We know that a lot of you get all excited over Mexican/Kosher Coca-Cola (no corn syrup), but what about you folks who prefer Pepsi? You’ll have to go to the UK, where Pepsi is launching “Pepsi Raw”—a corn syrup free, “all natural” version of the soda.
Traditionally, Pepsi contains fructose corn syrup, sugar, artificial colourings, phosphoric acid, caffeine, citric acid and natural flavours.
In comparison, Pepsi Raw has only natural ingredients including apple extract, plain caramel colouring, coffee leaf, tantaric acid from grapes, gum arabic from acacia trees, cane sugar and sparkling water.
It is paler in colour and less fizzy than other cola brands.
Sounds nice, but we’d be happy with cane sugar Coca-Cola. Hint. Hint.
Pepsi launch new ‘healthy’ drink [Metro via BuzzFeed]
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I wonder how Pepsi Raw will sell against Coca-Cola Smackdown!
@lpranal: Can you show me a study that supports your claim? Most of the sucrose in soda is broken down into its component sugars anyway, since the solution is so acidic. Half glucose/fructose is half glucose/fructose, whether it’s “pre-processed” (and sucrose is heavily pre-processed) or not.
@lpranal:
So do exactly what Pepsi is doing and selling an upmarket, higher-priced version of the drink using cane sugar. Maintain your profit margains and give consumers a choice. I for one would pay more for a sugar-based Coke and I’d be willing to bet I’m NOT a distinct minority.
If you’re near the n. GA area you can find Red Rock cola in some of the grocery stores. It’s local & made with cane sugar and pretty good for an occasional treat.
@DXDawg: I wish they would, too. And I liked coke black, i thought it might actually do well. I think target still has a few bottles laying around.
@Dervish: Fine, you can have my chewed up cheeseburger. You could have just asked nicely.
P.s. if you’re not interested enough to do the invetigating yourself, nothing I can argue or post here is going to change your mind. Many, many people have done a far better job at proving the downsides to using HFCS than I could ever hope to.
@WhirlyBird: Dude. Pepsi runs TV ads all the time.
And personally, I prefer Coke over Pepsi, though Jones Green Apple trumps them both.
One of my friends would love it as she cannot have corn syrup due to religious restrictions.
I know I would because I remember Mexican pepsi tasting much better anyway.
@lpranal: I have done my own research – a lot of it. I just asked because I thought maybe you had done some of your own, because the only studies I’ve seen that have decried HFCS either haven’t had a control, or have been run against fructose controls, NOT sucrose – meaning they’re not comparing apples to apples.
I thought maybe you had come across something different, and I didn’t want to discount your position if you had solid evidence to back it up.
Why does this stuff always launch outside of the US first?!
Is it caffeine-free? I’m wishin’ and hopin’ for caffeine-free to be the next big “healthy” fad, because unlike the Atkins and Splenda things, it would actually benefit me a whole lot. I gave up caffeine three years ago and haven’t missed it except when I go to a restaurant and want something other than Sprite.
(I’ve been ordering caffeine-free NON-diet Dr. Pepper from Old Doc’s Soda Shop for a year — they don’t bottle it in California. Unfortunately they don’t make caffeine-free cane sugar Dr. Pepper.)
Tried Mexican coke (Cane sugar) and I really didn’t notice that much difference from HFCS Coke at all. For all the hype, I was really let down.
yeah, i liked that crap a lot. tasted a lot like a coke icee, but not flat. (does everyone have icee’s?)
@Dervish: What Is High Fructose Corn Syrup, and Why Is It So Bad For …
@MercuryPDX:Thank you for making me feel normal. Fountain Pepsi is awful but bottled Pepsi is great!
@youwantedahero:
Save some for me. I drive from weatherford to get my fix.
Last time I checked, Jones Soda was FULL of High Fructose Corn Syrup – don’t be fooled by their peachy image and consumer-submitted label photos. :/
I am hooked on Boylan’s All natural Cola (they have 2 Colas, both with only sugar, but the all natural one has no sodium either. So tasty.) I’m also a big fan of Grown-Up-Soda’s Dry Cola. Mmmm…
I’m no scientist, but if I have the choice I’ll pick cane sugar over HFCS any day of the week.
And I will say this: soda made with cane sugar tastes lighter, less syrupy…and somehow more satisfying. I am less likely to drink a soda with cane sugar, whereas the HFCS stuff you just keep drinking.
Why this is, I don’t know. Scientists might.
There’s mexican bodega on broadway in williamsburg, brooklyn that regularly stocks both mexican coke and mexican pepsi made with cane sugar. it’s the only mexican bodega on that stretch of broadway as far as i know. should be easy enough for anyone to find.
@Buran: Many of the points made in that article are relevant only to fructose. You get nearly the same amount of fructose from sucrose as you do from HFCS. For example:
“Both sucrose and dextrose are broken down in our body before they ever make it to our liver, however fructose does not breakdown and reaches the liver “almost completely intact”. “
But you also create fructose when you break down sucrose – this isn’t exclusive to HFCS.
“A study was actually done on golden hamsters (their metabolism is very close to ours) in the year 2000 in which they were fed diets with high levels of HFCS. It took only weeks until they had high triglyceride levels as well as insulin resistance.”
Did they try the same thing with sucrose? If not, you can’t definitively say that the HFCS was causing high tryglyceride levels.
I take my stance because of scientific studies such as Forshee et al.’s “A critical examination of the evidence relating high fructose corn syrup and weight gain”, in which they find that HFCS is no worse from an obesity standpoint than sucrose. Or, take Monsivais et al.’s “Sugars and satiety: does the type of sweetener make a difference?”. They found that it didn’t.
Sorry for the long comment, but the scientific literature out there now finds virtually no evidence to suggest that HFCS is any worse than sugar. If you still want to avoid it in your food, more power to you. Oppose it for the environmental impact, or the corn subsidy garbage, or because it doesn’t taste as good in soda, but it frustrates me that people spout this stuff as the gospel truth when it’s entirely refuted by science.
I just wish they’d go back to glass bottles. Yeah, they’re heavier, and more dangerous than plastic (never cut myself on a broken plastic soda bottle), but damn, soda tastes so much better out of a glass bottle. And it stays colder longer.
I still buy Mexican Coke for July 4th get-togethers. It just seems right.
They’re releasing this one also in Mexico starting this month. “All Natural” Pepsi
@volve: Um… the bottle of Jones sitting besides me says it’s made with pure cane sugar…and love.
Also, Pepsi: HFSC-free Mt. Dew!!?!? Pleeeeeeease.
Jarritos all the way.
@superjanna: Do you have any idea how much HFCS love contains? Yikes!
Unless things have changed in recent years Coca-Cola Femsa (the company that produces and distributes most coke products in Latin America) stopped using cane sugar in the late 90s.
The decision was economic: HFCS is way cheaper than cane sugar. In fact, the sugar/HFCS debate is a huge one in the NAFTA circles: US manufacturers (I think DeKalb and ADM) were given corporate welfare to open HFCS factories in Mexico to complete directly with cane workers (Veracruz is a major cane-producing region in Mexico).
Cane worker I interviewed were getting like $2-per-worker for each ton of cane cut in take-home pay.
Unless things have changed: I think the Coca Cola in Mexico uses HFCS, expect around Easter or during Lent o something — some Catholic thing, but I can’t recall why.
Boylan’s sodas are so excellently good. The Cane Cola has so much more flavor going on than any other cola I’ve ever had.
I can’t wait until this comes in a diet version!
oh wait…
Born ‘n’ raised on coca-cola. Oh, dark mother, I suckle at your teat!
HFCS is an American Nightmare as it not made any were else in the world and is banned in canada and only rarely in mexicodue to exports there. this is due to two things The sugar tarifs which we need to change to substies as tariifs have inflated sugar prices here to 2 to 3 times the word market and the corn substies which make corn 1/2 it real price
however be wary of invert sugar cristaline frutose as both have free frutose which is the evil in HFCS
in cane sugar sucrose and frutose are bound together thus similar to salt which is safe in resonable quanitys and is made up of clorine and sodium which is split would kill us
so sadly jones is not that good for us but I going to pressure pepsi to bring raw here
“Is there anyone over 25 who actually thinks Pepsi is the better product.[?]”
Yes; most people in fact.
They will say coke if you ask them but if you do a double blind test and ask them which they prefer, over half prefer pepsi.
Wine testing and alternative medicine(medicine that either has not been proven to work or has been proven not to work) share the same problem; you can’t really trust people without double blind studies.
“There’s stuff in HFCS that is processed differently by the body.”
No, there isn’t. HFCS is either 42% fructose, 58 % glucose(HFCS-42) or 55% fructose and 45% glucose(HFCS-55).
When you eat cane sugar the sucrose is very rapidly hydrolyzed to an equal mixture of glucose and fructose(which would be known as HFCS-50 if it was made from corn).