Death by Lemonade? (ft. Doctor Mike)

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I hate that they're marketing it as "plant-based caffeine", as if coffee beans and cola nuts don't come from plants.

Former Panera employee here. My manager got mad at me for warning a pregnant woman how much caffeine was in the drink (she said she couldn’t have coffee, so I figured I should warn her), and also got mad at me for warning a mother who was about to get one for her son. They also encourage employees to drink MULTIPLE a day to “stay focused”

As someone unfamiliar with Panera, I wouldn’t automatically assume that “charged” had anything to do with caffeine - extra lemony, maybe? but not that it was caffeinated.

Another person has now died from drinking the Charged Lemonade sold by Panera. He drank three, he was developmentally disabled and had poor vision (but no heart condition!), and likely was completely unaware it contained caffeine. Insanely sad. At my Panera store they keep them behind the counter now, but it was free for anyone to fill at the drink station for years!

I hope this doesn’t go like the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit where the giant corporation spread rumors about the case to make the victim look like an idiot

I used to work by a Panera and we would frequently have customers come in that still were finishing their drinks. We all knew about the crazy levels of caffeine in the drink, but customers often wouldn’t. One day an old lady walked in with a large charged lemonade. After talking to her about what she came in for I brought up the drink. She brought up that it was a new lemonade and i warned her that the drink she had contained almost twice the caffeine of a monster energy and she threw it away and thanked me profusely. She didn't even realize there was caffeine and she suffered from a heart condition. To this day, it's still weird to think that i may have saved that woman's life because she decided to grab a lemonade at Panera.

I think that one aspect of this that was underplayed is the fact that for most of us, if we drink 400mg/day, it's usually spread out over the whole day. I bet most people drinking this specific drink do so within, say 15 minutes or so. Therefore the body is receiving all that caffeine in one big whammy. That can't be good for anyone.

More than anything I just do not understand why Panera made this cursed hell-drink in the first place.

As someone who works at panera, you can tell how oblivious our customer base was to the high level of caffeine content. Nearly every time that I explain why we moved our lemonades behind the counter i get a response like "i didnt know they were so caffeinated" or something along those lines. The other big issue is the fact that the drinks are mixed by employees, yet only a few employees are taught how to do it and it's treated like something everyone knows how to do. I have seen multiple times where someone made charged lemonade with not enough water in it, which would result in over 500 mg in caffiene per 30 ounces.

I think it's obvious that, regardless of if Panera is responsible for this poor girl's death, they need to be more clear about the caffeine levels in their charged drinks. This isn't just dangerous to people with health issues, it's dangerous to healthy people too.

I was a manager at Panera until this year, and frankly we knew well before this happened that something like it was coming. We got so many complaints from parents who got it for their kids, or when their kids got it themselves without knowing what was in it. I personally saw plenty of high schoolers drinking 2-3 large drinks in one sitting. It was so obviously dangerous that many stores in my area pulled the beverage dispensers behind the counter even before it was mandated, and advised their employees to discourage parents from giving it to kids. The drinks are good, but it’s frankly ludicrous that Panera got away with serving them for so long without anyone noticing.

It's absolutely insane this was even called a lemonade in the first place. Even calling it an energy drink sells it short. They should create a new category like "ultra caffeinated energy drink" or something. That would avoid any confusion.

Doesn't matter if you have a heart condition. 400mg is the daily recommended maximum by the FDA, and 1200mg is listed on their website as an amount associated with toxic affects, like seizures in a healthy person. That woman who said she drinks one every 2 hours is lucky to be alive.

My old job had a Panera across the street and they just let you free refill the charged lemonades as much as you wanted. I drank 2 giant sizes in a lunch hour and I swear I saw the face of god. Every other Panera I've gone to has excluded the charged lemonades from free refills

I have long QT syndrome and had absolutely no clue this drink has that much caffeine in it. I had one a few weeks ago and my heart rate shot through the roof, I thought for sure my pacemaker/defibrillator was going to deliver a shock. At the time I had no clue why but now I do. I got extremely lucky.

I have cardiomyopathy and heart arrythmia. Thanks to MatPat on Food Theory, I was aware of the lemonade and it's high caffeine levels. My mom got me the lemonade because she didn't know about the caffeine. I only drank about a quarter of the drink, when I started feeling my throat tighten (for me it's a sign of anxiety, which corresponds with my PVCs) I stopped drinking it and told my mom about the lemonade. (I'm so glad that I'm aware of the caffeine levels in that drink. It's ridiculous!)

Considering a family member was offered this when the decaf coffee was out two weeks ago - I am pretty sure the people behind the counter are completely clueless about what is in the drink.

The crazy thing about this is that MattPat did a video literally highlighting how unsafe and irresponsible the marketing at the time was around these charged lemonades - 10 months ago and they still did nothing !!! Literally in the title was 'this could kill you'...

This is such a sad case. I read a news article where commenters were blaming the decedent for drinking the drink knowing it had caffeine in it, but Panera is wrong in my eyes for not disclosing the high amounts of caffeine in these drinks. They marketed it in the same deceiving way that Starbucks marketed their refreshers & now both are being sued.