A new Coke ad traffics in some
questionable warm and fuzzy feelings.
Coca-Cola has a new ad
in which a young girl wishes to grow a garden for the whole world. Then, as a
grown woman who works for Coca-Cola, she says that she’s fulfilling that dream.
The phrase “feed the
world” is one that should always be questioned, because it’s often used to
promote the selfish aims of corporations that want to produce and sell as much
food as possible — without regard to whether that food actually reaches the
hungriest and most vulnerable people on the planet.
But, putting that
aside, the sentiment is even more laughable when it’s touted by a beverage
company.
Coca-Cola has a long history of selling its flagship product by playing on people’s emotions. Coke drinkers associate the product with America, fun, family, and sports.
In perhaps its most
brilliant move, the company found a way to get Coca-Cola to the U.S. military
while they fought in World War II in Europe.
American servicemen
and women got a precious taste of home while fighting a grueling foreign war,
and Coca-Cola got their lifetime brand loyalty — and the opportunity to build
up a bottling infrastructure across Europe so they could expand internationally
after the war.
The new ad provides
Coke drinkers with the warm and fuzzy feeling that their beverage of choice is
helping the poor. There are two problems with this idea.
First, soda in
particular is bad for you. Especially when one has limited or no access to
medical care — the plight of many poor people here and abroad — maladies like
diabetes and tooth decay can be catastrophic.
In Appalachia,
dentists refer to something they (unfortunately) call “Mountain Dew mouth.” In that region, a quarter
of preschoolers already have tooth decay. By age 18, more than one in seven
have already had a tooth extracted because of the problem.
Second, the idea of
“feeding the world” is usually based on the idea that the world doesn’t produce
enough food to feed everyone. But that’s not true. We do produce enough food —
more than enough — to feed the planet’s entire population. We just don’t
distribute it equitably.
About 40 percent of
the food in the U.S. is wasted, even while people in our country go hungry.
But even if production
were the problem, if we were to get serious about using our agricultural
resources to produce as much food as possible, then one way to do so is to stop
wasting agricultural resources to produce things we don’t actually need:
sodas, wine, beer, coffee, tea, cut flowers, and so on.
I’m not suggesting we
do this. Far from it. I need my coffee and I appreciate a good beer. There are
reasons to produce items that people enjoy even if they don’t technically need
them. But, if that’s the business you’re in, don’t lie and claim you’re
“feeding the world.”
I am not saying that
nobody should drink soda, or that Coca-Cola should stop producing it. Let’s
just be honest about what it is. It’s a sugary drink that provides no
nutrition, and you may drink it because you enjoy it.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson
is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and
What We Can Do to Fix It. Distributed by OtherWords.org.