"When you’re watching your favorite Food Network show and Coca-Cola is used as an ingredient, do you know that Coke is paying the chef? It never occurred to me."
Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot.
Also Coca-Cola as a glaze for food doesn't strike me as particularly better or worse than using barbecue sauce or ketchup or anything of the other sugary things we eat every day.