shame on you Pepsi!

Shame on you Pepsi!

Apparently we don’t have enough soft drinks to choose from. That’s right Pepsi Next is the latest addition to the Pepsi Cola stable. Apparently Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max and Pepsi Lite don’t provide consumers with enough soft drink options. How is Pepsi Next different? Well let me tell you. Pepsi is neither a soft drink nor is it….wait for it, a diet soft drink. No Pepsi Next is what you might call a mid-calorie cola. Huh? A mid-calorie cola is a drink that does not contain the crazy, unnecessary calories of a soft drink nor does it allow the drinking pleasure of the diet variety safe in the knowledge you haven’t added a single calorie to your meal.

It’s amazing. Apparently consumers are delighted with this? PepsiCo’s Director of Beverages has been quoted as saying: “Consumer feedback during the research and testing stage was overwhelmingly positive. One consumer said, “if it tastes great, with less sugar naturally – why wouldn’t you like it?’

Words fail me.

Why is it called Pepsi Next? Is this the next frontier not to be confused with the final frontier that we now know  we will never get to with soft drink because clearly ridiculous concepts like this one can still have soft drink walking off the shelves.

In the US Pepsi Next is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucrolose and acesulfame k. A cocktail, which if you are at all familiar with sugar and sweeteners, you would not be crazy for thinking  PepsiCo has hatched some diabolical plot to kill us all! Luckily, us Aussie’s escaped these sinister additives because our Pepsi Next is flavoured with sugar and Stevia (the naturally derived sweetener that everyone has gone nuts over).

Pepsi Next claims to reduce your sugar intake by 30% over full strength soft drinks. Wow that’s great! BUT now I am still consuming enough sugar to spike by insulin levels at the same time as consuming something with no nutritional value and now with the added bonus of a sweetener that there is still no conclusive studies deeming it safe? Geez what a great product let me go out and buy some!

Can you guess I am not happy with PepsiCo? Good guess. Shame on you, Pepsi. We really don’t need anymore sugar or artificial sweeteners. I get you are a business and you must make money and fair play but I won’t be buying into this mid-calorie façade or any of the other products you have. Thank you and Good morning.