William Saletan of Slate is entitled to his own opinion, and—in general—he tends to make good points. This week, he may have taken the basic Slate premise (whatever sensible-sounding thing that anyone, anywhere, has said or done is actually—surprise!—wrong) to its logical extreme.
He argues that the new smaller-sized 90-calorie Coca-Cola cans are worse for us health-wise because (and this is serious):
“… if you don’t get enough ‘sparkle’ from the smaller can, no problem. The mini containers ‘will be sold in eight-packs,’ says the company. Just open a second 7.5-ounce can, and you’ll get 20 percent more sparkle than you used to get from a 12-ounce hit. You’ll also get 20 percent more calories.”
In other words, introducing a new, smaller size of Coke is bad because we’re now going to drink two cans and consume even more calories than if we’d just had one regular-sized can.
And if they were 45-calorie cans would we consume five of them? God forbid Coke comes out with a zero-calorie option, because we’d all drink an infinite amount of soda and Coca-Cola would come shooting out of our pores.
Oh, wait—Coke Zero! Oh noooooooo!
Image source: Flickr member geishaboy500 under Creative Commons
Once upon a time Coke only came in smallish Coke bottles. No 12-ouncers. No cans. No 2-liter monsters. Just returnable bottles in one size.
“Everything old is new again.”
Actually, 8-packs of 8-ounce cans of Coke (and a number of other soft drinks) have been available for several years now. I love them because I don’t usually actually *want* a full 12-ounce can but find it hard not to finish one once I’ve started it. The one bad thing is that they don’t go on sale for nearly as cheap as the 12-packs of 12-ounce cans…gee, funny how that works.
DH and I have an ongoing argument about that. I open a 12oz can, drink one glass and pour the rest down the drain. DH wants me to start buying teh 8 ounce cans so i don’t “waste” any coke. BUT, a 12 pack of 12 oz cans is about the same price here as an 8 pack of 8oz cans, so i find it rather difficult to spend more money so i can get less coke.
I remember when you could get a 6 pack of 12 ounce cans everywhere.now it seems that 12 oz cans are available only as “fridge pak”.
in the good ol days coke came in 5 or 6 oz glass returnable bottles.
hala,rather than pour your excess coke down the drain,why not put do what i do – pour the excess into a glass with a double sealed lid and leave it in the refrigerator.
Did you guys ever see this? Seems like it will allow you to put a half full can of soda away in the fridge and drink it later.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/09/29/snap-on-bottle-top-f.html