Inside the House of Coke
12 years ago, I went to a seminar on Raw Food led by Peter Pure. It was a fascinating event in many ways, but one line Peter said to me had a profound impact:
‘Put the Coke in your car as you can get a new car, but not a new body’
Those words made an impression on me and, though I didn’t put the Coke into my car – I loved that car – I stopped putting it into my body and started to tell everyone I knew to do the same. I then also started to teach myself to be much more nutritionally literate, which has since become a huge passion for me.
How interesting it was then to find myself inside the ‘House of Coke’, learning about their health and wellbeing strategy. It felt wrong to be there on the one hand, but on the other, Coke has massive distribution and if anyone can positively impact the obesity crisis, they can.
I was there in my capacity as Chief Customer Officer for SumoSalad and was intrigued and fascinated to learn first hand about their health and wellbeing plans, including, most importantly, their big goal or intention to reduce sugar in their products by 10% by 2020.
Given the size of Coke’s distribution, that one action would have a huge impact on the amount of sugar we’re consuming. A can of Coke contains something like 8 teaspoons of sugar on its own, so drink 3 those and you’ve just spooned 24 teaspoons of sugar into your body. Perhaps fine if you’re an ultra marathon runner, but not if you’re an office manager.
Sugar is definitely the enemy these days, but the situation isn’t black and white and all sugars aren’t equal. So the first step is to find out how much sugar you’re consuming by taking the Raw Energy Sugar Quiz.
I saw the brilliant Dr Libby Weaver speak recently in Sydney. She was there talking about her latest book, “What am I supposed to eat?”, a question that has many answers, as you know. The sugar message, though, ran through her presentation and she used a very visual technique to show the day in a life of an average consumer.
Think about your day and what you put into your mouth from the moment you awake to the moment you go to bed? There’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention the snacks you have along the way if you’re a snacker like me. Dr Libby’s estimate came to something like 52 teaspoons which was apparently conservative! The audience gasped.
Coca Cola’s intention to reduce their sugar by 10% is a great step forward, but start now to empower yourself by finding out where you are right now, and take the Raw Energy Sugar Quiz now.
As I always say, the best way to move forward is to find out where you are right now, so you can then run enthusiastically down the right path.
