I was trying to comment on the Coke story but after clicking on Comment, your boards just take me to a page to make a new thread, so here I am.
For those fellow Coke lovers who miss Coca Cola with real sugar, look for Passover Coke every spring. Hard to find, and probably only available in select cities – but it’s the old Coke. Look for large bottles with a yellow cap.
I drank a ton of real Coke last year in Mexico, where it seems to be the national drink.
You could drink Coke in China. Coke here is the cane sugar (not beet) version.
Welcome to the SDMB, angus. You did the right thing. When you click on the “comment on this answer” link, you’re meant to make your comment here on the message board in a new thread, unless you happen to see another recent thread on the same subject.
A link to the column is appreciated. Providing one can be as simple as pasting the URL into your post, making sure to leave a blank space on either side of it. Like so: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_033.html
You know I can go buy Mexican Coke in any gas station I stop in. It is in a big huge glass bottle. It has the cane sugar instead of the HFCS.
But then again, I live in Texas. It might not be as available elsewhere.
Coke in America is made with corn sweetener, not beet sugar.
Beet sugar is indistinguishable from cane sugar. They’re both sucrose, and by the time they finishing processing it, there’s nothing else of the cane or beet left in it. Corn syrup, however, is largely fructose, a different sugar.
Some Mexican restaurants in California have it as well.
You can get it in the Mexican ethnic food section of the supermarket here (Texas), as well as a variety of Mexican soft drinks.
Juaritos!
I get my “Mexican Coke” from a local Mexican grocer.
And yeah, it’s actually called “Mexican Coke” on the sign. 
$1 a bottle.
No, corn syrup, being made from starch, is largely glucose. High fructose corn syrup has had some of that glucose converted into fructose.
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/548HFsyrup.html
Sucrose itself is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose.