Does This Energy Drink Make Me Look Fat?

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Sep 11, 2006 2:58PM

If you're having trouble fitting into those hip-huggers, ladies, you might want to lay off the Jaeger bombs and vodka/Red Bulls for a while (one of many reasons you should). This Gannett News Service story - which also ran in yesterday's Sun-Times - states that the Food and Drug Administration has no guidelines to define an energy drink. Nutritionists interviewed for the article state that the energy these drinks give consumers comes mainly from carbohydrates and caffeine. And we all know what happens to carbs when we don't work out, don't we?

So, if you're drinking these beverages because of the taurine, ginseng, guarana, and ginkgo, you're essentially being fed a bunch of guano. A Coca-Cola spokesman (Coca-Cola produces Full Throttle, the sugar-free Tab Energy, and distributes Rockstar Energy Drink) was even quoted in the article saying that they don't claim the exotic ingredients are sources of energy, but that consumers want to see them on the label. Yay, marketing!!

We find the Gannett article a bit late in coming, seeing as how both the vodka/Red Bull and Jaeger bomb crazes are waning, soon to be replaced by "energy liqueurs" like the brand new Ecstacy liqueur and Zen green tea liqueur (we've tasted them, and yes, we'll post on them at a later date). Maybe the new tagline for Red Bull can be, "It gives you wings or an anchor around your hips."