Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade blamed for a second death, lawsuit alleges - eviltoast

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.

  • interceder270@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Now, if you saw a drink called charged lemonade next to their regular lemonade, what would you think it was? Lemonade with some extra fruits perhaps?

    No, I see the word ‘charged’ and I immediately think energy drinks.

    Do red bull, monster, and starbucks put caffeine warnings on their products?

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      Do restaurants typically give out free refills on Red Bull, Monster, or Starbucks? “Charged” could easily be a knockoff Gatorade as their logo is a lighting bolt and I would never expect a restaurant to give out free energy drinks at the refill station.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Do restaurants typically give out free refills on Red Bull, Monster, or Starbucks?

        coffee is typically free refills and entirely unlabeled

      • interceder270@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That’s a really good point. I assumed it was a specialty drink where you have to pay for refills.

        I can easily see people going overboard with this if it’s just a fountain drink like the rest of them.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Red Bull and monster do put caffeine warnings on their products, and Starbucks doesn’t have to because normal people understand that coffee has caffeine

      “Charged” is not a standard term. Have you ever heard of charged cider? Charged seltzer? It’s not a thing. To be sure, I googled “charged cider,” and found one result. It is not caffeinated cider.

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          I’ve seen it. Any time I’ve shown that picture to someone unfamiliar with the story, I ask them which flavor sounds best to them, and then once I’ve taken my phone back, I ask them how much caffeine was in the drink. Every single person was dumbfounded. Why would lemonade have caffeine?

          • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            So you show them a picture and then ask them to focus on the flavors, and then take the picture away and then ask a different question. You do understand why that’s not scientific and is unfair to the results.

            • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              So you show them a picture and then ask them to focus on the flavors, and then take the picture away and then ask a different question.

              Yes, because that’s actually what’s physically happening when someone walks up to the lemonade dispenser and grabs a drink, then walks away and wonders why their heart is palpating. They walk up to the dispenser and decide on what flavor looks best, and only after they’ve left and no longer see the sign do they have reason to suspect that they’ve had caffeine.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Starbucks doesn’t need to on the basis that it is coffee - of course that’s going to have caffeine. It’s like putting a peanut warning on a bag of peanuts.

      Red Bull and Monster call themselves energy drinks, and not lemonade. Was a bit of a problem when energy drinks were becoming popular, but now it is accepted that energy drinks have caffeine.

      Even then you need to drink an entire pack of energy drinks to get the same caffeine levels as a single charged lemonade. That’s how much caffeine was in Charged Lemonades