Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
That’s insane. I hope not only that they win the lawsuit, but that companies understand stimulants can be harder (even dangerous) on some people.
The way caffeine affects me does not risk my life, but it can get ugly as I have a mental health condition that gets triggered by stimulants. It is so common to rely on caffeine nowadays, and it’s present in many beverages and snacks. People forget it is still a drug.
There should be labels and there should be less of a presence of caffeine (and other legal drugs) in unrelated products. I mean, it’s normal if coffee has caffeine, it shouldn’t be normal that a lemonade has caffeine.
I disagree. Don’t get me wrong - fuck Panera in general, but I’m all for more products being offered so long as they’re properly labeled which this was. Also with a name like charged lemonade it heavily omplies it’s not normal lemonade. There’s an argument to be made here about personal responsibilities and reading labels.
Charged lemonadw to me would indicate extra sweet not cat piss gaurana.
Well you should probably read what’s in it then if you’re not sure lol.
Yeah it’s a tragic story, but I don’t think Panera is at fault here. What I would like for them to do is update their signage to be even more specific as a result of this. There’s no legal requirement to, and I don’t think a court will find them liable, but no matter how you spin it, this was an absolute tragedy for the girl and her family. Caffeine overdose is an incredibly unpleasant feeling when you drink one more coffee than you should. The poor girl. It would be kind of Panera to make changes because of it.
Agreed. I mentioned this in another comment but I’m wondering if she was picking up an online order? The article was not clear about that, but it would certainly be a different story if the lemonade wasn’t properly labeled on the online menu
Very true
No, the responsibility is solely on the consumer. It’s clearly labeled as having caffeine. No one is forcing anybody to ingest anything against their will. It’s not the company nor governments responsibility to protect oneself against their own stupidity.
Anything can kill you, but quantity matters. Any reasonable person would assume a product marketed towards them would not have an amount remotely high enough to kill without an explicit warning at the very least.
There’s not remotely enough caffeine in this beverage “to kill”. A dose of caffeine considered fatal is something like 10,000 mg. You’d have to drink more than five gallons of this lemonade to get a fatal dose of caffeine.
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I’m not trying to blame the woman and agree that it should have been labeled (mostly because of the quantity of caffeine in the drink and less that it was there at all) but if a product is called “Charged Food Item” and you knew you were under doctors orders to avoid certain things wouldn’t you ask what was in the item to make it charged?
Charged could represent electrolytes. Naming schemes can be nonsensical sometimes. What is the “extreme” in extreme burrito? Would that also be caffeine? Or more cheese, a different type of cheese? Some other ingredient? What about chocolate delight? Is delight an ingredient? Is there an ingredient that specifically makes the “delight” part? Sometimes naming schemes are about the process used to create it rather than what is in the food itself; see Triscuit
Someone with food restrictions absolutely has some due diligence on their plate, but calling out a name to divulge or suggest a specific ingredient (when the ingredients name iself is not used) is a hindsight “obviously that’s what it means” take.
Bugles is another great example where I do not expect instruments in my food. But there is the sweet sweet music of the crunch
Tbh, that’s what I assumed from the headline. Expected something like that “water” that accidentally included Hydrazine due to the woo-woo they did to make it special