Coca-Cola is marketing its "up-front calorie labeling" for soft drinks. This is a
great idea to help consumers who are counting their calories... but take a look at
the fine print: 110 calories per 250 ml. The problem? The label is on a 591 ml product:
You're actually drinking 260 calories -- mostly empty calories at that.
So If Coca-Cola is truly wanting to be up-front about their calorie labeling, why not just publish the amount of calories per size of the product?
For instance, for Coca-Cola's regular product line, the calories would be:
- Per 237 ml mini-can: 100 calories
- Per 355 ml can: 156 calories
- Per 591 ml bottle: 260 calories
- Per 1 L bottle: 440 calories
- Per 1.5 L bottle: 660 calories
- Per 2 L bottle: 880 calories
Easy any way you look at it, right?
You're actually drinking 260 calories -- mostly empty calories at that.
So If Coca-Cola is truly wanting to be up-front about their calorie labeling, why not just publish the amount of calories per size of the product?
For instance, for Coca-Cola's regular product line, the calories would be:
- Per 237 ml mini-can: 100 calories
- Per 355 ml can: 156 calories
- Per 591 ml bottle: 260 calories
- Per 1 L bottle: 440 calories
- Per 1.5 L bottle: 660 calories
- Per 2 L bottle: 880 calories
Easy any way you look at it, right?
actually theer ARE people who will sit and drink a full 2 litre of pop.and you wouldnt belive how old they are
Indeed. The serving size thing is ridiculous. What is needed is a standard (per 100 g, per 100 mL), something that is both easy to measure, easy to quantify and accurate.
That is ridiculous - you can't put the total calories on a 2L bottle of Coke - nobody drinks an entire 2L bottle of coke as one serving and if they do, they're certainly not concerned about how many calories they just drank.
Well not sure where you work, or why you seem to be located in a place where ALL the women count calories, BUT in my experience, being a woman myself, knowing many women, have many female coworkers, not too many count calories either, you must be located in the Nexus or something.
Point is, drinking an amount greater than 1/2 litre of any softdrink is not normal. Anyone who would actually be counting their calories wouldn't consume that much softdrink, why? because anyone concerned with caloric intake is watching their intake.
'sides most people at my work drink water, next popular choice is coffee (caffeine free). good luck son!
If Coke is not trying to fool us then why on their 355ml cans does it state 156 calories on the can which is the entire contents of the can. Not the 250ml serving stated on the front of the 591ml. If they were being honest all Coke products would have the same statement on the front each product reguardless of size.
Because you don't eat a whole box a crackers or use a whole bottle of salad dressing on your salad. These show "serving sizes" for calorie counters. Serving size of a can of Coke is a can of Coke not part of the can.
In my office Sharon ALL the women count calories and just about all of them will drink a can of pop at work per day.
If you drink pop at all, why are you counting calories.
Picking on Coke because unlike the rice, salad dressing and crackers Coke offers nothing. You can live on rice, crackers and salad dressings but you cannot live on Coke.
Also, the bottle of Coke (591ml) is the serving (the consumer is likely to drink the entire thing at once) you know that. Whereas you are not about to use the entire bottle of salad dressing on your salad.
Coke is trying to fool you into thinking they are honest, but they are not. (Look at their track record in Colombia)
I stopped drinking pop last year and all my stomach issues stopped and have not returned.
Remember for every 1L of pop 5L of clean water was used in it's production!
I think it was Kellog's Mini-Wheats that changed their box style in the fall and at the same time reduced their serving size to reduce the calorie count to under 200 (i.e. 190). I think it was 25 biscuits and is now 21 biscuits or about what my cat eats for breakfast!
Out of curiosity, I checked the calories per serving out of the first 3 boxes in my cupboard.
A 475 g box of 2 scoops of raisins, 180 cal/55 g.
A 525 g box of Cornflakes, 110 cal/30 g.
A 175 g box of Grissol croutons, 80 cal/20 g.
If I ate at the suggested serving size, I will have left over for all three items. The total caloric intakes are: 1555,1925 and 700. The suggested serving size is meaningless since most of us will not eat at the exact serving size. A compromised of calories/g is much better than the current situation.
I think the difference with Coke is that someone buying a 591 bottle of Coke is likely going to drink the whole thing. Look at the way it is sold, chilled from a refrigarated case, just like the cans. Are you really going to buy that, and then let half of it get warm and flat? I guess some people might share it, assuming they didn't mind drinking from the same bottle.
Maybe misleadingly small portion sizes is a standard practice, but it's a bit rich for Coke to be trumpeting this as being about openness when it's blatantly obscuring the amount of calories the average consumer of the product would be taking in. It would be like if McDonalds sound the portion size of a Big Mac was a third of the burger.
Agreed, but still they are ahead of the game, if one were to choose to drink a large bottle - 591ml regardless of the calories, they can now choose the one that may have a less effect. This will still help a lot of people incl. teenagers.
didn't catch that before, what a fantastic marketing gimmick
no company is going to do that unless the government makes them to. look at europe...
can you focus on THAT and fix ALL problems related to food labeling/packaging instead of focusing on cola and trying to fix one single problem? push the government to CARE about peoples health... thank you
Somehow I don't think those drinking over 1/2 litre of soft drink are counting their calories. Why just pick on Coke? There's plenty of other drinkables out there that are full of empty calories?
...Or, Coke Zero....237ml=zero, 355ml=zero, 591ml=zero, 710ml=zero (CBC missed this size), 1l=zero, 1.5l=zero, and 2l=zero. We ALL love statistics. Facts, however, are harder to find. You can thank Madison Avenue for that.
I have in front of me three products:
1 200g box of PC Blue Menu Wheat & Sesame crackers
1 475ml bottle of Kraft Three Cheese Ranch salad dressing
1 250g package of Uncle Ben's Bistro Express Long grain & Wild - Roasted Chicken flavour rice
All of these products outline in small print on the side of the box or the back of the bottle or packet, the number of calories "per serving" and they are as follows:
1. The crackers - 90 calories for 9 crackers
2. The salad dressing - 80 calories for 15 ml (1 tbsp)
3. The rice - 150 calories for 90 grams
How does this differ from what Coke is doing? I will tell you, Coke is putting the calorie count up front in good sized print while the other products are tucking them away in a less prominent location and in small print. This is an industry standard. I don't like it much myself. I agree that all products should show TOTAL calories, fat, etc. based on the actual package size you are placing in your cart but at this time, this is just not the case.
Why pick on Coke?