Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and died hours after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade, a large cup of which contains more caffeine than Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined.
All Panera Bread restaurants are now displaying “enhanced” disclosures about the restaurant chain’s highly caffeinated lemonade, a spokesperson said Saturday, following a lawsuit that was filed by the family of a young woman who died after drinking the beverage.
Monday’s lawsuit, which was first obtained by NBC News, alleges that Sarah Katz, an Ivy League student with a heart condition, died after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade last year.
A large Charged Lemonade contains 390 milligrams — nearly the 400-milligram daily maximum of caffeine that the Food and Drug Administration says healthy adults can safely consume.
Why on earth would they have that much caffeine for a lemonade at Panera?
This is from their website
The NEW Panera Charged Lemonades are the ultimate energy drink guaranteed to charge up your day. Powered by Clean caffeine from guarana and green coffee extract, these caffeinated lemonades feature refreshing mango, cranberry, or strawberry mint flavors. These drinks are cold, caffeinated, and so ready for summer. Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee.
So sounds like they are advertising it as a coffee or energy drink alternative
That’s fine and all but why so much? This stuff has 390mg caffeine, Red Bulls have 80mg. Such a weird thing for Panera of all places to do.
Looks like it has the same amount of caffeine as coffee. Guessing the large is 32 oz. That’s about on par with drinking 32oz of black coffee
wait wait a lady fucking died and they’re getting away with simply enhanced signs??
For an average healthy adult. That’s what the disclaimers are for, so that those who can’t tolerate it will know about it.
And yes, insufficient warnings should have pretty harsh penalties precisely for this reason
The FDA also says brominated vegetable oil is safe for human consumption
So, the FDA isn’t perfect, but they’re reversing their stance based on evidence.
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/brominated-vegetable-oil-bvo
BVO is added to a food for a specific purpose and is regulated by the FDA as a direct food additive. BVO is allowed for use in a small amount, not to exceed 15 parts per million, in the U.S. as a stabilizer for fruit flavoring used in beverages.
The FDA is working on a proposed rule to amend our regulations to remove the authorization of the use of BVO as a food ingredient. For more information, see the unified agenda.
Model (USA) Rule of Evidence 407: Subsequent remedial measures are not admissible as evidence to prove negligence, culpable conduct, a defect in a product or its design, or a need for a warning or instruction.
But the court may admit this evidence for another purpose, such as impeachment or — if disputed — proving ownership, control, or the feasibility of precautionary measures
EDIT: I’m not looking up the contextualing comments that accompany the rule, but I will share what I remember from law school many years ago: this rule exists for public safety. You don’t want to penalize fixing a dangerous situation, regardless of the facts of any specific case.
Why not just call it lemonade coffee or lemonade energy drink? Lemonade is not suppose to have caffeine.
Whatever it is called with that kind of caffeine content you warning label it with listing of exactly how much caffeine it has. Well maybe unless it is named literally “coffee” and is plain brewed coffee and at that brewed coffee with the normal levels of caffeine coffee contains.
Ones frappe, whippazino also better have needed labels in cases, since given all they mix how the heck one is to know what exactly is the contents. Oh this is extra special “angry frappe” with double squared shot expresso, so exactly how much caffeine is that dear seller per one glass? I just thought you put chili in it or something to make it “angry”, but has literally multiple times more caffeine content.
This is why all the energy drinks atleast where I live have the ever present “contains high amount of caffeine x mg/100ml”.
You sell something like that as counter served item with no packaging label to read, well now your menu list must contains at minimum highlights. Something like “our special drunk (HC)” and then somewhere on the menu there reads “HC means high in caffeine”. Then obviously at the counter must be a full labeling booklet of “here is our every product from the plainest brewed coffee to our jumbo mega sandwich and special brew beverage with full nutritional information and ingredients”
Just like one can’t sell say a pastry in cafe with nut creme filling with out having a big marker on all the menus “contains nuts, nut allergies bevare”. Since similarly nut allergic consuming nuts can be life threatening, well for some people consuming caffeine isn’t healthy and must be disclosed.
Whatever it is called with that kind of caffeine content you warning label it with listing of exactly how much caffeine it has.
They have always had signage directly on the dispenser with the caffeine content.
Problem is I don’t think the average person knows caffeine dosage. It should really say “As much caffeine as four coffees” or “a fuckload of caffeine” not “400mg caffeine”.
This is a product made by Panera Bread? Lol I would not expect the store brand lemonade to be jacked on caffeine.
Probably some executive’s nephew or something invented it. Absolutely a stupid idea.
Nah caffeine is flavorless and addictive. You mix it in with water and a patented combination of flavors and corn syrup, and the customers just keep coming back for it.
Selling an exclusive and addictive product is a good way to gain repeat customers.
Hell serious caffeine addicts will see this headline and plan to head to Panera at some point this week to check it out. No different than when heroin gets cut with fentanyl. Maybe somebody dies, but more junkies just want to chase that high.
It’s not entirely flavorless, it has a slightly bitter taste, but generally if you’re at the point where you are noticing the taste you are either in severe trouble or you’ve done something like put a 100mg caffeine pill in plain water.
They call it charged lemonade and they advertised it as being all natural and healthy too. Despite having more caffeine than their coffee or monster/red bull
I feel like every beverage containing caffeine should have its total content labeled.
Not because I’m sensitive or anything, I just need the biggest dose I can find in the morning.
Then again, I’ve been addicted to caffeine since child hood. I quit once, it was thought to be disturbing my sleep; NOPE! Just bipolar mania fucking it up.
If anyone is concerned, I’m on meds and doing well - I still might stab someone in the morning over getting in the way of caffeine though.
Their labeling clearly stated the amount of caffeine per 20 and 30 oz cups. Image: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/10/24/paneras-caffeinated-charged-lemonade-blamed-for-college-students-death-in-lawsuit/amp/
I had no opinion until I read this thread.
I’m a person that suffers from addiction to food, for lack of better phrasing. As in, I am currently going to therapy and a nutricionist and have won this battle a few times before.
I usually think sugar laws are BS, but taxes are a way of making things more “balanced without bans”.
850 ml of somethig should not have 14% of its weight come from sugar. That’s insane. No serving of something should contain 124 grams of sugar, except … sugar. You’re basically eating a quarter pounder made of sugar when you’re drinking this. Like, eating an eighth of a 1kg bag of sugar is basically the same thing as drinking this. Holy fuck.
I like coffee, caffeinated drinks, etc etc. I like science and technology and bizarre nutrition (protein powders, BCAAs, etc). I didn’t know what the “safe adult limit” of caffeine was, except that you’d have to drink several cups of coffee extremely quickly. There have been days , especially at uni where I’d drink 3 large energy drinks, and feel my heart react to it and think “yeah, that’s enough”.
The “warning” on the drink is completely contextless and ignoreable. “Oh ok, it’s got caffeine in it, 389mg, wild”. No wonder the woman just grabbed it and went on with her day and died.
Also, it’s a complete waste of advertising potential. If a drink advertises “ALMOST LETHAL AMOUNTS OF CAFFEINE!” you might want to drink it more for that reason, “Charged lemonade” makes it sounds like it’s got a hint of lime in it as well as lemons.
To be fair, Panera has always labeled the caffeine content of its drinks. Problem is that people don’t read the god damn label on the machine, forcing Panera to make it bigger and more obvious.
The staff nationwide were instructed to tell customers that it has “About as much caffeine as our dark roast” when asked about the caffeine content though.
That is correct. If you compare the caffeine content per ml to most coffees, you’ll find that it’s essentially the same. Star bucks coffee, for example, has 410mg for their large cup which is actually more per ml than the lemonades have.
I really don’t get this lawsuit it is clearly labeled on the app, and the dispensers.
It may be something to do without a proper reference. If it showed a large =3 cups of coffee you get a good idea, but stating a certain mg of caffeine doesn’t really mean much to most people.
I think this would make far more sense. Plus, I know that for me, the last thing I would think about lemonade is that it has caffeine content. Alchohol, maybe. Sugar? Sure. But caffeine? Nope. Having never heard of their Charged Lemonade before this, I think I’d probably be likely to make that mistake at least once.
It’s less caffeine than a large ice coffee at most establishments, straight-out. 400mg caffeine is downright reasonable. And the articles have been claiming her family’s side is that she thought it wasn’t caffeinated at all.
It says “as much caffeine as our dark roast” on the dispenser. It’s a pretty solid reference imo. If you have the same quantity of lemonade or coffee, then you have the same caffeine intake.
