Capitalism in a bottle: what could go wrong?
Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick by Murray Carpenter (MIT Press, 2025)
Review by Kimberly A. Bain
In Sweet and Deadly, Murray Carpenter makes the claim that Coca-Cola is slowly killing its consumers and destroying the world through disinformation. While Coca-Cola is considered a fun-time drink enjoyed by young and old alike, Carpenter begins his 265-page-long, five-part sermon by stating, “At this point, the Coca-Cola ingredients scarcely resemble a food product” (15). What passes as food in a free-market economy is subjective, but Sweet and Deadly attempts to convince the unaware reader that he or she has been duped by Coca-Cola’s strategic marketing to consider a product made of water, syrup, and more syrup, as harmless and even enjoyable. Carpenter seeks to align the reader with his perspective that the drink product is comparable to tobacco products that have evolved from a similar, innocuous, and even healthy perception to a nefarious and deadly one.
Spanning over forty, short chapters, each bit of information in Sweet and Deadly is delivered in sips to avoid the readers’ overconsumption of what is presented. Carpenter reiterates just how harmful Coca-Cola is to the human body by detailing the company’s spread of misinformation and efforts to recast concepts of health and nutrition. In what Carpenter refers to as “Capitalism in a bottle,” he aims to show that Coca-Cola’s effects are equally detrimental to the mind, body, wallet, and planet.
Part I introduces Coca-Cola consumers who have experienced detrimental health effects that they attribute to heavy Coca-Cola consumption. These profiles become the models of consumer victimization through a series of narratives that attempt to argue that these individuals were blinded by a culture that promotes wanton consumption. These are people like William E. Eubank II, a sixty-seven-year-old "Coca-Cola addict," attributes his Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis to soda consumption (24). Eubank began his addiction when he was "very young," switching from Pepsi because "no Marine would drink out of a can" (23). William is featured in Part I as a poster boy for victims of the marketing ploys planned by Coca-Cola to encourage wanton consumption, even at the cost of one’s health. To balance out the flavor of these stories, Carpenter strategically details accounts of individuals who have refused both the proverbial Kool-Aid and the actual Coca-Cola bottle, to see positive changes in their health. This includes other previously addicted consumers like Jane Grant, who realizes Coca-Cola is "a lot of empty calories" for " refreshment” (29). By contrasting these individuals' assumptions about how enjoyable the experience of consuming Coca-Cola should be with the negative effects of consumption, Carpenter can use these narratives to solidify his argument about Coca-Cola's strategic spread of misinformation. The blame for the consequences these consumers face is then placed on the trickery of Coca-Cola.
If providing victim accounts was not enough to convince the reader of the ills of soda consumption, Carpenter draws in many key researchers to consider whether Coca-Cola is the new tobacco. At first read, one would think Carpenter is comparing the health effects of both tobacco and Coca-Cola. Instead, Carpenter points to the parallels between health campaigns that argued for the harmlessness of tobacco and the perceived disinformation being spread by Coca-Cola. Carpenter cites Dr. Edward Cary, former president of the American Medical Association (AMA), who states that "carbonated beverages when properly made from pure ingredients, belong in the class of health foods" (37). Carpenter questions the work done by medical organizations like the AMA to curate information for the benefit of soda corporations. Taking a step further, Carpenter criticizes the "Exercise is Medicine" campaign of 2009, which hosted an event with speakers from the University of Colorado and the University of South Carolina to align Coca-Cola's marketing initiatives with fitness over diet, lest anyone place too much blame on Coca-Cola for rising obesity rates in the U.S.
In Part II, Carpenter considers the balancing act of key nutritional information with commercial interests that emerged 2010-2015, noting Coca-Cola's reinforcement of the idea that "a calorie is a calorie" (63). The logic that Coca-Cola based their campaign on was that as long as individuals were exercising, it didn't matter what kind of calories they consumed. Throughout Part II, Carpenter takes a clear stance against this line of reasoning. He argues that removing diet from the equation of health made for a great campaign for Coca-Cola that ushered in fitness company collaboration to promote health and wellness through a manufactured lens.
Carpenter continues to question the authorities that Coca-Cola would rely on for the credibility of its product. For example, obesity expert and George A. Bray Founders Award winner, James Hill, who would argue that diet, including soda consumption, is just one factor of obesity. Diseases in themselves cannot be pinpointed to one product of dietary consumption, no matter how pervasive it is in the individual diet. This perspective allowed Coca-Cola to join the fight against obesity through campaigns and monetary pledges to end obesity in Atlanta, Coca-Cola’s hometown, and across America. Carpenter challenges the presence of the capitalist hand in research funding to develop credible health information. If research can be capitalized on, how far might both researchers and private companies go to curate nutritional information to the benefit of the companies whose products are under review?
The fun comes in Part III, looking at taxation and legal challenges to Coca-Cola. Many legislators argue that funds raised from taxing sugary drinks could go to universal preschool education (145). Carpenter documents the justifications for establishing a tax on soda consumption that would serve the community. Carpenter considers the argument for free enterprise that ultimately thwarts these legislative measures, whenever they arise. The push for government intervention in Coca-Cola’s business practices continues in Chapter 41, as Carpenter notes the 2017 proposal by San Francisco to place health warning labels on Coca-Cola products. Drawing parallels from historical legislation on tobacco products, Carpenter considers the challenges of getting this enacted. The problem with warning labels for many proponents of free enterprise is that "it singles out this product as inherently more dangerous" (173). One could question how far the label policy would go in respect to other sugar-laden products, such as cereal and ice-cream. This question is challenged by Carpenter as he recycles his stance on the research findings of experts who justify the product’s negative health consequences.
Carpenter makes an additional plea for the vulnerable people he considers marginalized by Big Soda in Part IV. Part IV seems like the opportunity to correlate calls for change with issues of race and health. Carpenter makes an interesting connection to race issues. He centers a conversation around rates of obesity among African Americans on Coca-Cola’s strategic marketing to the Black community during events such as the Essence Festival. He highlights the power that high-profile African American celebrities like Beyoncé have in reaching the Black community to endorse sugary soda products (189). By highlighting instances of strategic marketing targeting the Black community, despite its high rates of obesity, Carpenter draws the reader to question what the implications are for such targeting.
Though Carpenter describes the failure of attempts at ligation against Coca-Cola, he does not rest in his efforts to antagonistically outline Coca-Cola’s business practices. Carpenter lists research that presumably gets blocked and tracked by Coca-Cola and its affiliates to dissuade the spreading of information that questions its practices. In what can only be described as a game of whack-a-mole, Coca-Cola allegedly finds ways to sully every researched finding that discusses the lethal dangers of soda. In Carpenter's view, they are prohibiting the spread of credible information that could possibly help victims of soda consumption make better choices about their dietary practices.
Despite best efforts, Sweet and Deadly does not make it too difficult to challenge Carpenter’s perspective on Coca-Cola consumption. While he presents field expert discussions of the negative impact of soda consumption, he details how Coca-Cola similarly uses those field experts to emphasize exercise and moderation. While legal complaints are made against Coca-Cola and its affiliates, their legal team argues for the significance of other factors and behaviors in causing health concerns. While Coca-Cola’s reasoning does seem to ignore the harmful effects of its product in the calorie-is-a-calorie rhetorical schema, this logical conclusion about balance and personal responsibility does seem quite…logical. In fact, it could seem just as logical as Carpenter’s points to the contrary.
What Carpenter seeks to do throughout his account is convince his readers that they are too blinded by misinformation to make healthy choices for themselves. Rather than succeed, his account makes clear to readers that the villain or hero of the war on obesity is determined by individual choice. It is clear that soda is an unhealthy beverage, but Carpenter's attempt to label Coca-Cola as the villain of his story though discussions of credibility and the spread of information shows just how much each individual in a free society must consider how credibility is cultivated and use that consideration to make the best judgments.
Kimberly Bain is an assistant professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Her favorite genres to read are self-help nonfiction and Southern Gothic fiction.
