New Coke Mini - Now With 36% Less Cancerous Death!

Attention, reluctantly health-conscious consumer who doesn't really want to change his/her ways or be told what to do by any goddamn doctor, government agency or do-gooder Michael Pollan-type health nut but feels he/she must do, you know, something, because it's becoming more difficult to breathe, staircases are increasingly hateful and the doctor did say something about early-onset arthritis and bone degeneration and potential colorectal cancer and no one wants that, I guess!

We here at the Coca-Cola Company feel your pain. Or rather, we don't, actually, but we like to say we do in marketing copy, because it makes us sound beneficent and honest, like a good corporate citizen, when in fact we're all about figuring out sinister ways to keep you wildly addicted to as many of our products for as long as humanly possible -- which, if you drink enough of them, won't be that long at all.

Here is our question: Have you been trying, to little avail, to improve your health, exercise more, maybe lose a tiny bit of weight by reducing your intake of sugary carbonated beverages because you've been told for many, many years and in no uncertain terms that pretty much all sodas, energy drinks, Snapples, et al are completely non-nutritive, ridiculously fattening and not the slightest bit good for you?

Have you seen those touchingly gross anti-soda posters in New York City? Read up on the unbridled nastiness that is high-fructose corn syrup? Have a shred of common sense? Well, we are here to help.

(Note: Not "help" in the traditional, Merriam-Websters definition of the word, as in, help you figure out how to eat healthier and exercise and take care of your body; rather, the corporate definition, as in, help give you the illusion that we're sensitive to your needs, when in fact we'd simply love it if everyone reading this right now was sucking down a Super Big Gulp of Diet Dr. Pepper and chasing it with a Full Throttle™ Blue Demon. Thank you).

Good news! In a totally unselfish effort to help you slightly reduce -- but not eliminate because that would be un-American and possibly communist -- your intake of our sugary poisons, we are hereby introducing a brand-new product....

Read the rest of this column here

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Mark Morford's SF Chronicle/SFGate columns are archived here. Also: His home page, Facebook page, or send him some nice email. Not to mention...

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Comments

[etreader]

I get that this was intended to be humor, but I actually do buy the 8-oz cans of coke (not 7.5, at least where I live) & it HAS reduced my daily consumption, as I generally have one coke a day (down from many more than that!) and I had noticed I tend to drink all of whatever size serving I've got in my hand. So, instead of 12 or 16 ounces, I'm drinking 8. A day. And I agree with the other posters that HFCS and cokes/sodas are not inherently evil. As I agree with the writer that Coke isn't marketing these out of their kindness & good intentions toward the buyers.

[Conk]

The whole calories in calories out was disproven years ago. It matters not how much you eat, it's WHAT you eat that determines your weight and state of health. If you eat what Mother Nature offers, unprocessed or altered, it's dang near impossible to over eat enough to gain too much weight. It's WHAT you eat. The wrong things, like HFCS, alter bodily processes, which ensures poor health and weight gain.

[bettyx1138]

mark morford is such a gr8 writer.

[PlaceboStudman]

Give me a break. There is nothing inherently wrong with Coke, or any other of the high fructose corn syrup products that we are given as "food" (and I use the term loosely)

The problem is that we are lazy and apathetic, and don't care about the simple dietary lessons we all know. Calories in, calories out. You can eat any THING you want, in moderation. It's the amount of those products we are eating that is the problem.

TOO MUCH soda, TOO MUCH corn chips and McDonalds. And not enough physical exercise to balance them out.

One hour a day walking, time on a treadmill, or just jogging in place can do wonders to help the body metabolize what we eat and drink, and so long as your caloric intake does not exceed your caloric burning potential (metabolism), then you shouldn't have to worry much about Coke or any other "dangerous" food.

It is not the food that is dangerous, its what is happening with the food that is dangerous. It's sitting around in our stomachs, or kidneys, and our liver allowing the chemicals to accumulate becuase we dont have the physical exercise to need those calories, thus they are transformed to fat

in short: MOVE PEOPLE

[Conk]

By your logic a little bit of poison is ok? Absurd!