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.

        • lad@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          To be fair, they also state in the same article that McDonald’s buns have the same amount of sugar. I would even suspect that every burger maker does burgers with high sugar bread cakes.

          But this is just gold:

          In a statement sent to the Guardian a spokesperson for Subway said: “Subway’s bread is, of course, bread.”

          Well, if you say so, I have nothing else to do but believe

      • Clasm@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, but nobody’s drinking 3 30 oz coffees in one sitting. Nor is coffee really marketed as a health drink.

        Found this as well:

        A 30-ounce, large-size Panera Charged Lemonade has about 390 milligrams of caffeine, about four times the amount found in a cup of coffee.

        • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If any sugar soaked beverage is allowed to be marketed as a health drink, that’s a problem that applies to the entire industry.

          And drinking 90oz is the fault of the consumer, remember how much blowback there was when New York banned selling drinks above a certain volume? The people want to be able to do drink ungodly amounts of soft drink, apparently.

          Only thing I really blame Panera for is not clearly labeling how much caffeine is in a cup, which I also don’t really blame them for because the last time I went to Starbucks or McDonald’s I couldn’t find out which latte had the most caffeine, so that’s standard behavior I guess.

          Push for more required disclosure if you’d like, I’d probably agree, but Panera was not out of line IMO.

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            1 year ago

            If it is an industry problem, then this sort of event is usually what snowballs into actual change.

            The tip of this case, I believe, isn’t just the caffeine content, but the fact that it:

            • Wasn’t exactly labeled as a high-caf drink.
            • Was often next to, or in place of, non-caf drinks.
            • Was marketed as part of an unlimited drinks program.

            While the company isn’t required to cater to individuals with very specific tolerances of the simulant, they likely had data available to them that suggests that this outcome was always a possibility, yet they supposedly ran the product until people died.

          • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            To be fair, its absurdly stupid to think banning the sale of large drinks does anything positive for anyone. I never get larges of anything, but I’ll fight stupid laws like that any time.

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              11 months ago

              ehh, I think it makes sense in that it eliminates perverse incentives like “give us 50 cents more and you can double your already extra large soda,” but as implemented it was certainly just a lazy band-aid solution

        • piecat@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          To be fair nobody should be drinking 3 30oz lemonades in one sitting either

        • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You obviously haven’t ever worked in IT.

          Also, a cup of coffee is about 4x smaller than a 30oz drink.

        • Neve8028@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Dunkin serves their large iced coffees in 30oz cups. I also will frequently drink a whole pot of coffee throughout the day. 390mg of caffeine is really not that significant for the average person.

          • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            You may have a caffeine problem. Like, that’s objectively a LOT of caffeine, my friend.

            A pot is seen as having between 643 to 857 mg of caffeine in it. You’re ostensibly drinking the equivalent of 11-14 shots of espresso daily. That’s… That’s a lot.

            • Neve8028@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Idk I’m not dependent on it. I don’t drink coffee every day but sometimes I’ll drink a lot. It doesn’t really effect me much when I drink it and I can easily skip coffee for days at a time so it’s hard to call it a problem.

              Regardless, the FDA says that 400mg of caffeine per day is safe for healthy adults so the 390mg lemonade is fine.

    • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not a dangerous drink for the majority of the population. Dude had known medical issues that caffeine can cause issues with, and drank an unreasonable amount of it.

        • Jack_of_all_derps@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re comparing the caffeine content of a 30oz drink to a 16 oz and 12 oz respectively. Red bull is 111. Monster is 86. I had gotten these charged lemonades regularly before these lawsuits. Know what was on the machine when you went to get it? The exact caffeine content. The entire time. Always. It was pretty clearly marketed as having about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee if you drank a cup of coffee worth. If these specifically need to be marketed as energy drinks, then so does coffee. A standard cup of coffee has 100-150 mg of caffeine.

          The first time I had a full 30 oz serving of the mango one I felt like I was vibrating. I decided from that point on to only get half and fill the rest with unsweetened tea. There absolutely should be clearly marked caffeine content in things. And we live in a litigious society. I’m pissed because now I have to ask one of the employees to get these for me instead of me just being able to serve myself…like I can their coffee.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Because caffeine is addictive, and the executives at Panera are addicted to profits.

      This drink has 390 milligrams of caffeine in it… That’s equivalent to over SIX goddamn shots of espresso. That’s not a mistake… It’s just insane.

    • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The amount of caffeine per ounce is on par with coffee. Hardly classify that as an ‘energy drink’. Or are you saying they can’t sell coffee either? You can by the same amount of caffeine per drink (30oz), from Starbucks. Why didn’t you mention Starbucks? Caffeine from one place is the same as another.

    • sock@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      because if it’s a normal drink but you feel good and energized then there must be some magic in that drink that would make me want to buy more of it. lacking awareness one would likely just keep drinking the infinite refills.

      idiots don’t consider magic not being real and drugs being the only thing that makes you feel good. in this case shittons of atp clones aka caffeine.