The scientists are still debating the connection between the dramatic diabetes increase and high fructose corn syrup.
I’m very glad some of the soda makers are voluntary test marketing soda made with real sugar. I bought two 12 packs of retro Mountain Dew. Pepsi is test marketing a real sugar soda too.
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I hope enough people buy the real sugar sodas. Otherwise these test market drinks won’t last long.
FWIW, I grew up in the sugar generation (early 1970’s). We ate Captain Crunch and Sugar Pops cereal. Ate twinkes and drank kool-aid. Sugar, sugar and more sugar. No one in my school (that I knew) had diabetes. As kids, we thought Diabetes was an old persons disease.
HFC’s hit the market in the late 70’s. All the sodas switched to it. It’s in everything we eat. Childhood & adult diabetes is at epidemic levels. Why??? There’s a connection somewhere. I’m not waiting for science. If a soda with sugar is available I will buy it instead of a product made with HFCS.
I tried one, I think Siera Mist, but I didn’t like it even as well as the regular formula, so I haven’t tried any others. I only drink soda once a month on average, but any reduction of HFC is a move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.
Just as well because they say now diet sodas aren’t good for us either. We can’t win in this stupid world can we? Screw the soda. I’ll have a nutritious beer made with grains and barley.
didn’t know about the retro sodas from US manufacturers. but when I drink soda(not often) I get Jarritos brand for just that reason, its made with sugar. and tastes better, (I don’t care what the soda manufacturers say it does taste different) and they have more varieties of flavors besides generic citrus and cola
I def have. The one plus of working in an area with a high hispanic population is the ability to get soda in a glass bottle and with real sugar. Along with HFC plastic bottles ruined it for me as well…
For the last couple of decades, the best source for non-HFCS soda in the US is Hispanic markets which sell Mexican coke, still made with sugar and still sold in glass bottles.
My local Target started stocking glass bottled Mexican coke. I bought some (it was hella expensive) and did a blind taste test, thinking it would be extremely easy to tell the difference. I failed miserably. Back to cheap HFCS for me since I apparently have no palette.
I keep hoping Dr. Pepper will offer a sugar version again.
The original bottling plant in Dublin Texas has always sold the original sugar formula. You can buy it through the internet. But, shipping costs are ridiculous. I’ve heard it does taste better. There are people buying it and paying the shipping costs. http://www.dublindrpepper.com/
I was so happy when they brought back Pepsi with real sugar. It made such a difference! I was a kid in the 70’s when we had glass bottles and cork linings in the caps, etc. I noticed a difference when they switched away from sugar. Pop just didn’t taste as good.
Didn’t stop me from drinking it, but I did not enjoy it like I used to. I wish RC and Dr Pepper would go the Sugar route. I miss those! I have yet to find Coke made with sugar. I don’t get to the Mexican grocery stores (they’re all out of the way of where I’m going all the time).
I’m a diet soda drinker, but I have tried the various throwback sodas.
About the best way to describe the difference between the sugar / HFCS sodas is really more of a mouth feel difference than anything else.
They’re both equally sweet, and taste pretty much the same at first, but the sugar ones are “crisper”- their flavor is intensely sweet, then fairly abruptly fades after you swallow, and it’s a single sweet note. The HFCS ones are more syrupy- the taste lingers longer, and has a hard-to-define syrupy/caramelized note that makes them seem more persistent in the mouth.
Sure, I tried them at my sister’s place. Don’t care – even beer is usually too sweet for my tastes. I don’t get the hubbub, really. But I’m not a connoisseur – I drink boxed wine when I have the feeling my stomach can handle sugar (not diabetic, just don’t like the taste – my father has Type I, though, so maybe I picked up some eating habits from him when I was a kid).
The only connection there is that HFCS is cheap, so it was added to more and more products in great quantities. That, combined with other unrelated diet and activity trends, led to the “epidemic.”
If you prefer the taste of retro sodas, buy those instead of the regular HFCS kind. But don’t do it if it’s only for the perceived health benefits, because then you’ll probably fool yourself into drinking more of something that’s just as bad for you.
Sucrose (‘real’ sugar, cane sugar) is 50% glucose, 50% fructose. High-fructose corn syrup in sodas is about 45% glucose, 55% fructose.
I do believe excess dietary sugars, and fructose in particular, are bad for you, but all the hype around HFCS compared to sucrose seems a bit silly if you look at the science. ‘Real’ sugar is a marketing technique. Although there might be a small taste difference (for those with sensitive enough palates to discern a 5% difference - not many in blind taste tests, I suspect), mostly I think the idea is to fool you into thinking drinking ‘real’ sugar soda is healthier.
I don’t drink soda. I’m a health nut now, but even back when I wasn’t (most of my life) I just never liked the stuff. Not a fan of carbonation, or of sweet things that don’t have fat in them.
I’m normally a Coca Cola drinker, and I’ll admit I don’t really notice the difference between ‘normal’ Coke (with HFCS) and ‘Mexican’ Coke (with sugar). But I do notice a difference between regular Pepsi and Pepsi Throwback, and will sometimes buy the Throwback just because.
Plus I love that the Pepsi Throwback cans* look like* the old Pepsi cans
Not many of them, since the “dramatic increase” in diabetes is occurring even in cultures that don’t use HFCS (the highest rates are among Pacific islanders, who generally don’t use it at all), because HFCS is nearly chemically indistinguishable from natural sugars we use (in fact, it is a natural sugar), because the causal relationship between obesity and diabetes (which is also rising in countries that don’t use HFCS) is well established, and because the causal relationship between actual sugar and diabetes is already well established, so that replacement is pointless, anyway.
This is like saying that “scientists are still debating global climate change” or “scientists are still debating evolution” – perfectly true, but incredibly misleading about the state of the science.
Mind you, I’m not saying HFCS is good for you – no sugar is. But replacing it with “natural” sugars, and particularly the trendy honey or refined white, isn’t going to help. We need to cut down on all of them, and this “OMG CHEMICALS!” crap from the loonies isn’t helping solve the real problem.
Screw the soda. I’ll have a nutritious beer made with grains and barley. 
