Well, the headline certainly attracted my eye. Alas, the claims about Coke’s new “Enviga” drink are not only a bit dubious, they’re pretty darned worthless even if true.
In a conference call this week, the Atlanta beverage giant unveiled plans to launch Enviga, a sparkling green tea-based soft drink infused with a tantalizing claim: Consume three 12-ounce cans of Enviga over a 24-hour period, and a healthy person of normal weight can burn anywhere from 60 to 100 additional calories. Coke developed the beverage in partnership with Nestlé SA.
An executive of the companies’ joint venture called the new product a “breakthrough” concept. And the prospect of a drink that could actually melt pounds away set off a mini media frenzy. In a five-minute segment yesterday, NBC’s “Today” show led its report on the new drink with the question, “Miracle Beverage: Can Coke drink burn calories?”
Um … drink three of the things a day (at $1.30 a pop, so to speak) and lose only 100 calories? Jeez, that doesn’t break even against one regular Coke!
Assuming a 60-calorie loss from three cans of the drink, a person would have to drink more than five cans a day of Enviga, at a cost of $6.45 or more, to burn the number of calories found in two Oreos. A brisk 15-minute walk would do the same trick. To accomplish a more substantial health benefit — such as erasing the effects of a McDonald’s Big Mac — a person would need to drink about 28 cans of Enviga, at a cost of $36 or more.
I mean, sure, I’d love to see a magic bullet to weight loss — but you’d be better off taking a walk down the hall to the soda machine and just ordering a Diet Pepsi. You’d be richer, too.
On the other hand, Enviga has 100mg of caffeine (about three times as much as a normal can of Coke), so even if you don’t lose weight, at least you’ll be all perky.
People need to stop looking for the miracle and just do a couple simple things. Exercise for starters. Set aside an hour to go walking with your family every night. Easy to do, and with others to chat with, can be fun. Then slowly start to phase calories out of your diet. Start eating less food. I lost about 10 lbs in a week eating a 1500 calorie diet, lifting twice a week, and without much extra exercise.
I am no professional by any means. Just another fat arsed American tired of empty promises by BS companies. Penn and Teller’s Bull**** show on Showtime had a great episode on this issue. And it was incredibly funny. 🙂
I lost 40-odd pounds last year by doing just that — regular walking, but also cutting out the sugared sodas, and counting calories (I call it the “Geek Diet” because I use a PC/Palm-based app to track calories of what I eat). There are no shortcuts (though, honestly, I’d take a reasonable one if it came up).