The Inside Scoop

The Real Thing:

In the early 1800s sodas were considered to be health drinks. They were free of artificial coloring and therefore mostly clear in appearance - tinged only by the medicinal herbs, minerals, and extracts pharmacists added to differentiate their health claims.

By May of 1886, when Atlanta pharmacist Doctor John Pemberton developed Coca Cola, as a prohibition avoiding non-alcoholic version of his popular French Wine Coca, differentiation had become a whole lot of caffeine and five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup.

Since 1984, Coke has been sweetened in the US with high-fructose corn syrup [“HFCS”], which due to an anti-competitive subsidy of the US corn crop is much cheaper than sugar. Unfortunately HFCS is difficult to metabolize and a recent study at Princeton University discovered that rats fed HFCS gained 48% more weight than rats fed sugar [http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/] - little wonder that since its introduction the incidences of type 2 diabetes in the US have doubled.

With this in mind 4food recently launched a line of 4 delicious hot-selling natural cola, lemon, ginger, and vanilla cream sodas.  Each of these sodas is clear, like the original sodas, and each of these sodas weighs in at 41 good Agave-sweetened calories per 20-ounce serving, whereas a Coke clobbers you with 242.5 bad HFCS calories given the same sized cup!

4foodies who have visited the 286 Madison Avenue store in the past few days will have seen that the wall behind the service counter is papered with American Diabetes Association hands. This is because the 4food Team is participating in the ADA STEP OUT Walk to Stop Diabetes on Sunday October 23^rd. You can support our walkers by making $1 donations in-store (for which your hand goes up on our wall of fame), and by purchasing one of our new sodas, as we will add 50 cents to our STEP OUT team sponsorship for every soda purchase made in October.

De-junking is a way of life, in-store, with our team, and in our community.

We thank you for your support.