It’s also powerful in the upper Midwest - particularly the Dakotas and Minnesota. These states are major sugar beet producers.
I haven’t heard it, but I remember it.
I was working at a Coca Cola plant at the time New Coke came out.
I remember getting the first shipment…and we all gathered around to taste it. We were HORRIFIED at the taste.
Then classic came back but it still didn’t taste right. We had some Old Coke around and so we did taste tests and could very much taste the difference. At the time we didn’t think/know about corn syrup…we just though they lied and it was still New Coke.
It’s price of the sugar not the lobbyist that Coke looks at. Whatever makes them the most profit wins. That includes if everybody were to refuse to drink a formulation, it’s not as profitable even if it’s cheaper to make.
No one is saying that coke looks at the lobby. What they’re saying is that the corn lobby keeps the subsidies flowing, which keeps the price of HFCS artificially low. The sugar tariffs don’t help either.
So, where are the blind taste tests in which people consistently were able to tell the difference between Coke sweetened with corn syrup and cane sugar (and preferred the sugar-sweetened version)?
It’s amazing, but I looked for this before, but have not been able to find a single study. And it’s not necessarily true that consumers will prefer the sugar version. Everyone’s taste is different. In my search for studies, I’ve read a number of people state they prefer HFCS to sugar. Just like some like Pepsi to Coke. Hell, some people can’t even tell the difference between those two colas. A study that would be useful to me would be one that shows that there is indeed a subset of people who can consistently tell the difference between HFCS-sweetened Coke and sugar Coke. I don’t care where the preference is, just that there is a quantifiable difference in taste. I think there is, but there could be other factors judging my perception.
Robb Walsh writes about food for The Houston Press. Last June, he covered “Bootlegging Dr Pepper.” Bottlers add carbonated water & sweetener to the flavoring syrup now manufactured in St Louis. (The drink was invented in Texas.) The Dublin plant never stopped using cane sugar & two other plants have begun making batches without HFCS–now widely available in Houston, if you know where to look. Walsh set up a quick test:
Hardly a statistically valid study–but interesting. I’m one of the oldsters who prefers cane sugar in my soft drinks. Not that they are a big part of my diet–just occasional treats. (And I do know to check the labels on Mexican Coke.)
I’ve been threatening to do my own, because I (like you seem to be) am skeptical.
It would seem to me that there is at least some element in there of wanting/expecting to taste a difference. Seven vs. 4 doesn’t seem significant to me.
I don’t find that study conclusive at all, but it really shouldn’t be 7 vs 4, but 11 vs 2. The point is that there is a taste difference, not that everyone prefers cane sugar. Of course not everyone prefers cane sugar. Heck, I prefer diet versions of some drinks to the regular one. However, what this study lacks is repeatability, whether the folks who preferred the cane consistently picked out the cane vs HFCS and vice versa. The interesting point, to me, is that there a taste difference people pick up on consistently. Whether they like it better or not is of no consequence – that’s just arguing taste.
Goddamn tariffs. Everyone, meet me at the harbor! We shall throw all our Coke overboard until they repeal the sugar tariff.
Why don’t we sell it instead, to raise money for our cause?
Because that just wouldn’t be as dramatic. Nor would it be a mildly amusing reproduction of a major historical event.
Wait how are the Mexican sugar tariffs bad but the US ones a-okay?
No idea, but that’s a great question.
I wouldn’t trust that 11 people really could taste much of a difference unless the test was changed. If you give people two cans labeled “A” and “B”, & ask them which they prefer, I suspect most will give you an answer. A better test would be to give people 6 cans (3 of each, or 2 and 4, etc.), and tell them to sort the drinks into two categories. It would be interesting to see if the two products could be consistently identified in such a way.
Glass bottles do make for a cleaner taste, HFCS or not. Few can tell Coke with HFCS from Coke with Cane sugar. But, certainly some few can. So, if you add the taste difference with glass bottle, then cane sugar, and add in what you expect,* then certainly there’d be a huge difference.
- We had a dude who gamed with us, a HUGE Coke fan, clamied he hated Pepsi (and New Coke, of course), and could tell the difference. So, we did the blind taste test, and sure enough he could tell the difference (40% or so can). So then we came up with filling one of his open Coke bottles with Pepsi. He drank the entire two liters without noticing anything. So, even for those who can tell the difference, the difference is slight unless you’re looking for it.
My experience is identical. I had a fanatical roommate once who wouldn’t touch Pepsi. I fed it to him for weeks when I had about five 3-liter bottles left over from some work event. He never had any idea.
Exactly. If people are expecting to taste a difference they’re not going to want to disappoint you or look stupid by saying they don’t taste one.
That’s basically the test I’d be interested in seeing.
There’s another element to consider, in comparing bottles to cans. It’s all made from water, and the taste of the local water is different from city to city. If you pick up cans and bottles at your supermarket, the cans probably come from a city far from the bottler. Fountain Coke® will taste different, too. Not only because the syrup is made in yet another city, but the water in it comes from the city where you buy it. Mexican Coke in San Diego, CA and in El Paso, TX were probably not bottled in the same Mexican city.
I’m not a cola drinker, so I don’t know if our local Coke still has this set of facts. A few years ago, though, our bottled Coke came from Indianapolis, and our canned Coke was from Atlanta, GA. People who showed a preference liked the cans.
And I was out last week with a group of people where one of the girls ordered the diet Pepsi and then passed the drink around the table, because she said it tasted wrong. Turns out the house had substituted another diet cola without telling her. Some people are just good at these things.