Whoever wrote the summary, please read the article carefully!!
Remember too much white bread, wheat bread, cake, rice, oatmeal, and so forth will also cause diabeetus. So will generally getting fat.
I've become more active lately, just slightly. I walk for 15-30 minutes per day to clear my head, while others are smoking. This has pushed my metabolism up so much that I eat 1000kcal Popeye's chicken dinners (the biscuit is diabeetus), 780kcal McDonalds breakfast, a fucking Whopper for dinner, and still had to add Sprite or Dr. Pepper back into my diet in 40oz quantities to not come 1500kcal under. I trust my FitBit because I'm actually losing and gaining weight--I'm losing fat, but can't seem to lose *weight* because of the balance of muscle tissue developing. Still, my pants don't feel like a man-corset anymore.
Yesterday I came 400kcal under. According to MyFitnessPal, besides an Arby's 800kcal turkey sandwich and a McDonalds double cheeseburger--the McDonald's cheeseburger was actually better balanced in macronutrients, which is insane--I had a McFlurry, Chobani yogurt, tasty cakes, a bottle of pepsi, and a can of pepsi, and came away with 120kcal free. Fitbit says I came away with 2807kcal used that day, 2437 consumed. I work in the basement and had coworkers on the 3rd floor needing my attention, so I was up and down stairs a few times; I also live on the second floor of my house, while kitchen is first floor and utilities are basement. I totaled 40 stairs traversed (33, really, but I burned almost 2 minutes making a few additional trips just to raise the numbers), plus a half hour walk outside around the lake.
The closest I come to "hitting the gym" is the two 15-minute walks I take, and the occasional 4-6 climbs up a flight of stairs just to tick the numbers up (which, of course, takes all of 15 seconds each floor). I make it up to the top floor by stairs faster than my coworkers make in the elevator, and I pass them while they're boarding.
The big problems show up when I eat sushi and edamame for lunch. 350kcal for a single meal, with a breakfast sandwich (Thomas english muffin, gouda cheese, shiitake, bacon, egg) at 400kcal, and I've gotten two meals in at 750kcal. Even a Subway 12-inch Italian with mayo and olive oil is only 1100kcal; and I burn 2400kcal on a sedentary day, since I still have to go up and down stairs at least 12 times just to get my hands on food, water, and the piano. If I do any laundry, dishes, yard work, or go walking over to coworkers's cubicles, I'm up in the 2600 range. The lowest I've been is 2200, and I slept 18 hours that day.
It's easy for me to pound 4 bottles of soda, two 58oz drink cups, fast food OJ (like 4x the sugar of fresh squeezed OJ) and starch (hash browns, french fries), and so forth and add an extra 1500-2500 calories to my diet, taking in 4500 and burning 2000-2200. If you dodge french fries and get out of the habit of eating 14-inch hoagies, you start having trouble keeping your calorie count up.
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I'm alarmed at the growing tendency for people to jump to conclusions on topics/conspiracy theories with popular support. Coke making donations to and providing grants for medical research companies, or even directly funding research into sugared beverages and obesity is not in and of itself evidence that they're trying to manipulate the research. If it is, you put Coke in an impossible damned if you do, damned if you don't position. If they do make the donations, you criticize them for trying to manipulate research results in their favor. If they don't make the donations, you criticize them for being greedy corporate bastards who won't even donate to scientific research relevant to their product.
The donations themselves are not evidence that Coke has been trying to manipulate research results. If you want to support that hypothesis, you need to come up with specific incidents where Coke made the donations conditional on withholding or changing research results unfavorable to their product.
Just because a majority of people want to believe this theory doesn't free you from the logical and ethical obligation to actually prove the claim. The person advocating the hypothesis always has the burden of proof.
With great power comes great responsibility. Drug dealers never force people to swallow, inject, or light up either.
Food companies use an amazing array of tools to win. Coke is "Low Fat!", bacon in "Low Carb!"; advertising twists the latest health headlines to make bad food less obviously so. Recipes are tweaked to hit your bliss point, making it extremely easy to just keep grabbing one more chip or sip while not making you feel full at all. So those without a pretty strong spine end up like a rat at the feeder bar, blissful but never quite satisfied.
These same companies thwart efforts to pass new health standards that might preclude their products.
When companies the size of Coke throw their weight around, they need to be held responsible for the negative outcomes that result.
What makes you think that bacon is bad food?
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Sodium Benzoate is NOT a carcinogen as claimed by popo, and as pointed out in several replies.
integrity of the scientific community is now.