I heard the whole piece on NPR, Bobo. It was an essay by a novelist who had created an imaginary product called "Diet Water" which was marketed by one of the characters in the novel. Sort of the ultimate useless product that would sell with the right kind of marketing. (I don't remember the name of the novel, but if you log onto www.npr.org you can probably find it.) Soon after the novel was published, he said, he began to see more and more "modified water" products on the beverage shelves, eventually approaching in ingredients and calories the soft drinks they were supposed to replace. He said he was waiting for "Diet Water" to arrive. Not long ago he saw a bottled water whose label said, in big letters, "FAT FREE", which was close. Then he finally saw something called "Skinny Water", which was water with an appetite suppressant dissolved in it. For real.

That's more or less it in a nutshell. Emphasis on "nuts." Not the author, but the public.

Aloha,
Mark