Lime in the Coconut.

I was strolling through Stop and Shop yesterday when I noticed that Dustin Pedroia is shilling for a company that sells coconut water. The product is supposed to be better for you than regular water because it's packed with vitamins and minerals and better than a sports drink because it's natural. Or something. Anyway, the whole point of this post was to write that while Dustin looks both terrible and terribly photo-shopped in his publicity shot, Alex Rodriguez looks at least eight times worse. But then I was distracted by the marketing mumbo-jumbo and grew concerned. (What can I say? I'm a worrier.)

This product alone isn't likely to present a problem but given that his personality seems to lean itself toward excess (if the five Red Bulls a day is to be believed) he really ought to cool it with the potassium. One box of this stuff contains over 1000mg of potassium, he's got that big container of supplements in his locker, depending on what he eats in a day (and with the mineral's role in muscle health, it's probably safe to assume that he's on a potassium-rich diet), you're talking in excess of 5000mgs of potassium a day, which is pushing it. (The average person needs probably 2000mgs and starts to feel ill at around 4000mgs.)

Chronic high levels of potassium in the blood can lead to kidney problems and potassium overdose will cause heart failure. [Potassium overdose isn't really an issue here. Unless he's downing these drinks twelve at a time, he likely isn't ingesting it fast enough to stop his heart.]

Proof positive that, after all, coconut is poison.