Lawsuit filed over ginger ale allegedly containing no ginger

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/06/lawsuit-filed-over-ginger-ale.html

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Oh no, the canard about the coffee being too hot!

For the tldr, the real villain is, surprise, not a clumsy greedy shmo, but capitalism. Here’s a take.

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FAKE BREWS!!

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If I bought some Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda and it didn’t have any Lithium in it, I would be pissed.

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As long as it didn’t (maybe) have a snail in it…

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Please consider researching and amending the crack at the end about suing about the coffee being too hot. McDonald’s kept their coffee at an abnormally high temperature, which they knew had caused severe scalding in a number of cases. The infamous legal case the woman’s labia were severely burned and she had to have reconstructive surgery. This was not the frivolous lawsuit you want to use in this example. In fact, the excellent explainer about it that I read, I may very well have read here at Boingboing.

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It’d certainly be nice if Canada Dry actually included ginger in their, um, ginger ale.

And, for the record, nobody sued a fast food restaurant because their coffee was too hot to drink.

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she’d been buying it for her kids to drink whenever they got sick.

WTF?! Just buy a piece of ginger and let it soak in water! Or make tea! I don’t know! But ultra-sugary soft drinks are not medicine!!

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People have been using ginger ale for tummy troubles for about a hundred years or so, so yes, they can be. And, psst… there’s this thing we have called diet soda which has no sugar. But you don’t know so hey.

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Well - yeah it might be if there were any decent evidence that ginger ale ever worked. There is some evidence for ginger for specific types of stomach upset (mostly those associated with pregnancy) but no decent evidence for it when included in ginger ale.

Much as your appeal to tradition might suggest otherwise, probably best to stick to medicine for medication in this case.

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Brewing your own alcoholic ginger beer isn’t that hard.


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Um. Let me get this straight.
You’re saying that while ginger and ginger beverages are well known to help with stomach upset, there’s “no evidence” that it’s effective when… carbonated?

Best stick to not posting things you don’t know anything about.

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Totally doing this, thanks for the links.

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The suit is obviously ridiculous, but it would be kind of fun if she won and it set a precedent. Almost all prepared foods would have to be renamed. We could have contests.

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I think most reasonable people would understand that “Ginger Ale” means “Ginger flavored.” Much the same way I do not expect a cherry flavored Starburst to contain anything that so much as resembles a cherry.

That being said, are we sure the lawsuit is about the name “Ginger Ale” and not the label on the can that says “Made from real ginger”?

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She’s going to have a hard time proving actual damages.

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What I am saying is that properly controlled scientific studies have shown no good evidence of efficacy.

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But all the ad and marketing from Canada Dry involves “made from real ginger”, so I side with the lawsuit here.

Fun fact: Canada Dry tastes a bit different (and better, imho) in Canada.

  • Or should I say it tastes bad in the US?
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Five seconds with Google would disagree with you.

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