“Heart attack in a bottle” (or “heart attack in a can”) is a product loaded with potential artery-cloggers. “Heart attack in a can” is cited in print since at least February 1998 and “heart attack in a bottle” since July 1999. The expression “heart attack in a can” first described SPAM, but was gradually extended to describe other foods. “Heart attack in a bottle” has described vitamin supplements and energy drinks.
   
Similar expressions include “heart attack on a plate” (since April 1988), “heart attack on a bun” (since February 1992), “heart attack in a bag” (since January 1995), “heart attack on a stick” (since August 1995) and “heart attack on a rack” (since 2009).
 
       
Google Groups: seattle.general
Newsgroups: seattle.general, soc.culture.asian.american, alt.food.fat-free, alt.creative-cooking, rec.food.cooking
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (+ el_rAy +)
Date: 1998/02/28
Subject: Re: What wouldn’t you eat??
 
SPAM=scientifically prepared artificial meat or as it should be known: ‘Heart attack in a can’
   
Google Groups: alt.support.diabetes
Newsgroups: alt.support.diabetes
From: Joe
Date: 1999/07/10
Subject: Re: Herbal solution
 
Also known as, “The heart attack in a bottle”, the FDA along with the DEA have been working very hard over the years to get the stuff properly classified as an amphetamine. Right now, it’s marketed as a “Herbal Diet Supplement”.
     
Google Groups: rec.food.cooking
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: “Felice Friese”

Date: 2000/03/29
Subject: Re: What is “Crisco”
 
So now you know more than you wanted to know about Crisco. It’s a heart attack in a can, but it’s NOT all bad. It makes disgusting frosting, but it makes terrific biscuits. Win some, lose some.
     
Google Groups: calgary.general
Newsgroups: calgary.general
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Date: 2000/07/12
Subject: Clarity
 
The depression is gone, now there is no feeling. A vacuous void stares through my eyes at the bottle of pills, garunteed heart attack in a bottle.
   
October 2000, Journal of Popular Culture, “From Minnesota fat to seoul food: Spam in America and the Pacific rim” by George H. Lewis, pg. 83+:
Although Spam is taken quite seriously as a “good to think” foodstuff in many areas of the world-and especially in the Pacific Rim-elsewhere it is also the butt of innumerable jokes, many of which place the alleged lack of sophistication and social worth of Spam lovers at their core. Others, perhaps of a more nutritional bent of mind, are likely to classify Spam, at 256 calories per 4 ounce serving, as “bad to think”; “a nutritionally dangerous heart-attack-in-a-can” (Mennell et al. 41-47).
(...)
Mennell, Stephen, et al. The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture.
London: Sage, 1992.
     
AudiWorld Forums
SpenceSTL
03-03-2003, 06:27 AM
Red Bull and Coffee and T-BURN (Heart attack in a bottle) and Xanax OWN me 😉