DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130652
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

THIS PROMISES TO BECOME THE LAND OF COCA-COLA AND HONEY

Hand it to Coca-Cola, nobody is going to get ahead of it in marketing soda pop.

It has signed an exclusive contract to pay $1.5 million annually to the Madison, Wis., school system for the right to place vending machines in public schools.

It will not advertise. The machines will speak only through their presence in the lunchroom, but their gaudy facades can be pretty seductive, offering nine varieties in 20-ounce bottles.

So what's wrong with this deal? The cash flow will certainly help the schools in Madison.

One may envision Coca-Cola extending its offer throughout the nation and replenishing the funds with which to revitalize American education.

In a recent Health Show on WHRV Radio (89.5), a nutritionist expressed concerns.

She alluded to reports by the National Soft Drink Association that the consumption of its beverages has more than doubled in 30 years, which should animate stockholders to do a jig.

The nutritionist, ever a spoilsport, said that the consumption of milk has declined 14 percent in the past two decades. This decrease prevails despite a recent finding that humans, especially older women, need more calcium to ward off osteoporosis.

Soda pop isn't harmful, she said, unless you are trying to lose weight. It's just that young people are spending on soft drinks the lunch money with which they should buy milk to increase calcium or purchase other nourishing liquids such as juices or bottled water.

There's only a limited window during which one can build bone tissue, she warned. After you're 25 years old, you can't recoup what you've lost.

The most sobering statistic is that the average American customer consumes 50 gallons of soft drinks a year. Thinking of how much water that volume of pop displaces will make me pause hereafter before plugging coins in the soft drink machine.

If you're mindful of doctors' dictum that we should drink six glasses of water a day, you begin to ponder whether you shouldn't join a temperance league and swear off soft drinks.

That brings to mind a Mutt and Jeff comic strip of the 1930s. Mutt, the tall one, offers to bet a dollar that Jeff, his short pal, can't drink six glasses of water, one right after the other.

Jeff accepts the challenge, goes to the kitchen, returns with a pitcher of water and drinks six glasses. But when Mutt, impressed, pulls out a dollar, Jeff refuses the money.

``I can't take it,'' he says. ``I cheated. While I was in the kitchen, I drank six glasses of water.''

``Why?'' Mutt asks.

``To make sure I could do it,'' Jeff confesses.

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