Coca-Cola Draws Criticism Over Claims its New Drink, Enviga

08/01/07 Its allure is understandable: Burn off 100 calories daily just by sipping a sweet, fizzy beverage said to boost metabolism naturally. The only thing more appealing in our fast-food, quick-fix culture would be if it came squeezed into a cheeseburger and mound of fries.

Such is the calorie-burning buzz behind a new sparkling green-tea drink called Enviga, unveiled by Coca-Cola last month in New York and Philadelphia and set for a nationwide launch in February.

With a red flame punctuating its "calorie burner" logo, Enviga purports to light a gentle furnace on metabolism with its blend of caffeine and green-tea extracts. A joint venture with Nestle, the companies say the beverage is backed by scientific studies conducted by Nestle Research Center and the University of Lausanne, both in Switzerland. Their test of 31 subjects, they say, showed drinking three 12-ounce cans in a 24-hour period led to an average deficit of 106 calories in healthy adults.

That might sound like peanuts -- 18 of them, to be exact. But Ray Crockett, an Enviga spokesman, says, "One hundred calories is actually not a trivial thing."

"There are writers and authorities who talk about how just a small amount of calories each day can add up to a real difference over time," he said. "We like to think of it as a small step that people can take ... toward a healthy lifestyle."

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