Caffeine Test

But Leatherhead noted that reformulating carbonated soft drinks such as cola could make the difference with diet products less clear.

“Sugar and calorie levels are already falling for many of the market’s leading brands, as a result of which the distinction between regular and diet drinks may become less clear,” the company said.

Coconut water growth

Despite continued successful penetration by sports and energy drinks, exploiting a wide consumer base in emerging markets especially, Leatherhead warned growth here could slow.

“Growth within both segments may…slow in parts of the world over the next few years. The growing demand for coconut water may have an adverse effect on the sports drinks market, while concern over artificial additives and ingredients may turn some people away from energy drinks.”

Both Coca-Cola (Zico Beverages) and PepsiCo (Amacoco) have invested heavily in coconut water in recent years – with the global market for such drinks now worth $500m – which was being positioned as a competitor to mainstream sports drinks such as Gatorade.

“Sales are thought to be developing especially fast in markets such as the US and UK, where coconut water is increasingly being positioned as a rival to many sports drinks,” Leatherhead said.

A new Crystal Light ad makes the specious claim that you should buy the unpalatable beverage because 8% of women meet their husband in the grocery store. This seemed suspiciously high to us, so we decided to investigate.

First of all, its not entirely clear why the likelihood of meeting a spouse at the local Key Food should make you buy Crystal Light. Will he be impressed with your knowledge of diet drinks? Will you bond over your shared love of aspartame? Or maybe CLs making a more general claim drink Crystal Light and be skinny, because you never know when a hot guy will come along looking for a slender lady just like you. That appears to be the point of the companys recent bikini season ad.

But do dudes really troll for svelte wives-to-be at the grocery store? This claim is also advanced by every dating advice guru ever, who will invariably tell you to wear lipstick and strike up conversations over the arugula. But is there any evidence? I contacted Crystal Light to ask for their source, but I havent heard back. However, Prof. Reuben Thomas, sociologist and coauthor of a forthcoming study on how couples meet, told me that Crystal Lights 8% statistic was an odd claim. He explained,

We do estimate (from a nationally representative survey [...]) that almost 9% of married couples in the USA met in some sort of customer/client scenario, broadly defined. But looking through our data, I found only 27 couples (out of 2,960) that initially met each other in a grocery store or supermarket, and in 17 of those cases it is clear that at least one of them was working at the store (often both of them, with many of them students at the time). So I estimate that less than 1% of US married couples met in a grocery store or super market, and mostly when at least one was a store employee at the time.

There you have it. Unless Crystal Light comes back at me with some pretty compelling data, you can keep going to the supermarket in your ugly sweatpants and Garfield t-shirt your spouse is probably not waiting for you there.

Food and beverage taxes have been proposed and discussed in the United States, but Northwestern University research into the effectiveness of taxing sugary beverages to fight obesity suggested raising the prices of sugared soda would have little effect on obesity rates because most overweight people already consume sugar-free diet drinks, ScienceDaily reported.

The workshops supported by local businesses including Campbell Soup Company, Engineered Arresting Systems Corp, NuStar Energy, LP and Johnson Matthey brought professional female mentors onto the campus to share their history, knowledge and experiences with the girls.

After a keynote speech by Underwood Memorial Hospital CEO Eileen Cardile, the girls headed into the labs for some hands-on training in various sciences.

In Sense and Sciences Develop Your Own Beverage, the students, led by Campbell Soup Senior Technologist Patty Capperella, used the same techniques as food scientists to develop a marketable juice drink.

Half of the group will design a regular beverage, and half will design a diet beverage, said Capperella.

She said the students should use their taste and sensory knowledge to develop an appealing and flavorful beverage, create labels for the beverage and then share it with their peers so the group could decide which was best.

Capperella told the girls the regular drinks should be 100 percent juice and the diet beverages should be 50 percent juice and 50 percent water. The students were required to combine three or more juices in a 12-ounce container with a cost of less than 90 cents per serving. Regular drinks were required to be 190 calories or less, and diet drinks had to be 90 calories or less.

Wearing lab coats and hair nets, the girls sampled each of the individual juices and nectars before mapping out recipes in spreadsheets. One group of students first created a mix of apple, lime and blueberry juice for a diet drink but found it to be lacking in taste. They then undertook a complete redesign to make a more marketable beverage.

We ended up with a mix of carrot, blueberry, pomegranate and apricot juices plus water, said Gianna Morrone, 14, from Chestnut Ridge Middle School in Washington Township. The last one we tried didnt have much of a taste. I like this lab because you get to taste everything as you go.

Julianna Rezzetti, 13, also from Chestnut Ridge, said she thought the workshop was fun as well.

It gives you a lot of tips on how to create things, said Julianna. I think the best-designed drink would be something pretty sweet.

Down the hall, students learned about arresting systems designed to stop commercial aircraft in trouble, military planes and even tractor trailers. The girls were asked to build their own arresting system which would stop a toy car at the base of a ramp. The car held an egg passenger that needed to be protected from the impact.

Several of the students designed successful systems using materials like bubble wrap, cotton balls, pantyhose, straws and rubber bands.

We filled the pantyhose with cotton balls to serve as a backup in case our net didnt hold, said Trista Olier, 17, from West Deptford High School. I liked this experiment because it showed the science behind stopping cars and planes at high speed.

Alexa Fagan and Marissa Steinmetz, from Kingsway Regional and Deptford High School respectively, created a double safety system with an arresting net and bed.

Earlier, they had shown us a specific type of concrete which crumbled to stop a moving plane, and we imitated that with the bubble wrap which can compress, said Marissa, 14. It bunched up and prevented the car from going further.

Marissa said the aerospace lab and the fair as a whole was very enjoyable.

I think its all very beneficial, said Marissa. If you have any doubts about being interested in science, just come here.

France has approved a fat tax on sugary soft drinks in a bid to combat soaring child obesity and boost state coffers.

The new tax will add just over 1p to a can of fizzy drink like Coca-Cola or Fanta but zero-calorie diet drinks will be exempt from the charges, the government said.

The new measures – a hike of from 3 to 6 Euro cents per litre on sugary drinks – are also expected to raise more than £100million a year for government coffers.

The revenue would be used to fund lower social security charges for farm workers, the government said.

Frances Constitutional Council approved the new soda tax yesterday after it was announced in
August.

However, the tax has been slammed by beverage firms including Coca-Cola, which in
September said it was suspending a planned 17-million-euro investment
at a plant in the south of France in a symbolic protest against a tax
that punishes our company and stigmatises our products.

The move comes after France also announced it would be rationing tomato ketchup and salt in school canteens.

Under the rules, tomato sauce and mayonnaise will only be on dinner tables once a week when chips are served and would be removed when traditional French dishes such as roast veal are served.

Denmark also recently announced a new higher tax on foods containing high levels of saturated fat.

A recent study found a fast-food diet of junk food is turning the traditionally skinny French into a nation of fatties.