[W]idespread anecdotal reports suggest that people really can tell the difference between sugar-sweetened and HFCS-sweetened colas. (I'm pretty sure I can taste it myself.) What's less clear is whether one is really any better than the other. Despite the enthusiasm for sugar-sweetened Coke and all-natural iced tea, informal taste tests have yielded ambiguous results. In a street survey conducted by the Toronto Star, most passers-by preferred regular Coke to the Passover version; several folks described the latter as tasting like aspartame. A similar confusion beset the Snapple testers at Fast Company: One described the HFCS version as tasting "more natural" while another dismissed the all-natural version for its "chemical taste."
Dark Sugar [Slate] (Thanks, Chris and Dave!)
(Photo: Paxton Holley)
]]>I love this stuff. It reminds me of Crystal Clear Pepsi. Maybe that was the death of sugar.
But it really does take me back (and I'm only 25)
Bow if only Josta was around
]]>:(
]]>Of course, there's another reason I dislike HFCS. If I drink more than 8 ounces of a beverage that's been sweetened with it, I get the runs. This is the main reason why I avoid HFCS like the plague. So I really do have a reply to the industry's question of, "What's wrong with high fructose corn syrup?"
]]>Sure, sure. Those are just facts though and who trusts them. They don't match up compared to someone's gut feeling.
]]>Replace slight placebo effect with huge placebo effect and you've hit it on the nose.
]]>Controversial because some scientists made a mistake and people are pig-ignorant.
]]>I will continue to drink the other one... don't even care if it's bad for me.
]]>Previous soda purchase was a case of Jones Cola, so it's not the HFCS vs sugar that is throwing off my taste. Jones Cola is better than Pepsi Throwback. Waiting for Royal Crown and Coke to release their sugar offerings.
]]>Since this is a limited promotion, I'm very eager to get a lot of in not only the hopes of loving it, but helping their sales so that they make it on a regular basis. Unfortunately I haven't seen any yet here in Ontario.
]]>Here's one of many easily-googled stories about this issue:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823094819.htm
And Consumerist readers should be careful about the misinformation injected into discussion of this issue by the megafarming industry in the USA, such as the advertisements by the Corn Refiners Association. See the Wikipedia article about HFCS for more.
]]>I bought a bunch of the new Mountain Dew and didn't pay much attention to it, just thought they changed the packaging, drank about 3 sips out of one and told my wife, "somethings terribly wrong with this, it almost taste like diet or they changed the way they sweetened it". Sure enough it was the "Real Sugar" type. Have to say, "I absolutely HATE it!" I really am not sure I've ever seen any convincing data that suggest HFCS is actually any better or worse than sugar in any way, except for one personally, and thats when it comes to sweetening Mountain Dew. I probably drink 6 or more a day, and if they stick with the real sugar, I'm "out here", I hate it so much. If ya want a healthy drink drink some water or a Crystal light, leave my beloved Mountain Dew alone. This whole thing certainly does have shades of "New Coke"...Ick!
]]>I grew up with soda with real sugar (I make a yearly month-long pilgrimage to my parents' homes in Thailand and have been even before I could talk) so the difference is very clear to me. To my friends who've been having HFCS all their life, not so much.
]]>I'm not alleging conspiracy theory here, it would have been ridiculous for Coke to stage such a PR disaster as New-Coke, but they did sneak the formula change in under the radar and I always thought that was underhanded. When I began to correlate the increase of HFCS in diets with the bulging American waistline, I felt even more wronged.
Sugar is no more natural than HFCS, but it does process in the body more easily and supports our sugar industry. I'll pay marginally more for a soda with sugar.
]]>2. The argument about HFCS isn't that it *tastes bad*. This study should have shown if your pancreas could tell the difference. And it can.
]]>So yeah, some people care. and if they don't they should.
]]>20 ounce bottle of the normal Mountain Dew has 77g of sugars per bottle. So the throwback version actually has less sugar per bottle.
]]>Also, Pepsi Throwback has a cleaner mouthfeel and no cloying aftertaste. Fizzier too. Much more refreshing after mowing the lawn than HFCS bevvies.
I was even compelled to email kudos to Pepsi and to beg them to keep Throwback on the shelves for good. But really, that name is stupid. Keep the sugar, change the name.
]]>Fix it! FIX IT!!! *kicks and screams*
Wow, I'm thirsty...where'd I put my Mexican Coke? :)
]]>While not a vegan I stopped drinking soda 2+ years ago (unless mixed 70/30 w/ cheap whiskey ;-) and can say that while I'm glad they're at least trying sugar you still end up drinking a bunch of other random chemicals w/ out HFCS being involved. I'll stick to water/tea/hard liquor
]]>Gotta love that pseudo-science.
]]>IronCrow, did you even read the article? Said panel did no research of their own. They merely reviewed a previously published study regarding the body's ability to metabolize HCFS and decided the study's conclusions were "wrong" without providing any evidence to support their conclusion. Basically, a panel of so-called experts (the article doesn't specify in what field they are experts), "who had received funding from the corn syrup industry and several who had not" formed an opinion that a scientifically conducted study was wrong. They did no actual research and had no FACTUAL evidence to support their OPINION.
]]>SUCK down. Cuck sounds dirty.
]]>BRAVO! I salute each and every red-blooded obese Amerikuhn who refused to cuck down any more corn syrup. Count me in on it - read the frackin labels peeps - that shiz is in everything!
Campbell's Tomato Soup. No lie. 3rd ingredient.
]]>I was just in Alberta a couple of weeks ago and most of the soda there was sweetened with "glucose-fructose", which is a synonym for HFCS. I was so disappointed.
You know how some people love eating cilantro and others think it tastes like soap? Perhaps there are also genetic taste variances with sugar vs. HFCS. It might explain why some people cannot taste the difference and others notice the difference quite strongly.
As for myself, I very much notice the difference and am hoping Pepsi Throwback hits the shelves here in Oregon soon.
]]>Don't let something as insignificant as facts alter your opinion, facebooker. Everything they say is bad for you is actually good for you. Don't believe me? Watch Woody Allen's "Sleeper."
]]>I don't care so much about the so-called "health implications" of HFCS. I like the taste of sugar better. Then again, I'd sooner surgically remove my tongue with a pair of needlenose pliers without any anesthetic than use Splenda, Sweet 'n Low, or any of their ilk.
]]>Raw food activists would argue that any cooking at all is unnatural, for example. They're drawing their own arbitrary line.
]]>@Rollo Tony:
HFCS isn't artificial
With sugar it tastes better, but I'm not too concerned with all the drama surrounding Corn Syrup
]]>No argument there.
But in a universe where people consume w-a-a-y too much sweet stuff, isn't it better that they have more "honest" sweetners? Ones that trigger your body's satiation response? That doesn't rely on so many subsidies and petrol-extensive farming to exist?
And, in this universe, decrying sugar is boosting HFCS, no? Or at least, without adding something addressing the two?
]]>The Pepsi tasted like a Coke. I found that odd, but not altogether bad.
The Mountain Dew tasted different, but I didn't feel like my teeth were going to rot out instantly either.
A++ would buy again.
]]>I had the Pepsi Throwback recently and it was nasty. It tasted way too salty and it was lacking one ingredient the original Pepsi had, citric acid. Folks, this isn't the Pepsi you had before. I am thinking Pepsi altered it in the attempt to make it it fail. This would get them to say, "Hey, we tried it, you didn't like it." Everyone I know doesn't like it either.
]]>(and yes, I've done blind taste tests)
]]>1) If you can't taste the difference, your taste buds are dead.
2) One is actually quite satisfying. I tested this on myself and my brother directly and have guinea-pigged a few people at a barbecue without their foreknowledge. The irony is that 12oz (or so) seems to tide people over better. Not only that but when I explained it the people were wondering where to buy it.
]]>@all:
This is like the honesty thread where people come to anonymously admit that they can't really tell the difference.
Personally, I thought the Throwback was fantastic. It wasn't as sickeningly-sweet as regular Mountain Dew, and it didn't feel like I was drinking a 50/50 cough syrup/water solution.
]]>Food is a slippery slope and I've seen people with weight problems who don't really know that they're eating more and more every day. Probably because they're body just isn't saying "stop" as quickly.
]]>Whether it tastes different isn't my top concern it's how it's made and what kind of processes it is put through. As often as possible I use things made with pure cane sugar as it is even less refined then table sugar.
Oh and about taste... I CAN taste the difference in my Oroweat bread since they switched.
]]>@cabjf: I don't have an argument with diet vs. regular (though I do love my diet Coke), it's more the false sense of equating "natural" to "better for me".
I quit drinking regular Coke years ago to acquire a diet Coke habit. Because, of course, I enjoy the false sense of "0 calories" = "better for me".
Bring back the 16oz bottles a la the 70's and I might be a convert!
]]>I wonder if this is a matter of personal taste or whether there's a slight placebo affect going on here.
]]>However, rats aren't notorious for watching what they eat. A human isn't going to mindlessly eat Big Macs just because they drank a diet soda.
]]>@ HeartBurnKid uses Linux: the taint of OS's: Yes, I would consider extracting sugar cane as such to be somewhat artificial. It is a gray area. Juicing is not a natural process. Sugar cane juice contains WAY more nutrients than refined sugar.
Both cooked and uncooked meat have been eaten by humans for so many thousands of years (and in nearly all cultures) that I think it is fair to consider meat to be natural (of course, factory meat is another story altogether). Bread is either artificial (check your cheapy store brand white bread) or a gray area/fairly natural (if it is fairly raw in composition).
These are peripheral to the point of refined sugar being unavailable across most of the world for most of history and now called a "natural food" (e.g., you might have gotten a little honey in 1500s England, but not enough to constitute a significant sources of calories for your diet).
We are swapping one newly unnatural food for a slightly older (i.e., over the evolved history of humankind) unnatural one.
I just bought 10 12unit packs at target. I think its a good move. I have bought soda for some time until now.
]]>Then again, I like diet sodas and fully intend to die of cancer brought on by aspartame.
]]>@Saboth: So you are saying in moderation things usually go better. Interesting. :)
]]>Different story on days I go to the gym. It's all fast digesting carbs 3-4 hours prior to the gym, during the gym, and an hour or two after the gym. At that point, I'm not so much concerned about the source of the carbohydrate, but rather, its digestibility.
]]>@AtomicPlayboy: There is a difference in the way the human body processes sugar and HFCS. Sugar absorption is regulated so that it is burned as energy, rather than stored as fat. There is no such mechanism for regulating HFCS, so most of that gets stored as potential energy, that is it is converted to fat. The result: obesity and Diabetes epidemic. There are no such epidemics in countries that sweeten with sugar (the rest of the world), yet obesity and Diabetes are epidemics in the one country where almost everything is sweetened with HCFS.
I'm not saying HCFS is the only cause of these problems, but it is obviously a major contributor.
67g of sugar really isn't that much, once in awhile. It's when you drink 1-2 of those daily that you will run into problems.
]]>@Mobius:
Agreed. The sugar version just feels so much smoother. I quit drinking the HFCS version a while ago because of the "bite" it had.
]]>("ft dsn't mk y ft...Y mk y ft")
]]>FWIW, "Throwback" is a horrible name for a beverage. Makes me think of throw-up and backwash.
Passover Coke rules!! I haven't tried the Pepsi TB yet, but anything has to be better than HFCS.
I can't hack carbonation so I've never developed a taste for any sorta soda, so I can't really weigh in on this one.
]]>As a general rule we try not to consume HFCS. Maybe I've been brainwashed, but I think the jury is out on how natural or neutral it is. Until I see more definitive proof that it is not harmful I will continue to do my best to avoid it.
]]>Yes. It's the combination of phosphoric acid, sugar and carbonation. Sticks to your teeth.
]]>"HFCS is bad and unhealthy" seems to be the call.
... and somehow artifically colored and flavored cabonated refined sugar water passes "health" muster?
Listen, sugar, cane juice, HFCS, ALL are empty calories.
If the issue is taste, then fine. But if you're worried about health, it's all the same.
]]>@wgrune:
Oh my. I guess I had never paid attention. I find it way to sweet for my tastes. Man thats a lot of sugar.
]]>A 20oz bottle of Regular HFCS Mt. Dew has 78g of "sugar".
]]>Wish I could have gotten just one can. I'd love to try it, but I'm not drinking that much sugar--in any form--every day.
]]>Pepsi Natural = all natural ingredients. This includes sugar instead of HFCS, but also includes actual kola nut syrup instead of artificial flavoring, caramel instead of caramel color, etc.
]]>@BeerManMike: the artificial sweetner
]]>@Etoiles: Thanks!
]]>Um, a sugar is just a type of molecule. Your body has absolutely no way of telling if it's "natural" or not.
]]>I try to avoid HFCS partially out of concern for my health but also because it usually means there are other suspect or unecessary ingredients in them, like artificial colors or preservatives. Also, a bottle of coke with real sugar lasts me forever since I only drink a few ounces at a time. When I drank the Corn syrup stuff I'd down a whole can at work
]]>@serreca: What i don't get is people's problems with Coke zero, sprite zero, etc... They have no calories and such, so how can they be bad for you?
]]>I bought a bottle of the Pepsi "throwback" in a 7-11 in Scotch Plains..."central Jersey" is sort of an amorphous construct so that may be a bit of a drive for you. But entirely worth it. But 7-11 or Wawa might be a good place to start.
]]>@Etoiles: Thanks for the tip. Which target did you find it at?
]]>@diesel54: it's not you. i tried it and it pretty much tastes the same. i think about half of the people that say they prefer the real sugar varieties couldn't tell them apart in a blind taste test. it's just something else people pretend about to feel smarter when they say "I can't stand that HFCS coke, the sugar kind is so much more natural and tastes better".
]]>I'm a big Mountain Dew drinker (not so much of a Pepsi) - so I do look forward to the Dew Throwback
]]>We need to recognize the desirability of a link between a food and its source. This is a logical distinction for a "natural" food. Carbonated soft drinks would have been foreign to people of 200 years ago. Refined sugar, even into the 1800s, was a rare treat and was not dumped into foods like it is now. Buy some beets and then derive the sugar...it will make you appreciate how sucrose does not occur in a natural setting.
Our bodies have a good ability to digest whole fruits, but even fruit juices have been shown to be iffy (dental caries higher due to increased acid concentrations; too-fast digestion of fructose causing insulin balance issues). How much more confusing is it for our bodies to get 60 grams of sucrose or HFCS in a 15 minute drink?..yet it is this distinction that we are told by Pepsi is salient and important.
]]>Both Coca Cola and Pepsi announced they were switching from sugar to HFCS on Nov 6th, 1984 due to import quotas. New Coke was released on April 23, 1985 and might have been planned to cover the change from sugar to HFCS.
]]>Whether it's HFCS or "Sugar" it's processed. Yes, I do believe there is a slight taste difference (unfortunately I think HFCS tastes more sugary therefore "better") but I've stopped buying processed foods with it and I try to even avoid sugar at all costs because of the processing it goes through. I look for honey, molasses, agave nectar, and natural cane sugar in my foods. Which are far and few between becasue like I said, I'm trying to eliminate processed foods altogether. Whole foods all the way!
]]>@JulesNoctambule: You are correct.
Upton Sinclair wrote about that:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Straight up, I drink water. I don't F with any soda on a regular basis, but maybe Jones for an occasional treat. Def not HFCS anything though.
]]>Sweetened beverages are one of the worst things you can consume if you're concerned about weight. Drinking calories doesn't fill you up at all.
I have a condition that is sort of pre-pre-diabetic (it has to do with my ovaries and hormones, it's very strange) and have been told by the nutritionist at my doctor's office that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is the worst thing I could do. Worst than eating cake and other sweets.
]]>Bought a case of Pepsi Natural a couple weeks back from Costco. MUCH better than the canned hfcs garbage. I ended up buying 10 more cases the next day. the Natural has about the same sugar in grams.
Its a much milder flavor, less acidic bite to it and less carbination. I tried one of the cans the other day and couldn't finish it.
Best of all, its in a GLASS bottle.
]]>@Stephmo: The Mtn Dew throwback has 73g sugar per 20oz serving. Wowza! Does Rockstar even have that much sugar?
]]>Pepsi needs to make these permanent (and the other sodas as well...Mountain Dew Voltage w/sugar FTW) and I will drop Coke like a bad habit (which soda is...)
]]>Hmmm...would my guests rather have chocolate truffles or caramel-colored water with fizzies? Decisions, decisions, decisions...
]]>Then again, avoiding any highly processed, heavily concentrated sweetener is always going to be better for you in the long run. Regular corn syrup, not as bad... "high fructose" = super duper sweetened. Ugh.
]]>Anyway, there is a difference in sweetness profiles between cane sugar and Corn Syrup, and I generally prefer the cane sugar. Whole Foods sells those 365 brand sodas made with cane sugar (6 pack for like $2.70) and their store brand lemonade is also cane sugar sweetened. I pour 1/3 of a glass of that lemonade into chilled unsweetened black tea, and that stuff is DELICIOUS.
]]>@GMFish:
Hmmm... some mighty bold assumptions there. Just because I don't want/need the 67g of sugar in a 20 oz bottle hardly means I serve water with organic lettuce.
]]>@ngoandy:
Serious, I'm in pakistan where I've been drinking the sugar made coke for a few months, and i found a 12 pack of American coke at the consulate and after drinking the American HFCS coke, i gotta say its alot better then the sugar stuff. The pepsi with sugar isnt bad though.
]]>I bet you're a heck of a party host. Water with a side of organic lettuce. I never understood people who are so busy trying to extend their life that they forget to live it.
]]>In some ways I am thankful for HFCS, because it made kicking a soda habit really easy.
]]>In all seriousness, I've been trying not to ingest that stuff for a long time. I tend to avoid too much sugar as well, as diabeetus runs in the family. HFCS cannot be avoided, though, and the couple of times it has slipped by, I've noticed an "off" taste, checked the food label, and had my suspicions confirmed. That they use it in things like loaves of whole-grain bread is frigging disgusting.
]]>I'm betting it has something to do with the body releasing stuff to absorb calories when you eat something that tastes sweet (even with fake sugar). So if you have a diet soda with your meal, your body is still going to try to absorb the same amount of nutrients as if you were drinking regular. It's just that more of it has to come from the food than the drink with artificially sweetened beverages.
So the fuss is, if I'm going to drink something that will make me fat, it might as well not have a nasty aftertaste. I tried some kosher Coke with the family over Easter. My mother-in-law was skeptical, until she tried it. She said it tasted just like Coke used to when she was growing up. Which implies regular Coke tastes different (and inferior, judging by her response) now.
]]>I'd always though that most HFCS drinks tasted "thick".
]]>Our natural foods lobbies have perverted our sense of "natural" foods. We have accepted refined sugars as being "natural" when they have no origin in nature. Sugar cane juice cannot be chugged. Sugar from beets comes as a whole fruit.
Sorry, refined sugars seriously have no business being in a diet that is based upon substances found in nature.
Of you can believe the mega health food lobbies and get fat by eating refined starches and sugars. Remember, if no one's great grandparents could recognize it as food, it isn't natural!
]]>@Etoiles: Ditto on stuff bottled in the Caribbean. First three Red Stripe beers I had were brought from Jamacia before they legally imported. The bottles were actually returnable style and probably had 2x the alcohol content that the US allows. I loved them because they wolluped me about midway through drinking the third. Then when it was sold here I drank a six and felt so hohum...except for the high price.
]]>I saw Pepsi Natural in the Healthy/Organic food section of the local Giant Eagle.
Or is it just that Pepsi Natural is no HFCS and in glass bottles.
]]>I try to limit my intake of sweet stuff (in whatever form because it is my weakness) but I would at least try a soda or two sweetened with real sugar.
And did I mention I dropped about 10lbs within about 2 months after I gave up HFCS?
]]>I've had Coke and Dr. Pepper with sugar and I just can't tell the difference. Everyone else I know says the sugar versions are much better. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
]]>We bought up all of our local supermarket's stock of Passover Pepsi (only 5 bottles; it's not a very Jewish area). Unfortunately i had to relinquish a bottle to my future in-laws because their part of Jersey didn't have any.
]]>I'm not going to jump around shouting, "HFCS is evil!" because I'm not a scientist and I can't make intelligent claims stick one way or the other. But I can say that I'm sick and tired of it showing up in 90% of all products in the grocery store, and that if I'm going to make the decision to have a high-calorie, nutritionally empty treat like a soda, I'd rather it be made out of actual sugar and halfway-identifiable ingredients than industrial sludge.
]]>Yeah it might be a stretch, but I'm all about stretching....
]]>The Dew Throwback is fantastic. I was moved enough by it to revew/recommend it on my website...takes a lot to motivate me to post about something non-sports. ;)
]]>Just got the 'new' Pepsi at my Publix last week...that shit is delicious!
]]>I tried one of the throwbacks for Pepsi. 67g of sugar. Wow! I don't need another. Water seems like a better option to me.
]]>Yes, this consumer does. Nothing tasted better than that mixed fountain Pepsi I drank as a youth in the 1970's.
When New Coke was announced in the 1980's I purchased a six pack of "old" Coke right before it was discontinued- even have the original receipt for it with date. I got a six of cans with gold tops similar to what they were using on Diet or Caffinee Free Coke. I figured they were using out the old print cans with what ever tops they had around. I had the six all these years though it lost three cans that corroded through the sides (and ticked off my mother in regards to Coke slime down a closet wall once!). Funny that I never looked at the contents until moving recently. Sugar. So I call bunk that they changed to HFCS before changing to New Coke.
]]>