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2012 March 9 Canadian Beverage Association Responds to CSPI re 4-MEI
Canadian Beverage Association Responds to CSPI re 4-MEI 4-MEI is not a threat to human...
Energy Drinks in Canada Brochure
Energy Drinks in Canada What are they? Who are they...
Letters to The Editor
2012 March 19 -- Bottled and tap water can co-exist
I read with interest the story "Bottled water to be phased out at county facilities,"...
2011 July 20 -- Sports, energy drinks shouldn't be confused
In a recent wire story "How to beat the heat; STAYING SAFE" Dr. Amber...
A recent National Post and New York Times article brought to light the fact that the truth is often the first causality in creating a good story or campaign. When the New York City's health department created an ad campaign to vilify soft drinks they decided that the best way to scare people away was to claim that drinking a can of pop a day "can make you 10 pounds fatter a year."
The main issue was that their claims weren't supported by science. The experts will tell you that no single food causes obesity. The solution to obesity lies in encouraging healthy active lifestyles that balance calories in to calories out. This is something the beverage industry supports and encourages by helping consumers make appropriate choices by providing easy access to calorie and nutrition information, promoting physical activity and beverage innovation. In fact, no single food or food ingredient can be held responsible for weight gain - the human body does not differentiate the source of calories consumed. Rather, the body either uses these calories to produce energy in active people or store them as fat in inactive people.
It's also important to keep in perspective the relatively small percentage of calories that come from beverages. Soft drinks contribute less than 2.5% of a Canadian's average daily calorie consumption. That means that more than 97 percent of calories come from other sources. The volume of regular (i.e. caloric) soft drinks sold in Canada has dropped over 21% from 1999 to 2008, with annual per capita consumption down from 90 litres in 1999 to 66 litres in 2008.
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