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What's the deal with energy drinks? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is stuff
0:14
Speaker 1: you should know. Are y'all hopped up? I used to
0:19
Speaker 1: be man. I used to drink energy drinks a lot.
0:21
Speaker 1: I think I remember that especially. I would definitely drink
0:25
Speaker 1: at least one before we would go on stage. Um.
0:29
Speaker 1: And I can tell a big difference between not doing
0:34
Speaker 1: that and doing that for sure. Yeah, So I just
0:37
Speaker 1: want to caveat all this. I don't want to like
0:40
Speaker 1: sound like a Debbie Downer with how I talk about
0:43
Speaker 1: energy drinks. Um, I find them disgusting, like the taste
0:48
Speaker 1: or like the whole concept. The taste absolutely not for me.
0:52
Speaker 1: Like I don't even really drink soda ever. Oh yeah,
0:55
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, a couple of cokes a year,
0:57
Speaker 1: maybe in a couple of fan of oranges, maybe your
1:00
Speaker 1: root beer like six or seven. I've talked about this before,
1:03
Speaker 1: so obviously if I'm not even in desoda really an
1:05
Speaker 1: energy drink flavor wise, it's just it's a lot for
1:08
Speaker 1: my tinder taste buds. But I'm also just not a
1:12
Speaker 1: caffeine hound. I don't. I don't uh, And I know
1:15
Speaker 1: a lot of people really maybe depend on this stuff
1:19
Speaker 1: or enjoy it and like to be uh energized in
1:24
Speaker 1: that way. But it's just not my style. I don't
1:27
Speaker 1: like the heart racing feeling. I don't like feeling ganked up. Um.
1:32
Speaker 1: It's just not It's just not my personality. So if
1:36
Speaker 1: I do sound a little like energy drink, uh, you know,
1:41
Speaker 1: like a little thumbs downy, then that's kind of where
1:44
Speaker 1: that's coming from. It's just it's just not my bag.
1:47
Speaker 1: To each his own. Don't want to yuck someone's yum.
1:50
Speaker 1: Although we will get into the sort of the h
1:52
Speaker 1: whether or not they're good for you, obviously, but I
1:56
Speaker 1: just want to cavy up this episode with that. Yeah,
1:59
Speaker 1: we're not gonna let this one turned into the vaping episode.
2:01
Speaker 1: How about that? I don't even remember what we said
2:04
Speaker 1: in that one. Oh we we pood pood every bit
2:06
Speaker 1: of it. Yah, didn't quite overtly. Yeah, it's kind of
2:09
Speaker 1: playing out though now right it is, because I can
2:12
Speaker 1: tell you just anecdotally, I'm seeing way more people smoking
2:16
Speaker 1: cigarettes these days than I did five ten years ago.
2:19
Speaker 1: People are going back to cigarettes or Yeah, that was
2:22
Speaker 1: the whole problem with vaping. It was like people who
2:24
Speaker 1: had never smoked were like, Oh, vaping is good for you,
2:26
Speaker 1: I'll try that, and then they're like, well, I wonder
2:28
Speaker 1: what these cigarettes are like, and now they're hooked on cigarettes. Interesting,
2:32
Speaker 1: or the vapors were like, oh, it's not so awesome
2:36
Speaker 1: to just puff huge clouds of coconut pineapple flavored garbage chemistry.
2:43
Speaker 1: It's grossed. Yeah. Alright, So energy drinks, right, yeah, I
2:47
Speaker 1: mean I bring up the vape episode not just because
2:49
Speaker 1: of that, but because energy drinks to kind of bear
2:52
Speaker 1: like a weird similarity to it. Like there's a lot
2:54
Speaker 1: of chemistry going on, there's a lot of unproven claims,
2:59
Speaker 1: and yet people are finitely into them. There's no denying it,
3:01
Speaker 1: and I won't yock anybody's on either. I don't really
3:04
Speaker 1: drink a much anymore, but I do enjoy when occasionally
3:07
Speaker 1: might have more to do than usual in a particular day. Right.
3:11
Speaker 1: But but um, I'd say we start out with the
3:14
Speaker 1: history of energy drinks, which I mean, you can make
3:16
Speaker 1: a case that coca cola was an energy drink when
3:19
Speaker 1: it had cocaine in it. But energy drinks, as we
3:22
Speaker 1: understand them today actually start um background uh in Tennessee,
3:28
Speaker 1: of all places, right, this is in Johnson City, Tennessee.
3:34
Speaker 1: The first I don't know about the first, but it
3:37
Speaker 1: was well, it definitely wasn't the first, but it was
3:39
Speaker 1: a part of the early medicinal soda trends that was
3:43
Speaker 1: going on back then, along with coke. And we're talking
3:45
Speaker 1: about dr enough E n U F which started in
3:50
Speaker 1: forty nine with it was basically like a soda but
3:54
Speaker 1: they had some potassium and some be vitamins thrown in
3:58
Speaker 1: and it it was and still is still around. It's
4:00
Speaker 1: hard to find, but you can find it here and
4:02
Speaker 1: there in certain southern states. Um, but it's not everywhere.
4:06
Speaker 1: Like I've never really seen it on shelves. I've never
4:09
Speaker 1: even heard of it really. Yeah, I haven't seen it
4:11
Speaker 1: on shelves in Georgia. But um, I think it's marketed.
4:14
Speaker 1: It's sort of like one of those like old kind
4:16
Speaker 1: of tonic elixir sort of things got you, um the
4:21
Speaker 1: so Okay, so that's established as the beach had have
4:23
Speaker 1: possibly the first energy drink. Um. What what really kind
4:28
Speaker 1: of takes that that mantle and runs with it is
4:30
Speaker 1: something called LiPo itan D that's how I'm pronouncing great
4:35
Speaker 1: name for a market marketable drink doesn't exactly roll off
4:39
Speaker 1: the tongue, and yet it sounds like it would taste
4:41
Speaker 1: really awful, and apparently it did. But it came out
4:44
Speaker 1: of Japan because back in the fifties when it came out,
4:47
Speaker 1: Japan was like super into working fourteen or sixteen hours
4:53
Speaker 1: during the day, eating standing up in in like five minutes,
4:57
Speaker 1: and then getting back to work like basically everything. Like
5:00
Speaker 1: if you ever saw um, what was that automaker movie
5:04
Speaker 1: with Michael Keaton Japanese? Yes, if you ever saw gung
5:08
Speaker 1: Hollo like that, that caricature of Japanese business. It's not
5:13
Speaker 1: entirely just completely stereotypical. It's not based on just nothing,
5:17
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, but this was in
5:19
Speaker 1: the fifties when meta amphetamines were uh pre nineteen fifty
5:24
Speaker 1: three in Japan at least uh were legal, and like
5:28
Speaker 1: there were all kinds of like fine upstanding citizens across
5:33
Speaker 1: the world eating uppers basically to get more done. And they,
5:38
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, they weren't illegal at the time.
5:40
Speaker 1: I think there weren't people out there screaming about ill
5:44
Speaker 1: health effects, so all they knew was this was go juice,
5:48
Speaker 1: and I can get a lot more done. And they
5:50
Speaker 1: they certainly, at least in part, helped fuel that kind
5:54
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifties Japanese business work ethic. Yeah, it also
5:58
Speaker 1: helped jet kerouac on the road in like forty eight
6:01
Speaker 1: hours on a single long sheet of keeper as I understand. So, UM,
6:06
Speaker 1: the Japanese were into emped. I mean like most of
6:09
Speaker 1: the world was at that time. UM. But then the
6:12
Speaker 1: Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act was passed in that um
6:15
Speaker 1: in that country, and they said no more methem fed.
6:18
Speaker 1: It means everybody, you're getting out of hand. Um. And
6:21
Speaker 1: so the Taisho Pharmaceutical company said, we can't use speed anymore.
6:27
Speaker 1: But I suspect that people are gonna really want something
6:31
Speaker 1: that that makes them feel that way. So let's come
6:33
Speaker 1: up within a lixer. And that a lixor that they
6:35
Speaker 1: came up with was lipovitan D. That's right. And it
6:39
Speaker 1: was initially um served as a pill that had something
6:43
Speaker 1: called taurian in it, which is derived from originally from
6:47
Speaker 1: ox bile. But they synthesized it, you know, a long
6:52
Speaker 1: long time ago. Uh, And we'll we'll talk about what
6:54
Speaker 1: that is more, but it's a key ingredient and modern
6:56
Speaker 1: energy drinks. But they made that into a liquid. They
7:00
Speaker 1: served it in a little glass bottle called an ampuel,
7:03
Speaker 1: and it had a little membrane and you could stick
7:06
Speaker 1: a straw through it, and it became kind of the
7:09
Speaker 1: go to UH and it was small. It was sort
7:12
Speaker 1: of if you've ever seen a five hour energy uh,
7:15
Speaker 1: it was kind of that size. It looked like, Yeah,
7:18
Speaker 1: in Japan was like, this is great. I don't know
7:20
Speaker 1: why you took the pill and turned it into some
7:22
Speaker 1: disgusting tasting like liquid that we have to drink, but
7:26
Speaker 1: we like it. Probably because it hit you a lot faster,
7:29
Speaker 1: That's what I'm guessing. And then there was a guy
7:32
Speaker 1: who was running that company at the time, the Taisho
7:34
Speaker 1: Pharmaceutical company that was making lip of it T and D,
7:37
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, let's make this taste here,
7:39
Speaker 1: Let's add some flavoring, let's add more of like a
7:41
Speaker 1: soda feel to it. And that is when it really
7:44
Speaker 1: started to take off. And that is in nine two
7:48
Speaker 1: um what you would consider probably the first modern precursor
7:52
Speaker 1: of a genuine energy drink as we'd recognize them today. Yeah. Um.
7:57
Speaker 1: A couple of decades went by, and then in nine five,
8:01
Speaker 1: Jolt Cola came along, which was invented by a gentleman
8:06
Speaker 1: named CJ. Rap Uh. It was highly marketed as a
8:12
Speaker 1: just a super caffeine eated cola. What was the slogan?
8:17
Speaker 1: It was like all the sugar twice the caffeine, that's right. Uh.
8:22
Speaker 1: And it had seventy two milligrams of caffeine and I think,
8:25
Speaker 1: uh didn't a coax somewhere between fifty and sixty? Wait,
8:30
Speaker 1: how many milligrams are caffeine? A jolt had seventy two? Okay,
8:34
Speaker 1: all right, I thought you said seven for a second. No,
8:37
Speaker 1: seventy two, which is, you know, tend to twenty ish
8:41
Speaker 1: milligrams more than like an average soda, I think, which
8:44
Speaker 1: isn't like a ton. But at the time he called it,
8:47
Speaker 1: Joeld had the lightning bolt. And this was at a
8:49
Speaker 1: time in the mid eighties when less was more in like,
8:53
Speaker 1: you know, a fewer calories, fewer caffeine, like kind of
8:56
Speaker 1: less everything, And so it really swam against the current
9:00
Speaker 1: as far as a kind of a marketing thing. Right.
9:03
Speaker 1: I used to love that stuff, and I don't know
9:05
Speaker 1: if you remember. But we mentioned it before on the
9:07
Speaker 1: show and they sent us some some Jolt ms good.
9:13
Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever even tried it, to
9:14
Speaker 1: be honest. Oh well, it tastes like cola that's super
9:17
Speaker 1: sweet and really gets you going. I mean it's still around,
9:20
Speaker 1: I think too, right, Yeah, I just I hadn't seen
9:22
Speaker 1: it in forever, so I was really happy that they
9:24
Speaker 1: sent some. But eight four, if you jump back a year,
9:28
Speaker 1: is kind of when if you think about American style
9:32
Speaker 1: energy drinks, was the birth of that movement? Yeah, because
9:36
Speaker 1: I mean Joel Cole is like all in fun, it's
9:38
Speaker 1: about being hyper that kind of thing, but it's not
9:40
Speaker 1: like it's not like a drink that's designed to give
9:45
Speaker 1: you like a form of energy that you can be
9:47
Speaker 1: productive with or increase your performance with. And that seems
9:50
Speaker 1: to be like the baseline point of energy drinks and
9:54
Speaker 1: that really finds well, I guess lip of it and
9:57
Speaker 1: d really fits that bill. But the one that we
9:59
Speaker 1: would recognize today that started in eighty four, um was
10:02
Speaker 1: found by a m a German toothpaste marketer named Dietrich
10:07
Speaker 1: Matta Shits, and he was hanging out in Thailand at
10:10
Speaker 1: the time. And he came across the tonic syrup called kretting. Dang.
10:18
Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't that Like my my context messed up?
10:24
Speaker 1: Like I wish you could have seen my face, because
10:26
Speaker 1: I'll bet it was hilarious. Oh man, that was great
10:29
Speaker 1: that in there, that kretting dang dang? So what does
10:36
Speaker 1: that mean? Chuck? How about this? Why don't we take
10:38
Speaker 1: a break and we'll we'll talk about a cliffhanger and
10:41
Speaker 1: we'll tell you what that means right after this. How's
11:09
Speaker 1: your contact? It's fine, I've got this new thing where
11:12
Speaker 1: I'm trying. So I've got, um what am I? I'm
11:15
Speaker 1: near sighted, so I can see things really well close
11:18
Speaker 1: up when I don't have contacts, and um and my
11:22
Speaker 1: my optometrists split the difference between you know, far sighted
11:27
Speaker 1: contacts and near sighted context so that I can generally
11:30
Speaker 1: see things close up and I can really see things
11:32
Speaker 1: far away. So I've got like two different powered contacts.
11:36
Speaker 1: And every once in a while, if like like the
11:38
Speaker 1: paper gets a little too close, it all just gets blurry.
11:41
Speaker 1: That's what happened. Okay, full disclosure, everybody. It these are
11:45
Speaker 1: the details people want to hear. I don't know about that,
11:48
Speaker 1: but sure, all right. So where we left off, Wastrich
11:53
Speaker 1: Matta Shits was marketing for tooth Basse was hanging out
11:58
Speaker 1: in Thailand discovered the tonic strup called kretting dang and
12:04
Speaker 1: that was developed in mid the seventies. And if you
12:07
Speaker 1: want to translate that into English, that means what. No,
12:13
Speaker 1: I'd set you up for it. You take it. It
12:15
Speaker 1: means red bull. Yeah, and you might say, okay, red bull.
12:20
Speaker 1: But where'd the red bull come from? Its origin stories
12:23
Speaker 1: even more complete than we've led on, because the red
12:26
Speaker 1: bull refers to Toren, which is again named after bulls.
12:30
Speaker 1: Taurusts is the bull and the reason why it seemed
12:33
Speaker 1: after bulls is because it was first extracted from ox bile,
12:36
Speaker 1: which is awesome. Right. So if you ever heard kind
12:40
Speaker 1: of remember early on in Red Bulls life when people
12:43
Speaker 1: would kind of spread the urban legend that there was
12:46
Speaker 1: like bull urine and stuff like that in it and
12:48
Speaker 1: that's how it's derived. I remember that. Yeah, I totally do. None.
12:52
Speaker 1: Obviously none of that is true. It may have had
12:55
Speaker 1: something to do with the ox file uh original, Yeah,
12:59
Speaker 1: I'm guess thing so, and the fact that there was
13:01
Speaker 1: trace amounts of bull seamen in there. No, just not
13:06
Speaker 1: bull yeurine. That's crazy. But like we said that that
13:09
Speaker 1: had been synthesized for decades, so it's not like they
13:12
Speaker 1: were using real ox spile anyway, right exactly. So Um
13:16
Speaker 1: Dietrich Mattashits who he went from marketing blend Ax toothpaste
13:21
Speaker 1: to um taking this tonic, the Red Bull tonic, kretang dang,
13:26
Speaker 1: kretting dang. I just can't quite get it, um, and
13:30
Speaker 1: he he said, I want to do something with this.
13:32
Speaker 1: I think people are going to go crazy for this.
13:33
Speaker 1: So he got his hands on a license. He spent
13:36
Speaker 1: three years like turning it into a carbonated beverage rather
13:40
Speaker 1: than just a tonic syrup, messed with the taste, came
13:43
Speaker 1: up with a great marketing plan and launched it in
13:46
Speaker 1: nineteen seven in um, Austria and Germany to to great success. Yeah,
13:54
Speaker 1: he sold a lot of it and early just kind
13:56
Speaker 1: of from the beginning, Red Bull had a very guerrilla
13:59
Speaker 1: style marketing thing as far as those cars that you
14:03
Speaker 1: see that are that are I don't say wrapped in
14:07
Speaker 1: Red Bull ads and I have a can on them. Yeah,
14:11
Speaker 1: like Red Bull parties and stuff like that. Uh, they
14:14
Speaker 1: had animated TV commercials over there that were really catchy,
14:18
Speaker 1: and it really caught on not only there, but obviously
14:21
Speaker 1: worked its way through Europe eventually found its way to
14:25
Speaker 1: the US, where it became um tied to car racing
14:29
Speaker 1: and extreme sports and uh, you and I even did that.
14:34
Speaker 1: Uh was it like a soapbox derby? Soapbox derby where
14:38
Speaker 1: we were called upon to judge the soapbux derby? Who
14:43
Speaker 1: was it? Was it, young Jock? I think so it was.
14:46
Speaker 1: There was a rapper that was with us, and like
14:49
Speaker 1: a couple other people. Guy, Oh it was great. Um,
14:52
Speaker 1: I don't remember who else was up there, but yeah,
14:54
Speaker 1: it was. That was a weird thing. But that was
14:56
Speaker 1: a red Bull event and they sponsored a lot of
14:59
Speaker 1: those kind of things, and that was you know, they
15:02
Speaker 1: were marketing to younger people who you know, red Bull
15:05
Speaker 1: gives you wings and uh, it's sort of like the
15:08
Speaker 1: extreme sports angle. They sponsored. That jump, the highest jump
15:12
Speaker 1: from the stratosphere ever ever done by man. I can't
15:15
Speaker 1: remember the guys. They want to say, Casper or something.
15:17
Speaker 1: Do you remember that, Casper Weinberger. No, No, you never
15:21
Speaker 1: jumped out of an orbiting satellite like this guy did, right,
15:24
Speaker 1: right right, Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, so that
15:27
Speaker 1: that was a red Bull sponsored thing. That's definitely like
15:29
Speaker 1: up there alley for sure. It's so interesting advertising that
15:32
Speaker 1: if like, oh, you're gonna anything where people have eyeballs
15:37
Speaker 1: on it, They're like, well, can we put our logo
15:38
Speaker 1: on your chest? I guess it makes sense. I mean,
15:41
Speaker 1: that's I don't know it does. It's like that guy
15:44
Speaker 1: who the airline pilot who landed the plane safely in
15:49
Speaker 1: the Hudson and no one died, like a few years back. No,
15:54
Speaker 1: he wasn't sponsored, but he took that he took that
15:56
Speaker 1: spotlight and he used it to UM to basically share
16:01
Speaker 1: with the public the plight of like UM airline pilots
16:03
Speaker 1: and how they're like mistreated UM. And it's the same thing.
16:07
Speaker 1: It's like a bunch of people are paying attention to
16:08
Speaker 1: you all of a sudden. Are you gonna say, I'm
16:11
Speaker 1: sponsored by Red Bull or my uh colleagues are really
16:15
Speaker 1: being mistreated by the airline companies. Let's let's do something
16:18
Speaker 1: about it, right. And I'm not poo pooing it, obviously.
16:21
Speaker 1: The irony is not lost on me. I know. That's
16:22
Speaker 1: how we make our livings. So please Savior emails. We're
16:25
Speaker 1: always walking around with Red Bull jackets on the leather
16:28
Speaker 1: eight ball red Bull jackets that were contractually obligated to wear.
16:32
Speaker 1: But Red Bull was a pretty big success right away
16:35
Speaker 1: held a lot of the market, like the lion share
16:38
Speaker 1: of the market share early on in the early two thousand's,
16:41
Speaker 1: I think seventy nine uh in two thousand one of
16:45
Speaker 1: the market share. And obviously when something is selling one
16:49
Speaker 1: and a half plus billion cans of something a year,
16:53
Speaker 1: people are gonna jump on board. And then you've got
16:56
Speaker 1: one to three basically four other are really big players
17:01
Speaker 1: who have stuck around. Yeah, Monster, which is a a juggernaut.
17:08
Speaker 1: It was actually launched by you know that Hansen soda,
17:12
Speaker 1: the all natural soda. I don't think I do. You've
17:16
Speaker 1: seen it if you've ever been to a decent deli before.
17:18
Speaker 1: They had Hanson soda along with New York Seltzer and stuff,
17:21
Speaker 1: and it's just like little little soda brand that just
17:24
Speaker 1: keeps plugging along. But it's it's like touts that it's
17:27
Speaker 1: made of like natural like ingredients. They launched Monster and
17:32
Speaker 1: they went from in two thousand three a company with
17:36
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars in revenue. They launched Monster Energy Drink
17:40
Speaker 1: that year, and eight years later they were making one
17:43
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars in revenue. Wo. Yeah, yeah, they
17:47
Speaker 1: have about a third of today's market. Uh, there's n
17:50
Speaker 1: os which I see those signs all over convenience stores.
17:55
Speaker 1: But honestly, I never really paid attention enough to know
17:57
Speaker 1: what it was. But that is an energy drink. It
18:00
Speaker 1: was launched in two thousand five by f u Ze Fuse,
18:04
Speaker 1: which was bought by Coke. Uh and I think Monster
18:08
Speaker 1: owns them now as well. Right, yeah, so they owned
18:11
Speaker 1: the number two and number three most I guess best
18:14
Speaker 1: selling energy drinks. I've also seen it pronounced nass it
18:19
Speaker 1: probably is, yeah, but a little I know about car racing. Well,
18:23
Speaker 1: I had to look up a video where somebody reviewed
18:25
Speaker 1: it to make sure that's how you say it, So
18:27
Speaker 1: I'm with you, but it's um. It's it's like a
18:29
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide booster, like that part in Black Sheet when
18:33
Speaker 1: Chris Farley and David Spade are driving the stolen police
18:36
Speaker 1: car and they're tailed by real police and he pushes
18:39
Speaker 1: the nitrous oxide button. It just takes off because it
18:43
Speaker 1: injects a bunch of combustion into it and really gets
18:46
Speaker 1: it going. That's basically the premise of this energy drink.
18:49
Speaker 1: Still haven't seen that movie. It's okay, it's pretty good,
18:52
Speaker 1: all right. Uh. Then you've got, of course rock Star
18:55
Speaker 1: that was launched in oh one, that is owned by Pepsi.
18:59
Speaker 1: And you know, you see a trend here with any beverage,
19:02
Speaker 1: any beer. If you're some kind of cool small brand
19:06
Speaker 1: that's selling a lot of stuff, one of the big
19:07
Speaker 1: dogs will come along and gobble you up pretty pretty quickly.
19:11
Speaker 1: And I think that's the goal for a lot of
19:12
Speaker 1: these companies. It's like, you know, a big payday. Apparently
19:16
Speaker 1: rock Star is kind of going down in the market, right, yeah, yeah,
19:22
Speaker 1: year by year. Apparently it's it's a discount um uh
19:27
Speaker 1: energy drink. It's about half the price of Monster. But
19:30
Speaker 1: they have a very limited amount of flavors, and I
19:33
Speaker 1: think that's the way you make money in that biz,
19:35
Speaker 1: is like having fifty million flavors, half the price, half
19:39
Speaker 1: the flavor, right. That's their logo that that used to
19:43
Speaker 1: be mine. I used to like rock Star a lot,
19:44
Speaker 1: and it was like it just wasn't nearly as like
19:47
Speaker 1: noxious as some of the other ones are. But yeah,
19:51
Speaker 1: it's it's fine. Uh, and then you've got you can't
19:54
Speaker 1: beat the price, then you got your five hour energy.
19:58
Speaker 1: That's the one I mentioned earlier. You will see these
20:01
Speaker 1: little guys. It's like a shot basically by UM the
20:04
Speaker 1: cash register area because they're not refrigerated. Uh. They were
20:08
Speaker 1: launched in two thousand four by Living Essentials, and this
20:13
Speaker 1: was kind of harkens back a little more to those
20:16
Speaker 1: Asian elixir tonics that were sold in the early days
20:19
Speaker 1: in the sixties, right. And one reason that the big guys,
20:23
Speaker 1: the big players in the soda market started buying up
20:26
Speaker 1: energy drinks smaller companies is because their own attempts at
20:30
Speaker 1: them were almost across the board failures. UH. Coke Energy
20:34
Speaker 1: was probably the longest lasting one, and they just announced
20:36
Speaker 1: they think this past year that they were going to
20:38
Speaker 1: stop making it. Heard of it, you could have very
20:42
Speaker 1: easily looked past. It was like a thin can that
20:45
Speaker 1: they If you weren't looking for an energy drink, you
20:47
Speaker 1: you could have gone your whole life without knowing the
20:49
Speaker 1: existed UM vault, which was I was sad to UM
20:53
Speaker 1: to see that go. I used to love that stuff.
20:56
Speaker 1: But it was a little more along the lines of
20:58
Speaker 1: like jolts vibe than like an energy drink vibe. Do
21:02
Speaker 1: you remember that stuff that used to fuel me in
21:04
Speaker 1: the early days of recording? Yeah, okay, I don't remember
21:09
Speaker 1: Pepsi's Josta. Never heard of that me either, Uh. And
21:14
Speaker 1: I don't remember Nelly the rapper Nelly had pimp juice never.
21:18
Speaker 1: I don't remember that. No. And I mean, there's plenty
21:21
Speaker 1: of others to chuck there's more than you can shake
21:23
Speaker 1: a stick at. Apparently in two thousand and six and
21:25
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, two hundred new brands were introduced,
21:30
Speaker 1: and you've got just there's tons of different brands, and
21:33
Speaker 1: some of them are kind of like UM still tapping
21:36
Speaker 1: into that early like extreme vibe, Like there's one called
21:39
Speaker 1: Redline Extreme. Uh. Then the others are like kind of
21:43
Speaker 1: like going after niche markets once called Nerd Focus, and
21:47
Speaker 1: then Sunny D has gotten into it with their rise
21:51
Speaker 1: R Y s e Um Energy Drink. I can't believe
21:55
Speaker 1: there's not a Z in that. There's not. I think
21:58
Speaker 1: they were satisfied with the Y and like you can't
22:02
Speaker 1: bastardize two letters exactly. They're like, we're sunny D, we
22:06
Speaker 1: can only go so far. And then also there's Bang.
22:08
Speaker 1: I think there's people who are energy drink fans who
22:11
Speaker 1: are screaming at us right now. You can't not mention
22:13
Speaker 1: Bang at least if we're gonna buzz market all these guys. Sure,
22:17
Speaker 1: what about muscle buzz that's a good one. Is that
22:20
Speaker 1: for real? Or you make them out up? Made it up?
22:23
Speaker 1: Because I could see it both ways. No, it totally
22:25
Speaker 1: could be a real thing. Uh No, I'm sure there
22:28
Speaker 1: are still smaller brands out there, Like you said that,
22:30
Speaker 1: they have their like loyalists, But whenever you're talking about
22:35
Speaker 1: something like this, it seems to boil down to like
22:37
Speaker 1: four or five kind of of the big big boys.
22:40
Speaker 1: UM and big boys is right because I think a
22:44
Speaker 1: couple of years ago the global market was about forty
22:47
Speaker 1: five billion dollars total UM. And this is uh. Ed
22:52
Speaker 1: Grabanowski helped us out with this one. He does point
22:54
Speaker 1: out that, UM, Like, statistically, if you look at like
22:58
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, they'll talk about Europe and Russia
23:01
Speaker 1: and North America. But those are just because they're traded publicly. UM.
23:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure that in in Asia they still have some
23:08
Speaker 1: of the UM hot selling smaller tonics that just aren't
23:13
Speaker 1: you know, publicly listed like that, right, at least not
23:16
Speaker 1: on the New York Stock Exchange. So so you said
23:20
Speaker 1: in was right? Yeah, I saw predicted by twenty thirty one,
23:25
Speaker 1: less than a decade from now, it'll reach a hundred
23:28
Speaker 1: and eight billion dollars and that will go toward nerd focus.
23:35
Speaker 1: That's my prediction. Uh. We should talk about what's in
23:39
Speaker 1: these things, right, Yeah? Um, first and foremost chok is sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Yeah,
23:45
Speaker 1: they're very sweet, and that's probably why like I like sugar.
23:48
Speaker 1: I like, you know, ice cream and desserts and things.
23:51
Speaker 1: But yeah, just get a bag down from the counter.
23:53
Speaker 1: And I don't love sugary, really sugary drinks though, as
23:59
Speaker 1: evidenced by my lack of cola consumption. I think that
24:02
Speaker 1: may be one of my biggest turnoffs out of the gate,
24:04
Speaker 1: is just how sweet they are. Yeah, man, you're really
24:07
Speaker 1: doing yourself a favor by avoiding that stuff. I mean,
24:10
Speaker 1: I already have a weight problem. Can you imagine if
24:12
Speaker 1: I drank like six or eight so does a day.
24:15
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that wouldn't be around. That's the easiest
24:17
Speaker 1: way to drop a bunch of weight. If that's what
24:19
Speaker 1: you're looking for. Is dropping like soda and apparently also,
24:24
Speaker 1: um this is I can't back this up with any study,
24:27
Speaker 1: but anecdotally speaking, um h zero sugar or diet is
24:32
Speaker 1: is just as bad, if not worse somehow that we
24:35
Speaker 1: don't fully understand yet. Yeah, Emily used to be a
24:37
Speaker 1: diet coke fiend and totally gave it up, probably I
24:42
Speaker 1: don't know, six or eight years ago and noticed a
24:44
Speaker 1: big difference in her life. You know, Yeah, I believe it.
24:48
Speaker 1: Uh So, sugar wise is sixteen ounce uh energy drink
24:52
Speaker 1: has about fifty to sixty grams of sugar. It's a lot.
24:57
Speaker 1: That is a lot. If you look at the same
24:59
Speaker 1: size coke has about thirty nine. So this is you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: upwards of twenty plus grams of sugar, more than in
25:06
Speaker 1: a coat. Yeah, so it's they're very sweet. What's interesting
25:10
Speaker 1: is like the I guess the taste of them. Some
25:14
Speaker 1: of them you're like, this is really sweet. But like
25:16
Speaker 1: Red Bull, for example, has a ton of sugar in it,
25:18
Speaker 1: but that's not the thing that you notice that, that's
25:22
Speaker 1: not the chief part of like the taste or the
25:24
Speaker 1: mouth feel. It's something different. But there's a ton of
25:27
Speaker 1: sugar in there, and sugar. The reason why there's a
25:29
Speaker 1: lot of sugar in there is because you know, carbohydrates,
25:32
Speaker 1: like sugar, they're easily broken down. Do provide you energy,
25:35
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that they do, and so
25:37
Speaker 1: energy drinks have said, well, we'll just put a ton
25:39
Speaker 1: of sugar in here to start. Yeah, And honestly, Red
25:42
Speaker 1: Bull is the only one I've ever even tasted, and
25:46
Speaker 1: as soon as it did, I was like, this is
25:47
Speaker 1: not for me. So I've never even had any of
25:49
Speaker 1: the other ones. The other ones can be really sweet
25:52
Speaker 1: and not real Red Bull at all. Yeah. Caffeine is
25:54
Speaker 1: the next huge ingredient. Um. Obviously, all of these are
25:59
Speaker 1: gonna have of at least a hundred and fifty grams
26:03
Speaker 1: of caffeine, which sounds like a lot, and it is.
26:07
Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, how much is a is
26:10
Speaker 1: a like a large coffee has usually more than three hundred, right,
26:15
Speaker 1: not a large chuck? A grande has three? Ten? Is
26:19
Speaker 1: grande the larger the medium? It's the medium. Yeah, there's
26:23
Speaker 1: tall Grande INVENTI big big one. But yeah, so it's like,
26:28
Speaker 1: you know, of course coffee has a bunch in it,
26:30
Speaker 1: but uh, sixteen out soda has like fifty to sixty
26:33
Speaker 1: grams of it, right, and some of these, you know,
26:35
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty is a good average from what
26:38
Speaker 1: I saw, a hundred and sixty grams of caffeine and
26:41
Speaker 1: like a sixteen ounce like one of those tall Boy
26:44
Speaker 1: cans of an energy drink. So there's a lot more
26:47
Speaker 1: than there is in soda, but not quite as much
26:49
Speaker 1: in coffee. The thing is, some of those energy drinks
26:52
Speaker 1: do go up to like three hundred, Like I know
26:54
Speaker 1: Bang has three hundred grams of caffeine in it, so
26:57
Speaker 1: basically double the average um caffeine that you'll find in
27:01
Speaker 1: other um energy drinks. And that's just the listed stuff.
27:06
Speaker 1: As we'll see, there are, from what I can tell,
27:09
Speaker 1: depending on what it's regulated as no requirements for listing
27:14
Speaker 1: how much caffeine is in it. And if they are
27:16
Speaker 1: required to list how much caffeine is in it, they
27:19
Speaker 1: only have to put the amount of caffeine that they're
27:22
Speaker 1: actually putting it, like caffeine powder that was synthesized in
27:25
Speaker 1: a lab that they put into their drink. That's the
27:28
Speaker 1: only stuff that they would need to list, and there
27:30
Speaker 1: are there's a lot of other caffeine sources in it.
27:33
Speaker 1: I just don't see how that could still be possible
27:36
Speaker 1: because the f d A is just totally owned by
27:39
Speaker 1: everybody but the American people. That's why it's it's just sad.
27:43
Speaker 1: And we've done episodes on that it does the FDA
27:45
Speaker 1: protect Americans. The really eye opening one we did on supplements. Remember,
27:50
Speaker 1: like the U an energy drink can be regulated as
27:54
Speaker 1: a beverage of food item or as a supplement like
27:58
Speaker 1: a vitamin, and the food I them is more regulated
28:01
Speaker 1: than the supplement is. And that's just that's just classic
28:05
Speaker 1: f d A. Yeah, and I'm not even saying, like
28:08
Speaker 1: a government you should put a cap on things, uh,
28:11
Speaker 1: but it's it's just hard to believe. They don't even
28:13
Speaker 1: have to list what is in these things, uh right.
28:18
Speaker 1: It is very hard, especially when you start, you know,
28:22
Speaker 1: really kind of digging into how much stuff is in
28:25
Speaker 1: these things, and that we don't fully understand how some
28:29
Speaker 1: of these things actually affect us, especially over the long term.
28:33
Speaker 1: And again, some people drink three four five energy drinks
28:37
Speaker 1: a day every day and have for years, So really
28:41
Speaker 1: anything we should be studying those people, like a gaggle
28:44
Speaker 1: of scientists should be following them around just taking notes,
28:47
Speaker 1: like every day on them. Yeah, put on your uh
28:50
Speaker 1: speed skates exactly. Rocket skates is more like it. Am. Yeah,
28:56
Speaker 1: we tried to follow them around, but we couldn't catch up.
29:00
Speaker 1: We're on too much sunny d rise. Taurine, of course,
29:03
Speaker 1: is still in there. Like we mentioned, Um, how much
29:06
Speaker 1: do you want to get into two taurin? I'd like
29:10
Speaker 1: to talk about it a little bit, all right, hit
29:12
Speaker 1: it go ahead. Uh. Well, like we said, we've been
29:15
Speaker 1: synthesizing it from the the ox spile for many years now. Um.
29:21
Speaker 1: Human beings can actually synthesize it to some degree. Right, Yeah,
29:26
Speaker 1: so it's not it's it's not an essential nutrient force,
29:29
Speaker 1: but we do need more, I think than we produce,
29:31
Speaker 1: so we get it from other sources like meat and
29:33
Speaker 1: fish and stuff like that. And the synthesized version of
29:37
Speaker 1: it like that you would take as a supplement, has
29:39
Speaker 1: been used in Japan. They treat it, use it to
29:42
Speaker 1: treat congenital heart disease UM. They've shown that it treats
29:47
Speaker 1: metabolic diseases, inflammatory diseases like arthritis UM. And it does
29:54
Speaker 1: have an effect on human performance, like endurance of elite
29:58
Speaker 1: athletes give and touring show like a difference in how
30:03
Speaker 1: well they perform. Yes, Like you can take supplements of it.
30:08
Speaker 1: And there's usually about two thousand milligrams of touring in
30:11
Speaker 1: an energy drink, and that is a high dose of touring.
30:15
Speaker 1: And we do know from study that touring does have
30:18
Speaker 1: generally positive effects on humans. But again it's a really
30:21
Speaker 1: high dose and we don't know how much. You know,
30:24
Speaker 1: a dose like that multiple times a day, every day
30:26
Speaker 1: will affect you. Yeah, and then how it interacts with
30:30
Speaker 1: caffeine and sugar and all the other things right right exactly,
30:33
Speaker 1: because that's the point of an energy drink. All this
30:35
Speaker 1: stuff taken separately can affect you. We don't really understand
30:39
Speaker 1: how they interact and work together to affect you. That's
30:42
Speaker 1: the big, the big question mark. Yeah. Um B vitamins
30:46
Speaker 1: are still in a lot of these energy drinks, just
30:49
Speaker 1: like they were with that initial uh initial Japanese elixir.
30:54
Speaker 1: Um B vitamins are are you know, can be really
30:57
Speaker 1: good for your body for sure, um, but we again
31:01
Speaker 1: combine with all the sugar, um, we don't know like
31:04
Speaker 1: what kind of effect uh A lot of the kind
31:07
Speaker 1: of remaining ingredients, We don't know what kind of effect
31:10
Speaker 1: it might have when it comes to like gen seng
31:13
Speaker 1: and antioxidants and b vitamins and things that they kind
31:16
Speaker 1: of tout as being, you know, good for you. We
31:19
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of effect they have in an
31:21
Speaker 1: energy drink. Um. There's another one that that is pretty
31:25
Speaker 1: much in every single energy drink you'll ever find. It's
31:28
Speaker 1: called guarana and guarana I do want to talk a
31:31
Speaker 1: little bit more about to chuck. So it's a climbing
31:34
Speaker 1: plant native to the Amazon, right. It's a traditional medicine
31:38
Speaker 1: there and it's been used to treat things like fatigue depression.
31:42
Speaker 1: Like it is a a an active um molecule that
31:47
Speaker 1: like affects human beings. And one of the things that
31:50
Speaker 1: it does to affect us is has like four times
31:52
Speaker 1: the caffeine that coffee beans do, and it also acts
31:57
Speaker 1: as somehow there's some other part of it that act
32:00
Speaker 1: is a booster to that caffeine. So like some component
32:03
Speaker 1: of guarana um interacts with the caffeine in it to
32:06
Speaker 1: boost it and then would also ostensibly interact with all
32:09
Speaker 1: the other caffeine that you find floating around in an
32:12
Speaker 1: energy drink. So it actually is boosting properties and more
32:15
Speaker 1: to the point that three hundred or hundred and sixty
32:19
Speaker 1: grams of caffeine that's listed on the label. That doesn't
32:22
Speaker 1: include the guarana, which again has four times the caffeine
32:25
Speaker 1: of coffee beans. So you really have zero idea how
32:30
Speaker 1: much caffeine you're ingesting um, whether higher or lower um
32:34
Speaker 1: according to the label. Um, because of things like that,
32:37
Speaker 1: because it's considered an herbal supplement, and you don't have
32:39
Speaker 1: to list a darn thing that's associated with that herbal
32:43
Speaker 1: supplement in the United States, that's right. So that was
32:46
Speaker 1: one of the sort of well not mystery additions, but
32:50
Speaker 1: just one of the extra caffeine additions. Yeah, and again
32:54
Speaker 1: it really does have an effect on us. We just
32:56
Speaker 1: aren't haven't studied it closely enough to know to dick stuff.
33:01
Speaker 1: All right, another break, Yes, I'm ready for one. All right, Well, uh,
33:06
Speaker 1: we've kind of been hinting around at this, but we'll
33:08
Speaker 1: talk about whether or not the energy drinks are actually
33:10
Speaker 1: bad for you or even dangerous right after this, all right, chuck,
33:40
Speaker 1: So energy drinks bad for you? Go, Well, here's the deal.
33:45
Speaker 1: After researching this stuff, A couple of things are clear. Um.
33:49
Speaker 1: One is kind of like with most things, if you
33:52
Speaker 1: have the occasional energy drink and it's something that you've
33:55
Speaker 1: have in moderation, it's it's probably not terrible for you.
33:58
Speaker 1: It is got a ton of sugar in a ton
34:00
Speaker 1: of caffeine. So uh, just like any other sugary sodas
34:04
Speaker 1: or or loads of caffeine, you know. Um, all that
34:08
Speaker 1: stuff in moderation is probably okay. Um. We're not doctors.
34:12
Speaker 1: So if if you have like a heart condition or
34:15
Speaker 1: super high blood pressure or like you know, arrhythmias and
34:20
Speaker 1: things like that, and you you want to drink a
34:22
Speaker 1: lot of energy drinks, like you may want to talk
34:24
Speaker 1: to your doctor and say, hey, is this a bad idea?
34:28
Speaker 1: Because there have been and this you know, we want
34:31
Speaker 1: to point out this doesn't mean that, uh, this is
34:35
Speaker 1: an open and shut deal. But there have been a
34:37
Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits brought against energy drink companies because of
34:42
Speaker 1: health problems that people have had that they at least claim,
34:46
Speaker 1: um stem uh, And I think they think it stems
34:50
Speaker 1: from energy drinks. But I think what we can probably
34:53
Speaker 1: say is and what the defendant will say, which is
34:56
Speaker 1: to say these big companies is hey, you can't draw
34:58
Speaker 1: a straight line from your stroke to my energy drink.
35:02
Speaker 1: It's like there's a lot of factors going on with
35:04
Speaker 1: your life, right, um. But I don't know if any
35:08
Speaker 1: of these has been settled in I haven't heard, but
35:11
Speaker 1: that the lawsuits definitely say like, hey, this my kid
35:14
Speaker 1: was totally fine until she started drinking energy drinks. And
35:17
Speaker 1: there's a really famous like case from two thousand eleven
35:21
Speaker 1: of a girl in Maryland who was fourteen at the time.
35:25
Speaker 1: Her name was a Ni Fernier or either one. She
35:29
Speaker 1: was fourteen at the time. She drank um to twenty
35:32
Speaker 1: four ounce cans of Monster in a single day, uh
35:37
Speaker 1: and died of cardiac arrest. And she did have an
35:41
Speaker 1: existing condition, a heart condition, but it's not normally a
35:44
Speaker 1: fatal heart condition. And like her parents are like, your
35:47
Speaker 1: energy drink killed our kid from drinking two of them
35:50
Speaker 1: in a single day. Uh. And there are you know,
35:52
Speaker 1: it's not like there's tons of stuff like that. But
35:56
Speaker 1: you know, I have not seen any, um, any any
36:00
Speaker 1: lawsuits of somebody dropping dead from drinking two pepsis in
36:03
Speaker 1: a day or even six pepsis in a day. So
36:06
Speaker 1: it is it is remarkable and noteworthy that people have
36:10
Speaker 1: suffered some serious like health setbacks from drinking energy drinks,
36:13
Speaker 1: or at the very least around the time that they
36:16
Speaker 1: drank energy drinks. Yeah, I mean, her autopsy straight up
36:19
Speaker 1: said that caffeine toxicity was a factor in her death.
36:22
Speaker 1: That didn't say. And again, this is where the defense
36:26
Speaker 1: will come for these things, is like, hey, she had
36:30
Speaker 1: a heart issue already, or you know, if you look
36:33
Speaker 1: through all of these lawsuits, they can there are other
36:37
Speaker 1: contributing factors. But certainly, like I said, if you have
36:41
Speaker 1: a if you have a hard condition or really high
36:43
Speaker 1: blood pressure and your your mowing down six h six
36:47
Speaker 1: Tallboy energy drinks a day, it can certainly lead to
36:51
Speaker 1: some poor health outcomes. It certainly can, especially especially yeah,
36:55
Speaker 1: like you said, if you have a pre existing condition,
36:57
Speaker 1: especially like hypertension or heart disease, because caffeine is very
37:04
Speaker 1: well known to constrict your blood vessels, but at the
37:07
Speaker 1: same time it releases adrenaline, which increases blood flow, so
37:12
Speaker 1: you've got more blood trying to flow through tighter blood vessels.
37:15
Speaker 1: And that also occurs in your brain as well, and
37:18
Speaker 1: it can like that's right for a stroke, it's right
37:22
Speaker 1: for a heart attack. You can make your heart like
37:24
Speaker 1: like palpitate. There's just a lot of things that theoretically
37:28
Speaker 1: could happen and may have happened. Uh, if these lawsuits
37:32
Speaker 1: pan out correctly, Um, that from drinking energy drinks. But again,
37:36
Speaker 1: like you said, generally in having one once in a while,
37:41
Speaker 1: especially if you don't have a pre existing condition, is
37:43
Speaker 1: probably not going to hurt you. Yeah. I think one
37:47
Speaker 1: area that they definitely have kind of made people a
37:49
Speaker 1: little more aware of in the past like ten years
37:52
Speaker 1: is alcohol and energy drinks. Um. I know, like vodka
37:57
Speaker 1: and red Bull was a really hot drink order for
37:59
Speaker 1: a while, at least in Uh it feels like about
38:02
Speaker 1: the midish two thousand's. Have you ever had one? No,
38:06
Speaker 1: I don't want to drink red Bull. Oh that's right,
38:08
Speaker 1: it's totally it's a totally different animal. The two things
38:11
Speaker 1: combine to create something totally different. So I can totally
38:15
Speaker 1: see why this is not not a smart thing to do. Yeah.
38:19
Speaker 1: I mean you've got two opposing factors. You have something
38:22
Speaker 1: dulling your senses combined with an upper basically, and uh
38:27
Speaker 1: that that can lead to all sorts of problems. Um,
38:29
Speaker 1: certainly with decision making whether or not you think you
38:32
Speaker 1: can drive, and things like that. Um. I think most
38:36
Speaker 1: people who enjoy those drinks. Will tell you that's exactly
38:39
Speaker 1: why I drink them is because the upper in the
38:43
Speaker 1: in the energy drink does combat the sluggishness of the
38:46
Speaker 1: alcohol if you're out, you know, kind of partying on
38:50
Speaker 1: the dance floor or something like that. That was so square.
38:55
Speaker 1: Uh here partying on the dance floor. Um. But uh
39:02
Speaker 1: for a while there they were actually selling like four
39:04
Speaker 1: loco was a drink that was a pre mixed energy
39:09
Speaker 1: vodka energy drink um with all the you know, standard
39:13
Speaker 1: energy drink ingredients, and uh. They the FDA basically kind
39:18
Speaker 1: of came out in two thousand ten and with with
39:20
Speaker 1: a stern warning to stop producing those, and it basically
39:25
Speaker 1: effectively banned them, didn't it. Yeah, it did it. It
39:29
Speaker 1: said you, we really strongly advise you against that. And
39:31
Speaker 1: I would guess that if the FDA advises you against that,
39:34
Speaker 1: you keep doing it, you're really opening up yourself to lawsuits,
39:37
Speaker 1: especially if you are harming people. And there's a really
39:40
Speaker 1: like um widely cited study from two thousand well after
39:46
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, because that was the last date they
39:48
Speaker 1: went up to, but it was the Dawn Report Drug
39:50
Speaker 1: Abuse Warning Network Report, and they studied emergency department e
39:54
Speaker 1: D visits h that involved energy drinks among people twelve
39:58
Speaker 1: or older, and between two thousand seven in two thousand eleven,
40:02
Speaker 1: the emergency department visits doubled from ten thousand, sixty eight
40:06
Speaker 1: to twenty thousand, seven hundred and eighty three in just
40:10
Speaker 1: a few years. And so a lot of people point
40:12
Speaker 1: to that and say, yeah, energy drinks are toxic, they're poison,
40:15
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna kill you, They're gonna the very least
40:17
Speaker 1: send you to the hospital. And other people who are like, well,
40:20
Speaker 1: hold on, let's let's not get into a moral panic
40:23
Speaker 1: over this. Um. These were the four Loco years, and
40:27
Speaker 1: basically people agree like that widely skewed the number of
40:31
Speaker 1: emergency department visits because mixing alcohol and energy drinks is
40:36
Speaker 1: such a bad idea and has these horrid effects. As
40:39
Speaker 1: far as I know, nobody has done a follow up
40:41
Speaker 1: study to see if it declined after four Loco stop
40:44
Speaker 1: being made with alcohol or with the caffeine and the
40:47
Speaker 1: torreing and the guarine. I think it's still made, but
40:49
Speaker 1: it's like a just like a sweet malt beverage, um
40:52
Speaker 1: malt liquor beverage. Now, now do you know, with bars
40:56
Speaker 1: have ceased to serve those mixed drinks from fear of lawsuits,
41:00
Speaker 1: not that I know of. I'm surprised that no one's
41:03
Speaker 1: brought a lawsuit against a club, a nightclub that serves
41:06
Speaker 1: someone you know nine Red Bull and Vodkas. Uh you know, yeah,
41:13
Speaker 1: I'm i or maybe it has happened. Yeah, maybe it has,
41:16
Speaker 1: it just hasn't made the news. Who knows. Uh. There
41:19
Speaker 1: have been studies as far as um, like just heart
41:22
Speaker 1: rate and stuff like that. There was one uh and
41:25
Speaker 1: this wasn't a huge population study, but um, fifteen healthy
41:29
Speaker 1: people between eighteen and forty and they have them consumed
41:33
Speaker 1: two cans of one of the big brands, uh, basically
41:38
Speaker 1: every day for a week and kind of across the
41:42
Speaker 1: board they found, um, you know, significant increases in both
41:46
Speaker 1: heart rate and blood pressure sort of on a day
41:49
Speaker 1: by day basis. So I mean a significant increase. Yeah,
41:53
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I guess that's what people are after.
41:56
Speaker 1: So it's not like we're surprised by any of this.
41:59
Speaker 1: But that's just say that. You know, when you're increasing
42:01
Speaker 1: your heart rate at a steady pace, sustained pace and
42:05
Speaker 1: your blood pressure, you know, that's that's not great for
42:07
Speaker 1: your body. No, And one of the other things that
42:09
Speaker 1: turned up in that study is that it had a
42:12
Speaker 1: cumulative effect. So your heart rate increased by eight percent
42:16
Speaker 1: on day one and then eleven percent on day seven.
42:20
Speaker 1: So like it had a build up effect, Like you
42:22
Speaker 1: didn't your body didn't get used to it, your body
42:24
Speaker 1: became more sensitive to it, it seemed like. So that
42:27
Speaker 1: was one week, imagine drinking more than two for multiple years,
42:32
Speaker 1: you can imagine that it could conceivably have a really
42:35
Speaker 1: bad law effect on your long term cardiovascular health. Yeah,
42:39
Speaker 1: but you also did find some studies that sort of
42:42
Speaker 1: showed that they can increase your mental performance right in focus. Well,
42:48
Speaker 1: red bull specifically has been found from studies possibly supported
42:53
Speaker 1: by the Red Bull Institute of Science and Stuff, UM
42:57
Speaker 1: that red bull improves attention, kind centration, memory, driving quality,
43:03
Speaker 1: reduced variation in speed while you're driving, less mental strain
43:07
Speaker 1: in prolonged driving which is four hours, and faster motor
43:10
Speaker 1: reaction time. Like it Actually it does have that effect
43:14
Speaker 1: on you. Um. Again, it's just a question of you know,
43:17
Speaker 1: what's the health trade off if there is any, and
43:19
Speaker 1: we definitely need more study on that. Well, they probably
43:21
Speaker 1: could find the same result in a meth amphetamine study.
43:24
Speaker 1: You know exactly what is it? Um? Benny's. If you
43:31
Speaker 1: take some Benny's, you probably do. Man, we're just so
43:34
Speaker 1: square today. So yeah, he takes some Benni's and you
43:37
Speaker 1: go get down on the dance floor. But the real question, though,
43:42
Speaker 1: my friend, is is Monster energy energy drink a satanic drink?
43:48
Speaker 1: I I have a love hate with the internet, don't you.
43:52
Speaker 1: Well that's sort of one of those dumb Internet urban legends, right,
43:56
Speaker 1: is that it's Yeah, it's like a six six six thing. Yeah,
44:00
Speaker 1: because if you've ever seen the Monster logo, it's like
44:03
Speaker 1: claw scratches that form the M but they're clearly three
44:07
Speaker 1: separate scratches. And some people said, hey, that looks like
44:10
Speaker 1: the Hebrew vov, a Hebrew number. Well letter um that
44:15
Speaker 1: represents six, the number six, and there's three claws, So
44:18
Speaker 1: clearly this is just saying six six six right in
44:21
Speaker 1: our face there there Um. Their slogan is unleashed the Beast,
44:26
Speaker 1: which is of course another name for the devil. And
44:29
Speaker 1: apparently if you look closely, I see what people are saying.
44:31
Speaker 1: If you look at the oh in Monster on the logo,
44:35
Speaker 1: there's like a cross in the middle of it, like
44:36
Speaker 1: a plus sign, but one like the cross section is
44:40
Speaker 1: down a little further so that if you tip it up,
44:43
Speaker 1: you're you're you're looking at an upside down cross the logo. Yeah,
44:48
Speaker 1: it's just this is what happens when you drink too
44:50
Speaker 1: much energy. Just start paying attention to stuff like this.
44:54
Speaker 1: It was wholly created from from people drinking this stuff
44:57
Speaker 1: at the time. That's right. I would say, chuck Jerry's out,
45:01
Speaker 1: wouldn't you, Not on whether monsters satanic or not, but
45:04
Speaker 1: on um, whether energy drinks are bad for you or not. Yeah,
45:09
Speaker 1: they're not for me, but um, I mean I think
45:12
Speaker 1: any like you don't want to drink six sodas a day, right,
45:17
Speaker 1: you know they say it's all in moderation, that's the
45:20
Speaker 1: key to life. You don't want to drink six coke
45:22
Speaker 1: zeros a day, No, you really don't. And also six
45:26
Speaker 1: don't drink six anything a day except water or And
45:30
Speaker 1: if you are, take the time and respect yourself enough
45:34
Speaker 1: to go look up and see, like if if anyone
45:37
Speaker 1: studied what all that stuff is going to do to you,
45:39
Speaker 1: and then make a more informed decision rather than just
45:41
Speaker 1: be like I like this, Yeah, but we're not doctors.
45:44
Speaker 1: That's just our suggestion. Yes, anything else. I got nothing else. Well,
45:49
Speaker 1: since Chuck said he's got nothing else, and obviously it's
45:52
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail, I'm just gonna call this
45:57
Speaker 1: a nice letter of appreciation from a nice fellow. Hey, guys,
46:01
Speaker 1: my name is Jonathan Bednar, and I just wanted to
46:04
Speaker 1: thank you on the tremendous job that you and your
46:07
Speaker 1: team do operate heavy machinery all day, which seems fun,
46:10
Speaker 1: but it can be rather monotonous and boring, and your
46:13
Speaker 1: podcast really gets me through the day whenever discussions of
46:16
Speaker 1: the podcast come up with my friends or family, and
46:19
Speaker 1: make sure to hype stuff you should know as much
46:21
Speaker 1: as possible. Just the array of topics that are researched
46:24
Speaker 1: so thoroughly is really refreshing. And I just leave off
46:28
Speaker 1: of whatever episode I was on and keep on going
46:30
Speaker 1: because even the quote boring sounding ones end quote sometimes
46:34
Speaker 1: end up being the most interesting. So thanks a lot,
46:37
Speaker 1: guys and ps ps. I've listened to Josh Clark's Into
46:41
Speaker 1: the World podcast about five times now. Thank you. Very
46:46
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff all the way around, So go check out
46:49
Speaker 1: Into the World with Josh Clark. Uh if you're into movies,
46:53
Speaker 1: go listen to the retired movie Crush. But there's still
46:55
Speaker 1: a lot of really fun, great movie Crush episodes out
46:58
Speaker 1: there you can go listen to, and um, it's good stuff.
47:02
Speaker 1: So thanks Jonathan for that word of support. We need
47:05
Speaker 1: those these days. Yes, thanks a lot. Jonathan is nice
47:09
Speaker 1: to hear that kind of thing. Um, And if you
47:11
Speaker 1: want to be like Jonathan and send us a word
47:13
Speaker 1: of support, we're always open to that. You can send
47:16
Speaker 1: it to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
47:23
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
47:25
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47:29
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