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.
I don’t want to sound like a dick, but I don’t really think Panera is at fault here. Their lemonade is no more caffeinated than standard Starbucks venti drinks.
390mg of caffeine is a lot. But it’s also commonly found in large cups of coffee. And this individual had three of them. I think Florida might want to consider ensuring mentally impaired people like Dennis Brown are better equipped to navigate a world which has leaned heavily into caffeine as a stimulant. I don’t believe that Panera is some bastion of justice and good will. I’m sure their lemonade makes every attempt to “hook” members on their product with high levels of caffeine and hiding it under sugar. However, I think this lawsuit might just mean that caffeine levels should be treated like calories: we should mandate that an estimate is listed next to the beverage so those with heart problems or the health conscientious can make more informed decisions.
400mg of caffeine is the daily maximum dose recommended by several health organizations. And that’s for healthy adults. Keep in mind that one charged lemonade had more caffeine than a full can of Red Bull, and a full can of Monster combined. It also contained a lot of taurine which increases the effect of caffeine.
The charged lemonade does not taste caffeinated, and there were basically no warnings about it in store. The marketing and in store branding made it seem like a sort of Gatorade, i.e. an electrolyte drink.
It was also sold next to the fruit juices and such. Which would imply less caffeine.
It was also part of the unlimited sips program, providing free refills. Drinking two or three would cause a healthy adult to start having heart palpitations, and those who are at risk would go into cardiac arrest after one (which is what happened with the first death)
Since the first death, Panera has reduced the amount of caffeine in the lemonade, and many stores have started putting it behind the counter rather than out in the open. They’ve also added warnings about the caffeine content of the drinks, but still don’t warn about the compounding effects of taurine.
These lawsuits are likely going to be settled out of court, because Panera did fuck up here, and they also don’t want the bad press of multiple deaths linked to their overly caffeinated drink.
A few corrections:
400mg of caffeine is not considered a daily recommended maximum, but “an amount not generally associated with dangerous, negative effects” (FDA). Most people can consume more than that and have no significant side effects.
The Charged Lemonade has more caffeine than most any other drinks… When you fill up a 30 oz container with it and don’t add any ice. If you filled up the same container with an energy drink or coffee, it would have similar amounts of caffeine.
Aside from the possibility to associate “charged” with electrolytes, none of the marketing or branding of the drink implies that it’s an electrolyte drink. Personally I would much sooner think that charged means energy, i.e. caffeine and the like, but that’s just me.
A healthy adult consuming multiple of these beverages wouldn’t likely experience any heart issues, but likely would have things like jitteriness and have a hard time falling asleep. And while people with heart conditions should definitely stay away from these drinks, “would go into cardiac arrest after one” is incredibly overblown. If that were the case, the deaths would be in the hundreds or thousands, not one or two.
Panera has only “reduced” the caffeine amounts in the drink by adding ice into the cup because they are now behind the counter, not by changing the formula of the drink.
Your last point is misinformation or a straight up lie, not sure that anything else you wrote has any validity.
Most people just correct people or offer additional information. What purpose does calling someone a liar serve? I see you found something useful that shows the caffeine was reduced but it doesn’t prove it’s not because of more ice.
Also, their statement about caffeine by volume is relevant to the discussion.
The chart is quite useless. It just says “Nutrition & Allergens” and lists a bunch of classes without establishing a base of what was measured. A same sized container or some phony-baloney “serving size” companies love to come up with? I also cannot find information on how calorific caffeine is. If it doesn’t add to calories, the difference you see in the chart is the amount of water, else the difference is a changed formula.
Credibility of content is lost when it’s couched with misinformation.
Seriously?! If it was due to ice the calories would also be lower.
In your chart, the sugar was reduced from 124g to 74g but the total carbohydrates remained unchanged at what appears to be 78g. How is it possible to reduce sugar by 40% without a change to calories or total carbohydrates?
Your information seems couched with misinformation. Should I suggest you’re lying?
I never made any claims that no other changes were present in the recipe other than reduced caffeine. If the change was “hur dur we include ice now” then the calories would most obviously be lower also. You do you and prop up whatever corporate misinformation you want, the formula was changed and it wasn’t by suddenly deciding to include ice cubes.
I guess the interns are on Nutrition Facts duty
Didn’t see this until now, but your screenshot actually doesn’t disprove anything. Both sugar and caffeine were reduced by about 40%, which sounds like around the amount of ice added in a typical fountain drink. As others have mentioned, the rest of the nutrition facts are dubious considering that there are fewer total carbs than sugar in the original label. Also, according to Google, there are 4 calories in one gram of sugar, which would mean the original drink should have at least 496 calories, not 320.
Maybe before you call someone a liar, double check your own sources first?
https://youtu.be/N4wW85WZMJQ this video is probably not the best source, but it outlines the fundamental issue, which is mostly that people don’t expect lemonade to be caffeinated and the labeling for it, although present, doesn’t highlight it at all.
LegalEagle just did a video about it as well https://youtu.be/vKwrMD7zDvM?si=ZVTJJkqSAQ495Wml
Yeah I understand that. But it’s definitely present on the label. I’m not saying they don’t have to change anything, but I don’t think they’ve done any less than is required. People with heart conditions should read the “fine” print (which seemed legible to me).
Maybe I should just go to a local Panera and review for myself. But that video showed the labels pretty clearly to me.
Edit that video has given me a more nuanced perspective. Placing the caffeinated lemonade in the same place as the original non-caffeinated lemonade is pretty sus. And the labelling should be more clear. Probably the largest label on the machine.
Its a really annoying video but the information seems fair.
Sounds like you’ve come around already, but I’ll say it anyway: nobody, including people with heart conditions, should be put in a position where they have to be hypervigilant and read every word on every label just to avoid accidentally killing themselves, especially when the warning is on something like lemonade that everyone “knows” is perfectly safe.
I don’t think they need to change anything, honestly. They clearly state the amount of caffeine it contains, and that amount is safe for healthy adults.
It explains it right there. He drank them without realizing what he was consuming because apparently it isn’t obvious that it’s an energy drink.
It’s an energy drink the same way a cup of coffee is an energy drink. It’s being called that by the plaintiffs because of the negative connotation “energy drink” has - zero other reason. And it’s not like Panera hid the fact that it had caffeine…
What negative connotation? Energy drinks are incredibly popular and this stuff contains more caffeine than coffee. Also coffee is pretty unmistakable for what it is, while lemonade loaded with caffeine is not.
It has more caffeine than a Monster Energy Drink and a Red Bull combined.
They failed to properly set expectations. It was self-serve and publicly available, right next to other juices and teas. The expectation of customers, right or wrong, is that those sorts of products and placements mean that you can consume them at a fairly high rate.
They know their customer base, and know that their customer base regularly refills their drinks at the self-service station. They then created a drink that is unsafe to refill, as it would cause you to breach the maximum daily recommended dose.
So, any hotel is liable if a guest drinks too much coffee from the breakfast buffet?
The drink is perfectly safe for people without health issues that make caffeine unsafe.
Coffee is very much an understood and expected quantity. It’s about expectations.
Now if a hotel spiked it’s coffee with extra caffeine, more than could reasonably be expected by the average person, then yeah, possibly liable.
They listed the caffeine content very clearly.
They’re no more responsible for someone with a known medical condition that’s exacerbated by stimulants deciding to chug an unreasonable amount than Coke would be if someone with diabetes decided to chug a 2l and went into DKA.
Not to mention that the name alone carries the expectation that there will be a high caffeine content.
Then they’ll win the law suit no problem.
If we weren’t allowed to get more than the daily recommended dose of anything at a restaurant, our food would be drastically different than it is.
But it’s a bit different when a single cup will have you hitting those safety limits even without prior intake, yet they still offer refills.
Caffeine defense?
Username checks out.
EDIT: That being said, I agree with you for the most part, though I would charge that am exceedingly high caffeine level such as this should be clearly labeled.
The scary part for me is that, while this gentleman lived independently, I wonder if he would have been able to make the responsible choice to limit his intake or choose another drink if he was aware of the stimulant effects. Developmental disabilities can vastly alter critical thinking of things like that.
Bummer of a situation all around.
App lists a regular at 153mg. So 3 would be 459mg which is quite high.
3 large (235 each) would be 705mg which is a shit load.
I think the issue is mostly, A: no one thinks lemonade is gonna have that much. B: not many people measure caffeine intake to know how much 153mg even is. Is that a lot? Is that normal? Espresso shots have like half that, and if people knew that they’d probably be more wary. I don’t think many would drink 10 shots of espresso, but 3 large lemonades people wouldn’t think much of.
Those are probably the caffeine amounts with ice added, which was one of the changes Panera made after these deaths. They apparently also moved these 2 energy drinks to behind the counter. The people who died, died from the self service, refill as much as you want if you have a card, stations: 390mg per serving.
I also don’t think the law puts any responsibility on Panera here. They disclosed the amount of caffeine, even if people think it should have been disclosed more prominently. The amount of caffeine is close to, but below, the amount that’s safe for a healthy adult with no sensitivities to caffeine. The law is clear that they don’t have any duties beyond that, even if a customer comes in who has a sensitivity.
I also think they’re going to settle this out of court rather than roll the dice on this, so we’ll never see a decision.
Panera is absolutely not at fault.
This is just the news cycle drumming up hysteria because there’s not much else going on.
Yeah. Companies shouldn’t have any responsibility about selling a potentially lethal drug to the general public. That infringes on my freedom and I won’t stand for it!
I say that Panera should triple the caffeine and if people keep drinking it it’s their own fault.
Take some responsibility people! Companies should be able to sell products that kill people with impunity, if they can’t then the terrorists and communists have won!!!
The general public doesn’t have a caffeine sensitivity, so no, it’s not lethal to the general public.
Terrible take. But nice try.