The Article below is taken from the article "Vitamin Water Sued for Misleading Labeling" on www.healthcentral.com 13/08/10. Would you dress up a sugar packed item a healthy to make more money?
If any of you follow the juicy and scandalous world of health news like I do, you might have noticed that Coca-Cola Co. has a pretty nasty lawsuit on their hands over one of their leading products, VitaminWater. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization in Washington D.C., has accused Coca-Cola of making false claims about the drink, including claims that VitaminWater reduces the risk of disease and is a healthful drink.
You need not look past the packaging on the product to see these health claims. Exhibit A: the product is call VitaminWater, implying that it contains those lovely essential nutrients that we all strive to get in our diets. What better way to get them than through a delicious, refreshing beverage? Exhibit B: each label touts a positive effect this drink will have on your nutrient-starved, thirsty body, such as "revive," "energy," "focus," "defense" and so on.
But if you take a look at the BACK of the packaging, the place where you will find the FDA-sanctioned nutrition facts and an all inclusive list of what is actually IN the product you are about to ingest to "revive" your poor little body, you will find that these health claims are a bit misleading.
Take the Vitamin Water Multi-V, for example. One bottle (2.5 servings) contains 125 calories, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 33 grams of sugar and no protein. While this particular bottle does contain 100 percent daily value of vitamin C, for being called "VitaminWater," it doesn't pack much else in its calorie-laden punch.
Coke's defense in court against these claims are, and I am directly quoting here, "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking VitaminWater was a healthy beverage." Take that as you will.
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