caffeine

I’m no fan of PepsiCo and it’s not a secret. There’s nothing wrong with a soda treat once in a blue moon (and I mean that literally so that would have you drinking about a soda a year) but soda is a horrible thing to put in your body and it’s even worse for children and girls. Today’s rant is not about soda though, it’s about one of the many frankenfood products PepsiCo owns.

PepsiCo is about to change Cracker Jacks. They’re adding a line called Cracker Jack’d.

Cracker Jack’d is not a movie about white guys from Georgia moving to South Central LA to steal cars circa 1987. Cracker Jack’d is a candy with caffeine added.

Yes, really. PepsiCo is going to stealth caffeinate your children.

See the tagline? Snacks with impact.

 

Let me talk to you about caffeine and what soda and Starbucks has done to us. We’ve normalized an addiction. We’ve pretended like needing morning coffee is normal and adorable. It’s not.

If you’re a coffee drinker (and statistically most of you are) and you don’t have your morning coffee how do you feel? Cranky, headachey, lethargic? Who in their right mind would gift that dependence to their child? Who would introduce a habit forming stimulant to children? Who would give their child a product that is guaranteed to weaken their growing bones? Notice that I’m refraining from lecturing adults about loving themselves enough to quit…

PepsiCo would.

There is no reason for our children to be drinking caffeinated drinks. There is no good reason for our children to have caffeine dropped into snacks made for them. The only reason anyone would caffeinate a child’s snack is to make it more addictive than the sugar already is. 

We need a new song to sing at baseball games. Cracker Jacks cannot be trusted. They have a facebook page for the new treats so ostensibly someone is listening.

EDIT: I’m not saying that Cracker Jack’d will kill anyone but it is worth noting that The New York Times is reporting that 5-Hour Energy (the one who leads in the energy trend) has been implicated in at least 13 deaths, 30 heart attacks and spontaneous abortions.