Panera Bread’s highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade is now blamed for a second death, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
Dennis Brown, of Fleming Island, Florida, drank three Charged Lemonades from a local Panera on Oct. 9 and then suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on his way home, the suit says.
Brown, 46, had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder, a developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability. He lived independently, frequently stopping at Panera after his shifts at a supermarket, the legal complaint says. Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.
400mg of caffeine is the daily maximum dose recommended by several health organizations. And that’s for healthy adults. Keep in mind that one charged lemonade had more caffeine than a full can of Red Bull, and a full can of Monster combined. It also contained a lot of taurine which increases the effect of caffeine.
The charged lemonade does not taste caffeinated, and there were basically no warnings about it in store. The marketing and in store branding made it seem like a sort of Gatorade, i.e. an electrolyte drink.
It was also sold next to the fruit juices and such. Which would imply less caffeine.
It was also part of the unlimited sips program, providing free refills. Drinking two or three would cause a healthy adult to start having heart palpitations, and those who are at risk would go into cardiac arrest after one (which is what happened with the first death)
Since the first death, Panera has reduced the amount of caffeine in the lemonade, and many stores have started putting it behind the counter rather than out in the open. They’ve also added warnings about the caffeine content of the drinks, but still don’t warn about the compounding effects of taurine.
These lawsuits are likely going to be settled out of court, because Panera did fuck up here, and they also don’t want the bad press of multiple deaths linked to their overly caffeinated drink.
A few corrections:
400mg of caffeine is not considered a daily recommended maximum, but “an amount not generally associated with dangerous, negative effects” (FDA). Most people can consume more than that and have no significant side effects.
The Charged Lemonade has more caffeine than most any other drinks… When you fill up a 30 oz container with it and don’t add any ice. If you filled up the same container with an energy drink or coffee, it would have similar amounts of caffeine.
Aside from the possibility to associate “charged” with electrolytes, none of the marketing or branding of the drink implies that it’s an electrolyte drink. Personally I would much sooner think that charged means energy, i.e. caffeine and the like, but that’s just me.
A healthy adult consuming multiple of these beverages wouldn’t likely experience any heart issues, but likely would have things like jitteriness and have a hard time falling asleep. And while people with heart conditions should definitely stay away from these drinks, “would go into cardiac arrest after one” is incredibly overblown. If that were the case, the deaths would be in the hundreds or thousands, not one or two.
Panera has only “reduced” the caffeine amounts in the drink by adding ice into the cup because they are now behind the counter, not by changing the formula of the drink.
Your last point is misinformation or a straight up lie, not sure that anything else you wrote has any validity.
I guess the interns are on Nutrition Facts duty
Most people just correct people or offer additional information. What purpose does calling someone a liar serve? I see you found something useful that shows the caffeine was reduced but it doesn’t prove it’s not because of more ice.
Also, their statement about caffeine by volume is relevant to the discussion.
The chart is quite useless. It just says “Nutrition & Allergens” and lists a bunch of classes without establishing a base of what was measured. A same sized container or some phony-baloney “serving size” companies love to come up with? I also cannot find information on how calorific caffeine is. If it doesn’t add to calories, the difference you see in the chart is the amount of water, else the difference is a changed formula.
Credibility of content is lost when it’s couched with misinformation.
Seriously?! If it was due to ice the calories would also be lower.
In your chart, the sugar was reduced from 124g to 74g but the total carbohydrates remained unchanged at what appears to be 78g. How is it possible to reduce sugar by 40% without a change to calories or total carbohydrates?
Your information seems couched with misinformation. Should I suggest you’re lying?
I never made any claims that no other changes were present in the recipe other than reduced caffeine. If the change was “hur dur we include ice now” then the calories would most obviously be lower also. You do you and prop up whatever corporate misinformation you want, the formula was changed and it wasn’t by suddenly deciding to include ice cubes.
Didn’t see this until now, but your screenshot actually doesn’t disprove anything. Both sugar and caffeine were reduced by about 40%, which sounds like around the amount of ice added in a typical fountain drink. As others have mentioned, the rest of the nutrition facts are dubious considering that there are fewer total carbs than sugar in the original label. Also, according to Google, there are 4 calories in one gram of sugar, which would mean the original drink should have at least 496 calories, not 320.
Maybe before you call someone a liar, double check your own sources first?