Pomegranate juice has many health benefits. For example, pomegranate juice can increase testosterone and lower blood pressure. Wishing to cash in on the juicing movement, Coca-Cola began marketing a product as pomegranate juice in a deceptive way.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Los Angeles-based Pom, which sells juices and juice blends with high content of costly pomegranate juice, claims that Coke is misleading consumers with a Minute Maid product it calls Pomegranate Blueberry Blend of Five Juices. The product, which contains about 0.5% of pomegranate and blueberry juices, highlights the words Pomegranate Blueberry, features a pomegranate and blueberry on its label, and is colored a bluish-purple, altering the natural hue of the less pricey apple and grape juices that make up more than 99% of the beverage.
This is typical behavior of large American corporations. Coke’s chief competitor, Pepsi-Cola, was sued for falsely claiming that its artificially sweetened juices were natural.
The United States Supreme Court is generally very protective (some would say too protective) of large corporations. Yet even otherwise very conservative justices are not going to let Coke get away with lying about its pomegranate juice.
“There are a lot of people who buy pomegranate juice because they think it has health benefits,” said Justice Samuel Alito. “They would be very surprised to find when they bring home this bottle” that it has “what is it, less than one-half of 1% pomegranate juice.”
When Coke’s lawyer claimed that customers understood the difference, another pro-business justice (Justice Anthony Kennedy) chimed in:
Don’t make me feel bad, because I thought that this was pomegranate juice.
Rather than trust large corporations with your health, make your own juices. Here is how you can open pomegranates and make your own pomegranate juice.
Don’t have a juicer? Here’s our guide to buying the best juicer. And here are over 100 free juicing recipes.