News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
They are selling a drink where one serving contains 97.5% of the recommended maximum daily dosage of a stimulating substance. We (me at least) now know that that maximum daily dosage is 400mg, but I only know that now because people died and it was prominently feaurered on social media.
A borderline drink like this, should be locked away in a liquor cabinet or only be dispensed by a licensed bartender. When selling the drink, the cashier/bartender should then also warn customers of the danger of the contents and that they should not drink it if they have already consumed caffeine that day, nor should they consume any other caffeine during the rest of the day. Clearly they aren't doing any of that, it's just a container in the general food area, with some nutritional information that most people not fully comprehend.
We all constantly buy and consume stuff without fully understanding what's in it. When buying stuff in the store, I only check the sugar contents in the detailed ingredient list. When buying stuff in a takeaway, I check nothing. I'm certainly not going to sleuth on the internet to find the max dosages of each ingredient. If a drink is put out in the open like this, then I assume that it's safe.
Tbh, I'm absolutely disgusted by the victim blaming in this case. It's not that man's fault that he was not smart and him not being smart, definitely does not make this death acceptable.
Again, I'm simply playing devil's advocate here, and I'm not taking one side over the other... I'm just exploring the evidence presented.
To clarify, they sell this drink in two sizes. One has around the same amount of caffeine as a tall coffee at Starbucks, the other (852ml size) has under 400mg.
The FDA says that most people should have no more than 400mg (assuming they are 175lbs), but that's only because it produces unwanted side effects and/or can have long term health effects at that dose.
The actual lethal limit is something like 10,000mg.
The issue is that he had multiple health conditions, which would be exacerbated by both caffeine AND sugar, but not if he consumed reasonable quantities. This is why he was able to have the same drink many times in the past without incident.
While I agree that energy drinks shouldn't be sold to minors, since they are at a higher risk of harm and likely don't have the brains to understand those risks, what you describe goes way beyond the responsibility of a restaurant.
Would you expect a coffee shop to do the same? Literally ask questions they have no business asking, any time someone orders a caffeinated beverage or shock a tray of them?
The drinks at Panera are self-serve, btw.
To reiterate: IT IS SAFE. People with health conditions or taking meds needs to be acutely aware of what they should and should not consume, especially if they plan to consume it in larger quantities that's considered beyond normal.
And you also point out another problem: people assume that the food they consume is "safe", but ignore any health problems they might have which could make any food unsafe.
High blood pressure, a heart condition, gluten intolerance, food allergy, food interaction with meds, etc... anyone with any of those conditions should be hyper-aware of what goes into their body. If they ignore their limits, problems happen.
If you do have to avoid a certain food, ingredient, or nutrition, it's always best to ask to find out before consuming it. Or avoid it if you're unsure.
I agree, it's a tragedy. But I don't think Panera Bread can be blamed in this case.
the ld50 for a 175lb person is 15,240.75mg. 10,000 can EASILY kill someone. 5,000 probably still kills 1/4 of people (i didn't look up the curve). i would guess that 1000 is probably safe for most people, but even a 1% death rate is pretty high for a lemonade.
2800mg is lethal according to Mayo Clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/caffeine/art-20045678
ld50 means half of all subjects died at that dosage. but subjects die all along the curve. I believe people commonly die at 2800mg, but that's far short of the ld50. id like to know where that dosage sits on the curve.
Yes, 10,000mg is the published lethal dose (approx. 21L of this lemonade.)
That would bring us to 10L of water, which could still be lethal to some people regardless of whether it had caffeine or sugar in it.
Thankfully, it's probably closer to 0.0001% for lemonade.
Caffeinated beverages are among the most widely consumed, probably even more so than water in developed countries.
Fortunately, caffeine related deaths, even in those who take caffeine pills, are quite rare in healthy adults. When it does happen, it's often when caffeine is abused, overconsumed, or the person has some underlying health condition and probably shouldn't be consuming caffeine anyway.
i had not considered the dilution. i honestly have no idea how this effects metabolization (i'm not a medical professional of any kind i just dabble in pharmacology). you seem pretty sure about this so you're probably right. i take one 200mg caffeine pill daily and thats about all of my consumption.
I could be wrong, too. I'm trying to consider all aspects of this case and to base my opinion.
I will say that if Panera is found guilty, I wonder how it will affect other restaurants, who serve foods that can cause death due to overconsumption in people with underlying health issues.
Will all salty, fatty, sugary, and caffeinated products have a Canadian cigarette-style warning labels on them? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Perhaps "Chubby Emu" will make a video about "death by lemonade", as he (an MD) covers a lot of wacky food-related topics causing death or injury.