A coworker brought in two giant bags of candy. Apparently he didn’t get as many trick-or-treaters as expected.
What makes it worse is that it’s good candy – Heath bars, Butterfingers, M&Ms;, Nerds . . . I’m going to need to jog home for the next week, I think.
So, both a complaint, and an anti-complaint. Because candy is awesome, but thousands of extra calories from fat are not.
I know I’m scoring some points with the Coke people because I’m talking about their tea so much, but I have to share the last flavor. We tried the Green Tea flavored Enviga today. The wife liked it. I didn’t think it really had any flavor.
This whole Enviga experiment has so far been a huge disappointment. It didn’t make me shake uncontrollably or hallucinate or give me a twitch. It didn’t taste like used motor oil or dead bugs. Maybe I should ask Craig to send me samples of something that’s earlier in the testing process and hasn’t been approved by the FDA. I’d like something that makes me think I’m some sort of barnyard fowl, preferably a duck. I could live with thinking I’m a chicken, but I would much rather think I was a duck.
Since this hasn’t gone well, I’d like to try an experiment. I complained about Enviga, and three cans showed up in the mail. So, I’d like to tell you all that the new 6-series BMW convertibles are complete junk. They are, without doubt, the worst car I’ve ever seen on the road. The 6-series BMW convertible is absolute proof that there is no god.
However, if BMW would like me to use my super blogging power to spread the word about the 6-series convertible, I’d like a red one with a manual transmission. No skimping on the options, either.
Well, I didn’t get a chance to complete my testing of Enviga over the weekend because our trip home from NYC took six hours instead of four because of traffic in New Jersey and Delaware. But the wife and I did taste two of the three flavors.
Berry:
It’s okay. I didn’t notice the aspartame right away, but it definitely hits you in the aftertaste. Some people may be okay with this, but I’m not. I know there’s a lot of controversy surrounding aspartame, and they haven’t proven convincingly that it’s bad for you, but I still try to avoid it. The wife said, “It tastes like those carbonated juices that we drank instead of champagne when we were kids” after she tried it. That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement to me, but you can draw your own conclusions.
**Peach: **
Wife’s reaction was, “I would drink these. But, I like carbonation.” She will occasionally drink carbonated water (Without mixing it with gin or vodka!), so I’m not sure how much stock we can put in her mild approval. I don’t think the peach is much different from the berry.
Overall, I’m disappointed that they weren’t awful. I was hoping to be able to spew fire and brimstone here as my heart raced from the caffeine and concentrated tea extract. Enviga contains “seven times as much EGCG as the leading sweetened green tea”. By the way, Enviga is the top paid Google result when you search for EGCG. Coke is really marketing this pretty hard. Anyway, EGCG actually seems to be good for you – it’s an antioxidant, and because it occurs naturally in green tea, we’ve had plenty of time to study the effects. Whether it’s really good for you to have that much of it in a 12 ounce can of tea, I don’t know. I have to say that I don’t think that cramming more of it into the same volume of tea is really a good idea, but that’s totally a guess, with no scientific support. It could be really good for you to inject concentrated green tea right into your veins. Coke has this to say about Enviga:
Engiva is not designed for rapid weight loss. Enviga is a choice – like taking the stairs – that can contribute to consumers’ overall goals for a healthier lifestyle.
In response to that, I say that actually taking the stairs is a much, much better choice.
On October 13, I posted about a new soft drink called Enviga, and how I didn’t believe the marketing hype. On October 18th, I posted again about Enviga and how it sucks. On October 19th, I got an email from a guy who works for Manning Selvage & Lee, an advertising firm representing Coca Cola.
Hello, My name is Craig Eldon and I’m assisting in the launch of Coke’s new sparkling green tea – Enviga.
I’ve read your blog and thought detailed news about this new product might be a fit for your readers. I have pre-sale samples available for you and would like to provide detailed information about this new drink category.
What do you think? I look forward to hearing from you shortly.
Best, Craig
Today, I received three cans of not-yet-released-to-the-public “sparkling green tea”, Enviga. Coke calls it “The Calorie Burner”. Later tonight, the wife and I are going to try it. On Monday (Because no one reads blogs on the weekend), you’ll have a full report on the aspartame-filled beverage.
It’s interesting – I exchanged a few emails with Craig, and every subsequent email had a note at the bottom threatening all that I hold dear if I shared any information. I’m actually not going to share any of it with you. The reason for this is that they obviously thought about what communication they could and couldn’t keep privilaged. That is, they knew an unsolicited marketing email could hardly be called private, but once I responded, they had some reasonable expectation for my discretion. The fact that they made this distinction suggests that they are on firm legal ground in restricting what I can and can’t share, so I’m going to listen to them.
I will have you know that I have received only a few emails, some marketing documents, and three cans of Enviga from Craig. There is no money, nor promise of money, nor any other sort of compensation. The review of Enviga you read here on Monday will be honest, and it will be my opinion, whatever that turns out to be.
I hope you’re excited. I know I sure am.
TIME.com: Why We Need to be Careful in the Search for Autism’s Cause — Page 1
The week also brought a more definitive, though less splashy finding on the causes of autism, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. A team led by Levitt found that a fairly common gene variation-one that’s present in 47% of the population-is associated with an increased risk of autism.
I just posted about the research that this article is responding to. This Time article sounds a little like blogosphere hate – because many bloggers read the article I did and talked about it, the article must be based on wild conjecture and made up data.
I think it’s great that scientists take the research of others with a grain of salt – if it looks contrary to what you’ve seen, you should certainly investigate. And I understand the feeling of many experts in various fields that the internet has allowed everyone to think they are experts, and spread their opinions all over. But isn’t it at least worth investigating? They’ve found some strong statistics suggesting that increased TV watching corresponds with a rise in autism. Isn’t that at least a good starting point? Why can’t the geneticists and medical researchers talk to the economists about their findings? Maybe that would be helpful.
The fact that something is blogged does not make it right or wrong. Many smart people blog many smart things. And many not so smart people blog misleading or untrue things. Actually, I’m sure smart bloggers post false information, too. Anyway.
Time had this to say about the previous research:
Could there be something to this strange piece of statistical derring- do? It’s not impossible, but it would take a lot more research to tease out its true significance. Meanwhile, it’s hard to say just what these correlations measure.
A lot more research? Well, lucky us, we have 300 million people in the country. Surely some of them could do research. Maybe they could look for reasons why or why not TV watching affects autism. Maybe a kid has to be genetically predisposed to autism to get it, but that watching a lot of TV at a young age makes it more likely. Meanwhile, it’s hard to say what ANY correlations measure. We don’t live in a vaccuum with only one or two outside influences acting on our bodies and lives at a time. If we did, cause and effect would be easy to determine. “Look, that guy who likes to swim in a pool of mercury is looking a little unwell.”
Edit: Time has now changed the title of the story from “Why We Need to be Careful in the Search for Autism’s Cause” to “A Bizarre Study Suggests — Irresponsibly — That Watching TV Causes Autism“. I don’t know how much they changed the article since this morning – I think the opening paragraph is more skeptical of the report, but the rest of the article looks the same. I’ll leave it to you to decide what that all means.
Shocker: Enviga Doesn’t Actually Burn Calories – Consumerist
Heck, we’re only marketing it as ‘The Calorie Burner.’ It’s not like we’re saying it burns calories or something!
I wrote about this before, and now it seems that the calorie burning soda-tea or whatever it is doesn’t really burn calories. Still no information on calorie content.
TIME.com Daily Rx: Choose Your Fish Wisely
While Americans are eating more fish on average today than at the turn of the century, we’re not eating the healthiest kinds of seafood. The most popular form of seafood, shrimp, is high in cholesterol and contains low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. And that cafeteria staple, fish sticks, contain very low levels of methylmercury but are equally poor sources of omega-3 oils
You, undoubtedly, should eat more fish. What I recommend you do is go to the store and purchase some fresh tilapia, a lemon, some broccoli, a few tomatos, garlic, vegetable broth, olive oil, black pepper, and oregano. Come home and put the fish in some tin foil, drench it in lemon juice, sprinkle with oregano and black pepper, and then seal the tin foil. Preheat the oven to 400 and bake for 10-15 minutes, maybe more, depending on the thickness of the fish. If you don’t know how to tell if fish is done, consult someone who does.
Meanwhile, saute the garlic in the olive oil. If you don’t already have olive oil, you really should. I know, it’s expensive. But a bottle lasts a long time, and it’s good for you. Anyway, saute the garlic, then add the tomatos. Make sure you throw the juice and squishy stuff from the tomatos in to the pan, too. There should be a layer of liquid covering the pan. If not, add a bit of vegetable broth. Once the tomatos are simmering, toss the broccoli, turn down the heat, and cover. Do NOT stir in the broccoli – it should be sitting on top of the tomatos. You’re basically steaming the broccoli with the tomato juice. If you’ve timed it correctly, your fish will be done right as the brocolli gets nice and tender. If you have, let me know, because I’ve never managed to do it. When it’s all done, throw the fish on a plate, add some of the broccoli/tomato mixture (I think it should go on top of the fish, but that’s just me), and enjoy.
I think the problem with fish (It was my problem, at least) is that people are scared to cook it. It’s really easy to cook. Yes, you should be careful and make sure you’ve cooked it all the way through. But other than that, it’s very easy to cook, and I find it delicious. And it’s good for you.
TV might cause autism. By Gregg Easterbrook – Slate Magazine link via Futurismic
Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3.
So, really, when they say that TV rots your brain, maybe they were actually right. The article makes it clear that they have not proven that watching TV too much when you’re under 3 causes autism. But they have shown that the percentage of children with autism were rising faster in areas with cable TV than those without, and this is based on data old enough so that there still were areas without cable.
Research has shown that autistic children exhibit abnormal activity in the visual-processing areas of their brains, and these areas are actively developing in the first three years of life. Whether excessive viewing of brightly colored two-dimensional screen images can cause visual-processing abnormalities is unknown.
There are other factors that may come into play here. The negative effects of the TV watching could be due to increased time indoors rather than the actual TV. But it’s interesting that autism may be more strongly linked to the first couple years of life rather than genetics.
Regardless, get your kids outside. Playing in the backyard with the neighbor’s kids definitely doesn’t cause autism, or ADHD, or obesity.
Boing Boing: Fake beauty, video about transhuman tricks used on models
That is, when I have a daughter. But the likelihood of me having a daughter is pretty good. I mean, the first kid has about a 50/50 chance of being a girl, right? So if I plan to have multiple children, which the wife currently is on board with, I have a better than 50/50 chance of having a girl.
Anyway, the point is, how would you explain this to a little girl? The video shows an attractive but perfectly normal woman, and the process to make her face into a billboard. Makeup, which isn’t surprising, but then the digital manipulation of her face is a little shocking. They make her neck thinner and longer, raise her eyebrows, make her lips fuller.
I can’t imagine explaining that to my (As yet unborn, or even conceived) little girl when she’s six and asks me why. There’s a long time in a kid’s life when they understand enough to ask hard-to-answer questions, but they may not understand enough to hear the real answer. Assuming there is one. I mean, I don’t know why we’ve built up completely unreasonable expectations of beauty.
I’ve heard the arguments that some of it is based on propagation of the species, and the claim that a fit woman with wide hips is well-suited for reproduction. But what do full lips and a long, slender neck have to do with reprodcution?
Absolutely nothing, that’s what.
Accidental Hedonist – Coke’s Caloric Sophistry
There are a couple things wrong with this. First, they say that drinking three twelve ounce cans will burn about 100 calories. Okay, fine. How many calories are in a can? There’s about 140 calories in a 12 ounce can of Coke. Unless each can of this new stuff is less than 35 calories or so (Highly unlikely, but I can’t find the number online), even if the calorie-burning claims are correct, you’re still taking in more than you’re burning.
Second, you’d burn about 35 calories taking a slow walk for ten minutes. 35 calories is not that much.
Third, “The makers claim that a combination of extracts from green tea and caffeine speeds up the drinker’s metabolic rate, which helps the body to burn calories”. How many can I drink in a day before my metabolic rate is at an unsafe level? Artificially speeding up your metabloic rate just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
Fourth, “But, this is a positive step that people can take to make a difference to their health with regular physical activity and a balanced, healthy diet.” So says Rhoma Applebaum, chief scientist for Coke. Everything I’m reading from Coke implies that this is a health drink. That is, something that will help you be healthy. Is it healthy like Diet Coke is healthy? I mean, sure, drinking it is probably healthier than drinking straight high-fructose corn syrup, or drinking battery acid. But I doubt drinking one of these Envigas is healthier than drinking nothing.
Anyway, I love Coke. Not the company, but the soda. I know it’s bad for me, and that’s why I try not to drink it too often (Although I should drink less of it). But this stuff is being marketed deceptively, and I’d like to see Coke get sued for it.