"energy drinks" news and stories

Last fall, we mentioned Enviga, the new energy drink from Coca Cola and Nestea. The drink isn't just a "diet drink," because it is low in calories, but it touts an ability to burn calories with ingredients like caffeine, calcium and most importantly, "naturally active plant micronutrients that allegedly increase the body's rate of calorie burning." Not low calorie. Not even zero calories. Negative calories!

It sounded way too good to be true -- could someone just sit around on the couch all day drinking Enviga and lose 10 pounds? To be quite honest, I am not as concerned about the true ability for Enviga to burn calories, but relying more and more on energy drinks these days to get through a mountain of work, I was curious about how the "energy" part of the drink and its taste stacked up to my current favorite, Tab Energy. Would Enviga unseat the incumbent? I bought a case of the drinks the other day because they were on sale.

Hm, on sale already? That's interesting.

After an insane multi-week phase last month when I could not force myself to sleep for more than three hours a night, I am trying my hardest to rely on natural sources of energy. I have turned away as much as I can from things like energy drinks in favor of plain old water, pure personal adrenaline, and natural sugar energy from fruit. (I haven't given up coffee. What am I? Crazy?)

A new beverage from Steaz just might make me break because though it is marketed as an "energy drink," all of the energy sources are natural -- green tea, yerba mate, acai, and guarana. I realize that many of the ingredients in products like Red Bull and Monster could also be counted as "natural," but have you seen a glass of red bull in a darkened room? There is nothing natural about the fact that it literally glows.

Steaz Energy comes from the makers of Guayaki and Sambazon, so not only does their drink provides energy, but the natural and organic ingredients are sourced from sustainable, local producers. The Ceylon tea ingredient is Fair Trade Certified. An energy drink with a conscience!

I was just reading some beverage trade magazines and was amazed at the numbers in the energy drinks category. I hadn't realized they were that big, and so many people were chugging them down in the morning to wake up, in the afternoon to keep focused, and at night to stay awake or mixed with spirits for a buzz bomb. I started asking friends if they used them and several said yes, and in a big way. A few said they drink 2, 3, 4, or even more in one day. I was flabbergasted, I guess because I am so sensitive to caffeine that even the lower levels of the very tasty Inkos White Tea Energy made my hair stand straight up and I ran around in circles for hours.

The energy drink figures looked at the calender year from Oct 2005 to Oct 2006 (excluding Wal-Mart Sales) and of course the top seller is Red Bull with around $262 million, out of about $600 million in sales for the top ten. Red Bull is so far ahead of the rest in sales that the next seven combined barely add up to the same amount. The rest of the list in order by approximate dollar amount of sales are: Monster $81 million, Rockstar $67 Million, Full Throttle $40 million, Sobe No Fear $32 million, Amp $23 million, Sobe Adrenaline Rush $19 million, Tab Energy $11 million, Monster XXL $5 million, and private labels at $5 million.

For his science experiment this year, a middle school student from Boca Raton, Florida decided that he would test the effects of energy drinks on blood sugar. He came up with the idea because the drinks are hugely popular with his friends who feel that the drinks give them a "boost" and was already familiar with blood sugar and testing it because his cousin is a diabetic. Lucas Peel's hypothesis was that the drinks with the greatest amount of sugar and caffeine would produce the greatest increase in blood sugar, giving the drinker a burst of energy.

Over the course of about a week, Lucas drank Red Bull, Rock Star, Amp and water, testing his blood sugar levels twice after each of the three times he tried each drink. He found that, contrary to his original theory, it was "the energy drinks with the least sugar [that] increased blood sugar level." Red Bull boosted blood sugar more than any of the other drinks.

Lucas says that he avoids energy drinks and hopes that his project will help some of his fellow students to realize that they are not a good replacement for a real breakfast.

This isn't the first time that a middle-school student has conducted a science project that attracts a far-ranging interest. Earlier this year, for example, a student in Tampa, FL tested samples of water from the toilets at fast food restaurants and compared it to the ice from the soda machines, only to discover that there were more bacteria in the soda machine than the toilet.

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I met the folks at Inko's White Tea, the "healthy ice tea" for the first time two years ago at a food event and tried their tasty, mild, and sophisticated products. Since then I have run into them several times at events and shows, always with a new flavor to try. It's a bummer I haven't seen their products yet in any of my local stores, since I enjoyed them so much. Now they are breaking into the energy drink market with Inko's White Tea Energy. It's made with white tea, ginger, lemon, and other natural flavors and is the only "tea caffeine" based energy drink on the market. It doesn't have the super high caffeine levels of some of the other energy drinks and gives long lasting and sustained, jitter free energy. Studies show that white tea has many positive effects on health so this may be the first, actually healthy, energy drink on the market.

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