Lets say I have two glasses of sweetened water with equal amount of water and equal Calories. If you’d like to get more specific - let’s say we have two glasses with 200 ml of solution in each such that each glass has 100 calories (food calories). Except that one glass gets it calories from HFCS and the other gets its calories from cane sugar.
Will the average Joe be able to tell the difference in sweetness levels of the two glasses ?
(Please note that the calories in the two glasses are same - I am not sure if that translates to same mass fraction or concentration)
Some have detected a difference in “mouth feel”, and cane sugar is superiour. Most can’t tell a difference.
Some studies have shown that HFCS has a much lower satiety rating than cane sugar, in other words, sugar does ruin your appetite just like your Mother said. But HFCS does not, which perhaps explains 48oz soft drinks as opposed to the 12 oz we had when I was a kid.
As opposed to what? Is there some purely objective measure of sweetness that doesn’t involve human perception? (And if so, how is it relevant to the OP, which is specifically about human perception of sweetness?)
Perceived quantities are still scientific, because they are both reproducible and general. “What’s sweeter, sample A or sample B” has a clear and consistent answer between blinded tasters and the vast majority of humans are able to experience similar results.
They both have the same amount of calories by weight, so the question in the OP could be put much more simply: “Which tastes sweeter–sugar or HFCS.” Right? That’s the basic question here, right?
Not sure if you are saying that both have same calories by weight, on a **dry basis. **. If not, then it confuses the OP since HFCS is usually a 65% syrup and cane sugar is mostly dry.
There’s a book I read, “The Case Against Sugar”. (Do you think it is biased?) The author argues that the body processes fructose different from glucose or sucrose, and a mixture leads to higher obesity. Of course, based on the treatment of the subject matter over all, I think I’d prefer a second opinion on that.
Regarding sweet taste. One theory about the effects of artificial sweeteners is that the mere sensing of sweetness causes the glycemic reaction which is involved in various effects related to insulin production/resistance, fat storage, etc.
If true and if fructose does taste sweeter then those effects are going to be (a bit) worse than other sugars.
I don’t know about just diluted sugar/HFCS in water, but an informal Coke experiment (regular garden-variety American HFCS Coca-Cola vs. Passover sugar Coca-Cola) I did a few years back, the difference was difficult to discern.
While there was definitely a difference, it wasn’t in sweetness. It was more in… crispness? It’s kind of hard to describe- the sugar-sweetened one was less rounded, for lack of a better term. Its acidity was more pronounced, and the perception of acid and sweetness fell off faster relative to the HFCS sweetened one. I didn’t notice any real difference in mouth feel as far as texture is concerned.
And ftg, wouldn’t that be a relatively easy thing to test experimentally? Like you’d set up a baseline/control by giving your test subjects water and then water + sugar (table sugar, I’m assuming), and then measure the difference in metabolism. Then you’d give them a set of sweeteners- fructose, glucose, dextrose and note the metabolic changes in relation to their sweetness values.
Then do the same thing, to the same people with the artificial sweeteners- aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame K, sorbitol, etc… and see what happens in the same way.
I performed a similar test some time ago and noticed a similar difference. In my case, I wondered if the subtle difference was due to the plastic bottle of the HFCS Coke vs the glass bottle of the cane sugared Coke.
I just don’t know. A non-blinded test with a single data point is more or less meaningless.
I also did a similar test with American HFCS Coke vs. Mexican sugar Coke, both in glass bottles to control that variable. The difference was subtle, but there. Enough to notice when you tasted one, then the other, back-to-back. But close enough that if I were served them randomly over time, I don’t think I could reliably tell them apart. One wasn’t “better” than the other, just very slightly different.
among coca-cola purists and rum/coke aficionados, it is considered an insult to the taste buds to serve hfcs american coke. we can tell the difference immediately and it’s not even close. i’ve gone out of my way to bring mexi-cokes to certain restaurants where i knew i could get away with it.
I controlled as much as I could; both plastic bottles and US-made Coca-Cola. The only difference was that the sugar-sweetened one was the version that Coke makes around Passover for Jewish consumers (HFCS is generally not considered kosher for Passover).
I’ve also tried it with other sugar-sweetened versions of sodas; Dr. Pepper was probably the most dramatic difference- it’s that same less syrupy/more sharp difference, only with Dr. Pepper, it transforms the soda, as opposed to Coke and Pepsi, where it’s just a minor improvement at best. Dr. Pepper goes from being almost cloying to actually kind of enjoyable for me.
I imagine most citrus-flavored sodas would similarly benefit- Sprite and Mountain Dew come to mind as ones that would be good in a sugar-sweetened configuration.
I’ve seen some research that says that fructose is worse for you than glucose, but you have to keep in mind that sucrose, the sugar in cane sugar, is exactly 50% fructose and 50% glucose. HFCS has slightly more fructose (I think Cecil said in an old column that a common mix is 55/45), so there can’t be much difference, and if you’re worried about the effects, you should first simply cut down on the total amount of sugar. Worrying about whether your sugar intake is 50% fructose or 55% fructose is pointless when you should just reduce the total sugar a little bit.
I doubt that. Yes, a slight majority can tell HFCS from sugar, and some can tell canned from bottled. But the difference is slight. And once you add lime and rum, (and a cuba libre is a great drink, btw) you’re not gonna tell.