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Coca-Cola To Debut New Stevia-Filled Green "Coke Life"
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Jun 17, 2014
Modified Jun 17, 2014
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Jun 17, 2014
Modified Jun 17, 2014
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Coca-Cola sales have apparently been falling now that both regular and diet soda have earned low marks from doctors, dieticians and this guy. But it looks like the company's trying to worm their way back into our wallets and soda-eroded intestines with a "natural" "healthy" drink—enter, "Coke Life," a new stevia-sweetened low-sugar offering from the Coke camp that comes in a green can. Just like a vegetable!
Stevia, a sugar substitute you can swap out for ricin when killing an enemy made from plants, has been heralded as a "natural" alternative to aspartame. And the new 89-calorie Coke Life, which is already available in parts of South America and launches in the U.K. next fall, blends the mysterious plant sugar with real sugar, cutting down on calories (a can of regular Coke contains 139 of those bad boys) without packing your drink full of chemicals.
A low-calorie drink without mysterious lab residue? Sounds like Coca-Cola really cares about its consumers! Except that, as a number of U.K. researchers have noted, Coke Life still boasts over four teaspoons of sugar per can (regular Coke has 10 teaspoons), which is precisely over four more teaspoons of sugar than you'd find a glass of water. It's also 25 percent of a child's daily recommended sugar intake. It's all a trick!
But Coca-Cola, which has seen a nearly-decade line decline in soda sales in the U.S., thinks they can tempt Americans with a lime-colored can, since we're all a bunch of sugar-guzzling fatties, anyway. "We believe in the North American market. We believe in the demographics, we believe this is a growth market," Coke chairman Muhtar Kent told investors in February.
We contacted Coca-Cola for comment, but have no word yet on when Coke Life will start clogging American arteries.
Tagged
big soda
coca-cola
coke life
soda
stevia
Rebecca Fishbein
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