How Coca-Cola makes Americans sick—and makes sure we don’t know it. If we knew that
Coca-Cola was among the deadliest products in our diet would we continue drinking it in such
great quantities? The Coca-Cola Company has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure we don’t
find out as this damning exposé makes patently clear. Marshaling the findings of extensive
research and deep investigative reporting Murray Carpenter describes in Sweet and Deadly the
damage Coke does to America’s health—and the remarkable campaign of disinformation conducted by
the company to keep consumers in the dark. Sugar-sweetened beverages are the single item in
the American diet that most contributes to the epidemic of chronic disease—in particular
obesity type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease—and Coca-Cola is America’s favorite
sugar-sweetened beverage by far. Carpenter details how the Coca-Cola corporation’s
sophisticated shadow network has masterfully spread disinformation for decades to hide the
health risks of its product from consumers—risks disproportionately borne by Black brown and
low-income communities. Working from a playbook of obfuscation and pseudoscience that has
worked well for other harmful products from tobacco and trans fats to opioids Coca-Cola has
managed to maintain an aura of goodness and happiness. This eye-opening book finally and fully
reveals the truth behind that aura.
