Comments on: Pepsi Goes Old-School, Will Coke Follow?

By: Lex

Lex — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:24:31 +0000

HFCS or high fructose corn syrup is not the same as store shelf Karo corn syrup. The stuff they use in soda is so processed and concentrated you’d never guess it was corn syrup once.

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:44:37 +0000

Oh, I fully agree it has a taste effect. However I’d never make pecan pie with sugar rather than corn syrup. So the fact it has a unique taste doesn’t mean that taste is bad for cooking. And no, I wouldn’t put it in chocolate because of the taste I am after. I would put it in some deserts that use my chocolate though.

That’s more my point. It is what it is.

For the kind of taste I like in pop I only buy pop with aspartame. I don’t like the taste of sugar (sucrose or fructose) in pop.

By: a random John

a random John — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:47:52 +0000

Ivan,

I agree that we should not eat/drink sugar. But given that I do, I might as well drink the good stuff.

Clark,

Check out the wikipedia page for HFCS. Regardless of the health effect, there is certainly an effect on taste. Would you put HFCS in your chocolate? Why or why not?

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:59:28 +0000

It’s also because a lot of health food people have portrayed fructose as the devil. So there is starting to be a corn sugar backlash. (My wife makes me check the label for our foods although I’m pretty dubious that there is a huge health effect)

By: Ivan Wolfe

Ivan Wolfe — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:19:58 +0000

Oh, I believe all the bad things about HFCS, but you aren’t going to persuade me that cane sugar is healthy. It’s not near as bad as HFCS, but it’s still crap.

I’ll come off as a nut now: If all the sodas and junk food using HFCS changed to cane sugar, obesity would still be a problem. The problem is that we really shouldn’t be eating excess sugar anyway.

I find that as I eat a healthier diet and stay away from products with added sugar (of whatever kind), I lose my appetite for those products (I used to love soda in high school – the last time I tried to drink one, it nearly made me sick). I enjoy other foods a lot more, and while I occasionally (very occasionally) indulge in some 80%+ cacoa chocolate bars or some other indulgence, I find I don’t miss sodas or candy bars all that much.

But I don’t want to turn this into a debate about our crappy American diets. Suffice to say, I don’t care because HFCS/cane sugar/agave nectar/crystalline fructose – it’s all the same to me: to be avoided.\

By: BTD Greg

BTD Greg — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I wonder if this was originally tried due to the high price of corn, and whether it will go away now that the market for ethanol has shifted and corn prices have dropped.

I love me some real sugar beverages. Mexican Coke and Dublin Dr. Pepper are both pretty great, though I don’t drink either on a regular basis.

By: cantinflas

cantinflas — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:56:30 +0000

I don’t think it’s so much refusal to sell what you drank 30 years ago as it is allowing you to settle. I think there are typically some kind of commemorative bottles of coke in real glass at any given time in my supermarket, but I’m not willing to pay the premium.

I hope this catches on. I think we can all agree it’s worth a couple cents extra to use real sugar.

By: a random John

a random John — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:08:36 +0000

Ivan,

I’ll come off as a nut now, but if half of the bad things that people say about HFCS are true, then you should care, because it is the Devil, and will be the downfall of the USA and any other country that falls under its spell.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:00:19 +0000

I don’t drink soda, so I don’t care.

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:49:47 +0000

I’m a diet Coke kind of guy, but this was to be expected once Costco started importing Coke with real sucrose from Mexico and selling tons of it in the US.