The new New York City Department of Health ads which depict various sugary drinks are coming under fire from Big Sugary Drink. A vice president for the lobby (also known as the American Beverage Association) complains that, "It's absurd and over the top and unfortunately is going to undermine efforts to educate about a serious and complex issue like obesity," which is, of course, the Beverage Association's most pressing concern, properly educating people about obesity. The city is standing its ground, and also addressing the most important aspect of the campaign: Is that really human fat at the bottom of the glass?
"It certainly is pretty real-looking," the DOH's Cathy Nonas tells the Times. "The point of this is not to say this is absolutely what fat looks like or not. It's to say that people are over-consuming these beverages that give them nothing but calories."
Also: "We had to make sure it looked like real human fat. We did want those little blood vessels and things like that."
Also: Good morning! It suddenly feels like a coffee or water kind of day, doesn't it?
Is that fat? Misleading. I thought this was about not using sugarly coke-like drinks in your mixed drinks. Because who drinks out of a scotch glass like that?
GROSS. I totally did not get the human body fat reference in the image. I thought it was just pop. WTF I am going to die now of disgust so thanks for the health advisory.
Is it human fat, or yummy melted cheese?
same dif.
Never mind the lung rockets, Balk! How many Sprites do you drink a day?
He was using the vodka to mask the Sprite.
Big Seltzer strikes again.
No, don't even joke about that. I WISH THERE WERE A BIG SELTZER. Do you know how hard it is out there for us bland carbonation devotees? Once you leave the safe haven of Duane Reades you've got roughly a 50/50 chance of success, and once outside New Jersey forget it. Bloomberg and Cory Booker: we can work on this together. I have thoughts. CALL ME!
If it's a coffee day, make sure it's black. Because I swear a good part of the obesity epidemic comes from those gallons of milk people are downing in those bucket sized Upchucks coffees.
You mean "coffees," right? Cause I'm guessing there's very little actual java in those venti mocha caramel lattes with whipped cream on top...
Once our food scientists come up with Diet Human Fat you'll be able to drink all of that you want.
Because milk doesn't have a bunch of friggin calories. It's only because of the big dairy lobby that they're constantly trying to shove that crap down our throats.
We're about to have a whole bunch more sick passengers on the subway.
This is magnificent.
Somewhere a Coke lobbyist just lost his wings.
My boyfriend, god bless him, drinks iced-tea drinks all day long and then wonders why he can't lose the extra five pounds. I don't want to be a dick and tell him the liquid candybars have something to do with it.
So he's like, "Goddamn, I wish I could lose those last five pounds," and then you're *not* like, "Maybe it would help if you drank less sweetened iced tea"? Why not?
That's not human fat, it's a microwaved Gremlin.
This is fantastic. Cola should be a controlled substance.
This is disgusting, but it's not keeping me from eating chocolate frosting straight from the tub.
Finally, a cola AND a dip--genius!
Somehow I feel like sugar is the least worrisome ingredient in soda. I've been waiting for years to find out that soft drinks have over a hundred various habit forming additives, similar to the cigarette additive conspiracy 10 years ago!
What was that thing, recently, about how "caloric beverages" are now the NUMBER ONE source of calories for Americans?
I'm glad the state is waking people up. Sugar spike insulin which in turn creates fat for people that don't exercise regularly. The other problem is that most drinks and foods are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup which is stored in the liver and the liver can only store so much of it so the liver will convert the rest to fat. Most people don't even know this.
I just came across a new company called Yoli which has a patented technology and a sugar free drink that is packed full of nutrition. Hopefully they can change this trend.
Justin