This blog chronicles my life as I try to balance healthy lifestyle habits with my husband's penchant for pizza rolls and my daughter's desire to watch iCarly 8 hours a day. It contains a mostly humorous, kind, and somewhat spiritual look at everyday life and the people who live it.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Pepsi Refresh? Shame on you!

You may remember my Pink Ribbon Rant where I expressed my frustration with products that contain carcinogens on the inside yet bear a pink ribbon on the outside packaging.  Pepsi's new Refresh campaign is inspiring the same frustration.  At its core, Pepsi's idea to give money to support ideas that will "Refresh" the planet, ideas such as recycling T-shirts into reusable bags, sending Girl Scout cookies to overseas troops, improving living conditions for children living in poverty -- are all good ideas.  I don't have any problem with the ideas put forth to fulfill the campaign. 

My problem is with the campaign.

Pepsi, how dare you spend money on this campaign while saving money by using inferior, unhealthy,and carcinogenic sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup as the main ingredient in your product?  You want to Refresh the Planet?  Start with your own product.  You want to make a sweetened cola?  Fantastic, make it with organic cane sugar.  Bottle it in recyclable glass bottles, not cans made with aluminum that 1. leach toxic aluminum into our soil when they are not recycled, and 2.  are made from bauxite which is not mined responsibly and is devastating lives in India and the rainforests in Brazil.

How does contributing to obesity, heavy metal poisoning, and environmental destruction Refresh our world?  But the slogan is catchy, it gets celebrities behind it, people feel good buying Pepsi and sales go up.  So it's all good, right?

No.  Pepsi, you should be ashamed of yourself.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tell ya you are always full of knowledge that I would have never known.

Judy said...

I agree with Anonymous. I always learn something new when I read your blog......just like going to the Library! Keep it up, Beth!

Beth said...

All these facts in my head yet I am still unable to find my car keys...! (Probably due to short term memory loss from ingesting too much MSG, but that's another post)