The Magic Number

I'm wondering, what's the magic number of calories in a can or bottle of soda that will make me actually NOT drink that can or bottle?  I will happily down several Coke Zeros in a day.  Same goes for Pepsi Max (which although it sounds like it would be a lot of calories, is actually calorie free).  I will guzzle Pepsi One.  And Diet Dr. Peppers.  They all, essentially, are calorie free.

Today, however, I discovered a new marketing tactic.  Or ploy.  Or gimmick.  I grabbed a bottle of Dr. Pepper 10.  That's the title of the drink.  I innocently thought it meant that there would be 10 calories in the drink.  Not a particularly bold or, in my opinion, risky assumption there.  But then I noticed, halfway through my refreshing mid-afternoon drink, that in very small letters underneath the very large and bold Dr. Pepper 10 it said, "10 calories per 8 ounces".  Hmmm.  Eight ounces is one cup.  I have never encountered a soda container, be it can or bottle, that was a mere eight ounces.  I did a little detective work.  I read the serving size: one bottle.  Okay, that's good.  I read how many ounces are contained in the bottle: 20.

Twenty?  So my Dr. Pepper 10 just turned into my Dr. Pepper 25.

This seems extremely deceptive marketing to me.

I know that recently the FDA started requiring packaging to show how many calories are in the entire package.  This was done because some foods (junk foods I'm thinking) would put the calories per serving on the front of the, say M&M's bag, and then in very small print on the back tell you that there were in fact 3.5 servings of that 100 calorie/serving food in that tiny bag.

Now, the Dr. Pepper 10 people threw me completely.  They named their product with a 10, causing me to think there were ten calories in the bottle.  They put that it was one serving per bottle, so I'm still thinking I'm drinking a mere 10 calories.  But then they told me that it was in fact 10 calories per eight ounces, and they did it with fine print in a very muted shade, so I wouldn't notice that little fact.  And then to boot, they made the bottle size 20 ounces.  So to my figuring, it would have made just as much sense for them to tell me that there are 5 calories per four ounces and called it a Dr. Pepper 5.  Or perhaps go all James Bond and tell me there are 7 1/2 calories per..... okay, frankly I'm not that good at math and I'm just not going to go to the trouble to figure that one out.  But you get the picture.

So no great epiphany here, just an average consumer noticing that in a society where one in three people are obese, a little straight shooting from the good people who package the food would be nice.

It was a good reminder to me, as well, to read the nutrition labels.  I do realize it's my responsibility to understand what I'm putting into my body (although, again, I would so appreciate it if the packaging didn't require me to do math to figure it out).

And just FYI, I drank the Dr. Pepper 10.  The whole bottle.  All two and a half servings of it.