McCarten on Coke

Matt McCarten writes:

Let’s face it, Coca-Cola markets sugar syrup mixed with water to teenagers, rotting their teeth, giving them spotty skin and making them fat.

This was the very point that the Coke CEO was making. Coke is responsible for 2% of the average person’s daily calorie intake yet are blamed for obesity.

On the fat issue, a Gallup poll found soda drinkers were not fatter than non soda drinkers.

Few pre-teens and teenagers can resist that siren call. It helps that once the sugar addiction kicks in, it can be as strong as tobacco dependency.

Liking something is not an addiction. I love it how it is never a person’s choice. It is always an addiction. One day we’ll read about clothing addictions, toy addictions, unning addictions etc.

A bottle of Coke a day will each month add more than a kilo of lard around a customer’s belly unless they can burn it off by putting in a run of 14 hours. No wonder obesity in our children is skyrocketing.

Let’s check that. It takes around 9,000 calories to put on a kg. Standard coke is 43 calories per 100 ml, so you need to drink 21 litres of coke a month or 700 mls a day.

But if you drink diet coke or coke zero, then you can drink lots more. It is 4 calories per litre, so if you drank a litre per day it would take over six years to put on a kilo of weight.

But regardless you tend to burn off 2,000 calories a day. What is important is your total calories consumed and exercised.  I’ve lost 21 kgs and I drink lots of diet coke or coke zero.

Milk is 600 calories per litre, or around 400 calories per 700 mls to compare it to Matt’s coke equation. Drink that much milk a day and you’ll put on even more weight than coke.

Blaming coke for obesity is like blaming “society” for child abuse. It ignores the role of the individual.