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Pam’s Commentary
February 17th, 2006
www.pamkilleen.com
RE: Soft Drink Sales (story below
my commentary)
This type of information doesn’t
even deserve our attention. I don’t see any place for
synthetic drinks on the market. To me, they are all
dangerous – it doesn’t matter if they use sugar, high
fructose corn syrup, sucralose, aspartame, artificial
coloring, bat dung…whatever they do to these types of
beverages, they will probably always be bad for us.
If you do drink soft drinks, I
hope that you have learned to make them yourself. For
centuries, man naturally fermented non-alcoholic drinks
which were actually good for us. You can find many ideas
for these drinks in Sally Fallon’s cookbook,
Nourishing Traditions and in Sandor Katz’s book,
Wild Fermentation.
As schools phase out soft drinks,
they will be looking for healthier alternatives.
Unfortunately, these alternatives will not be much
healthier than the soft drinks. Furthermore, the
companies that will step in to save the day, will
probably be the same companies that sold the soft drinks
in the first place. Don’t be fooled into believing that
these drinks will be healthier. The best approach is to
avoid them. Make your own fermented drinks such as kvass
and rejuvelac.
Soft drinks sales strong despite obesity concerns
By Anthony Fletcher
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=65477&m=2ICT209&idP=1&c=ggiltuxmnzelrti
31/01/2006 -
Canadean predicts that carbonates, the leading global
soft drinks category, will have grown by around 2 per
cent in 2005 despite bad press and pessimistic reports.
The market analyst said that consumers around the world
will have guzzled a massive 194 billion litres last
year, the equivalent of 30 litres per drinker, even
though the sector has come under intense criticism on
both sides of the Atlantic.
But while the debate about sugar content has certainly
impacted on sales in the more affluent regions of the
world, developing regions are continuing to drive
demand.
Eastern Europe leads the way with a 7 per cent surge in
demand for carbonated
soft
drinks between 2004 and 2005, while Asia,
Central & South America, the Middle East & North Africa
and the Rest of Africa all clocked up growth of 3 or 4
per cent.
In contrast, North America saw sales slip by 1 per cent
as did Australasia, and West European sales could only
edge forward marginally.
This is not altogether surprising. Food and drink
producers have come under increasing pressure in Europe
and the US amid concerns over rising
obesity
rates, and soft drinks have increasingly been targeted.
France recently banned all vending machines from schools
last September in an attempt to tackle the problem of
childhood obesity, while England and Scotland have also
pledged to get
junk
food, including fizzy sodas, out of schools.
The British Medical Association, representing about
three quarters of UK doctors, said that if current
trends continue, at least one fifth of boys and one
third of girls in Britain will be obese by 2020.
Carbonated drinks manufacturers have of course responded
to growing consumer fears with the launch of numerous
low calorie alternatives. The level of low calorie
penetration in the developed world reflects the changing
lifestyle of consumers, reaching 30 per cent in the key
North American market, and 18 per cent in the number two
volume region, West Europe.
In North America, the emergence of sucralose as a third
intense sweetener alongside aspartame and acesulfame k
has been a factor in the rising popularity of diet
drinks. Canadean says that improvement in the taste of
low calorie products will be critical in determining the
future prospects for the category, particularly in diet
sensitive segments of the global village.
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