I read on the Consumerist that the Center of Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reported that PepsiCo will voluntarily begin listing caffeine content on cans and bottles of soda. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration only requires that companies list caffeine as an ingredient when it is added to a product; they are not required to disclose the amounts. Interestingly, I could find no announcement of this initiative on PepsiCo’s website.
The CSPI news release calls on Coca-Cola and other manufactuers to follow suit and disclose caffeine content.
The Coca-Cola Company appears to have not liked to be one-upped, as it quickly announced that it too would begin disclosing caffeine content. Acutally, what the company did was announce that it would “continue the rollout of expanded nutrition labeling in the U.S. to include caffeine content on all of its beverages containing the ingredient”. Coca-Cola already does already list caffeine content on its Full Throttle and Enviga beverages, so this is merely a continuation of that initiative.
I like that fact that these companies will begin disclosing caffeine content. For mainstream sodas like Coca-Cola Classic and Pepsi, the caffeine appears to be added solely to make the beverage addictive. After all, caffeine is a highly addictive drug, and what better way is there to ensure consumption of your product than to have people be addicted to it? For “energy drinks” with large amounts of caffeine like Full Throttle, the beverage is merely a delivery mechanism for the drug.
See this Wikipedia entry for more information on caffeine.
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