"energy drink" news and stories

We always enjoy hearing about strange new soft drinks here at Slashfood, and the most recent one to show up on my radar is Celsius. Its claim to fame is that its ingredients (which include caffeine) increase your body's metabolism, thereby helping you burn calories. Elite FX, the Delray Beach, Fla. company that makes Celsius, cites a study where the beverage was shown to increase metabolism by 12 percent over a three-hour period. They say you can lose 17 pounds a year, just by drinking a bottle a day for a year. I'm always skeptical of ways to lose weight without exercise, aren't you? Nevertheless, Celsius recently won "best new energy drink" from Beverage Industry Magazine, according to the Boca Raton News.

When reading about New Seasons Market in the New York Times, I came across a reference to Rockstar energy drinks and their highly conservative provenance. According to the Times, "Rockstar's chief executive is Russell Goldencloud Weiner, who developed the company with the help of his mother and his father, Michael Savage, the far-right talk radio host." Because of this, New Seasons won't sell the beverage.

I don't drink it because of the high fructose corn syrup, but now I'm considering changing my view to not drinking because of the politics. I did a little surfing and found several references to the "anti-immigrant, gaybashing, intolerant, hate-filled" rhetoric of Savage ("Facism Cola") and the connection between New Season's decision and that of my neighborhood co-op, People's, to stop carrying Oregon Rain water because Lars Larson was their pitchman ("Radio-Active Fallout").