Pepsi Offers High-Fructose Corn Syrup Free Alternatives (but only for 8 weeks!)

When Coke follows, I’m there.

Bring back a product that should have never gone away.

Create a buzz for it.

Remove product from shelves, creating a bigger buzz.

Bring back at a huge premium.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Bah, humbug!

I get the Mexican Cokes here in Colorado, they taste just like the 6oz Cokes in the greenish bottles we used to get in the old days. definitely a better taste.

BTW, Diet Coke tastes like ass.

I don’t drink much soda. But what I do drink I’d like to be sucrose rather than HFCS. So I’d pay more for it.

This is a good sign. I want Mt Dew throwback. I am afraid the HFCS is slowly killing me. We have Mexican Coke at the gas station, but I don’t know how to dispose of the glass bottles. If I remember, we used to get a dime back for glass. I don’t like Coke as much, but I prefer it to Pepsi.

I welcome this Mt Dew throwback and will buy it when ever I can find it.

I was under the impression that the reason HFCS is a “worse” sweetener than sucrose is that the absorption rate cannot be as easily regulated by the body because it is not dependent on an enzyme, sucrase in the latter case, to be broken down.

#13–Mike==from memory, again, statements are made from sources of unknown expertise, but YES. Corn is GREATLY SUBSIDIZED in the US economy. The great percentage of it is not even consumable by humans but rather is animal feed stock and now bio-fuel but has always been as THE source for HFCS.

The whole aspect of “comparitive advantage” was discussed on Book TV by Alan Beattie. The critical input for cotton or rice production is WATER. Egypt is actually hurting itself by using its water to grow food when the water should be used for other infrastructure needs and they should import food. Its what the interconnected global economy is all about.

The same thing was said of Mexico and the USA–that somehow the resource utilizations made cane sugar cheaper for Mexico–ok, I remember, the Mexicans can’t afford or do the manufacturing plants that convert non human consumable corn to HFCS. I assume that means with the main market in the USA, its is marginally cheaper for transportation etc to make HFCS in USA than ship things back and forth to Mexico.

Its all economics and nothing to do with health or nutrition. BTW, Pedro’s cite was interesting in claiming that soft drinks were one of the limited sources of clean water in Mexico which is why soft drinks sell well there. That was my excuse for drinking Beer everywhere I went.

I just tried Mountain Dew Throwback yesterday. It tastes awesome Coincidentally, I did notice a LOT more Passover Pepsi this year (so maybe they were gearing up), but much less Passover Coke (and the locations that did have it, it disappeared the same day–people bought like ten at once.) If people want their sugar, give it to them! Go ahead and charge a premium–why doesn’t each Coke bottler make their 8 oz. glass bottle version have sugar? Those 8 oz. four packs already cost nearly 5 dollars, compared to 2.50 for a 6 pack of 20 oz. plastic bottles.

#19 Did you read the part that states that you also get you fructose fix from you daily healthy fruit diet? Just sayin’

I’m sure that woman never grabbed a can-o-beer

#16, bobbo, very good point you bring up, but unfortunately, even well understood economic theories don’t always win out over on-the-ground interests. It’s not popular to tell an American farmer that we would be better off importing the crop he makes a living from, and so should put his land to different, more productive use.

The United States has many different climate zones within it, so that kinda complicates the discussion, when dealing with what is best to trade and with whom.

The use of HFCS is mostly due to the high tariff on sugar. Note that one of the largest sugar growers is Cuba.

But as far as it goes, the term “cane sugar” is somewhat misleading. Regular white sugar (sucrose) can also and is also made from sugar beets, which can be grown in moderate climates…even in places like Minnesota.

Oh, and for the record, you find more Kosher Pepsi than Kosher Coke because Jewish people have a preference for Pepsi. I think it has to do with the Atlanta vs. Purchase, New York company base thing.

I more or less gave up sugared soda about 12 years ago when they finally started to get some of the diet drinks to be palatable again. Back when cyclamate was still legal in the USA, they tasted okay. Once they got rid of the saccharin, things began to improve. The benefits are, of course mega fewer calories, and the added advantage that spills aren’t sticky.

My favorite for more than 10 years has been diet Mt. Dew. I’ll try some of the throwback, if I can find it, but once you wean yourself off the sugar, it always tastes absurdly sweet when you go back.

#24, Pepsi-cola originates from North Carolina.

20, I never meant to imply you can’t get fructose elsewhere. The point being is you’re ingesting small doses of fructose when eating fruit.

HFCS is highly concentrated. And it is in damn near everything you eat nowadays from breads, crackers, dips, etc. It is really hard to eat a diet absent of HFCS unless you make your own meals. It would be interesting to see if a person could eat enough fructose naturally to be equivalent to what a person can ingest through foods containing HFCS.

The woman who had her liver transplant did not drink alcohol. What they found was her diet was rich in HFCS and they believe that’s what caused her affliction…. it’s still being looked into.

The CDC used to have a graph on their website which showed the obesity rate mirroring the food industry’s use of HFCS. That graph mysteriously disappeared and can no longer be found. The CDC did put a disclaimer out at the time saying the graph was not trying to imply any sort of causal relationship and that further research was needed.

#24 Was cuba. Past tense. The “revolution” took care of that.

#28 You’d need higher ammounts of sugar to get the same level of sweetness you get from concentrated fructose, so that point of calling it high concentrated in kinda moot, since you’d need less to get the same “sugary taste” level.

And again, the US is not the only place were people and kids are getting fatter, so pointing fructose as the source of obesity is like claiming that insecurity is up because the house next to yours was robbed.

30, I think there is a misunderstanding. I’m not saying if you eat foods containing regular sugar that you won’t get fat. Fructose seems to help you accumulate body fat more easily than other sugars according to these two links below:

http://tinyurl.com/cgvp8b

http://tinyurl.com/cpa4e6

In general, too much sugar (of any kind) is going to cause problems. Drinking sodas used to be reserved for holidays and special occasions. Nowadays people drink it everyday.

On the matter of HFCS since it’s sweeter, the food companies get more bang for their buck. But our bodies more readily turn it into body fat than other sugars.

It’s my understanding that other sugars quickl become available in our bloodstream waiting to be used by our muscles. The more fit we are, the more our muscles use up this blood sugar. At the end of the day when we all fall asleep, any leftover blood sugar gets converted over to body fat… at the end of the day when you are sleeping. This is a stark contrast to how fructose is handled. Fructose goes to our livers and starts turning to fatty deposits.

I’m not a doctor, so this is my general understanding of it.

Bobbo – Try Googling cane suger vs hfcs.

As I am to this blog, Mexican Coke is superior to American Coke. And, they sell it at Costco.

Thanks Hop.

After correcting for your speeeling error, google turned up the always reliable wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup

Which confirms the information in this excellent thread, except for Pedro’s insistance that HFCS and sugar are the same. Evidently they are the same only in that they should both be avoided whenever possible.

Until the next marketing campaign, I’m sticking with this:

Avoid HFCS–makes you eat more and gives you diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver, AND

Avoid Sugar–makes you fat and rots your teeth.

I don’t care what the truth is, my mind is made up.

To point out something you may not KNOW..
There is a LARGE IMPORT TAX on all Sugar cane, SUGAR based products brought into the USA.
ITS NOT that HFCS is cheaper, its the TAX on the imported sugar products, WHICH includes Alcohol BASED on Sugar generation.
On the alcohol its $1 per gallon import tax. WHICH is more then the FUEL tax already USEd in most states.
The Sugar tax is so that ONLY 1-2 places in the USA, does not have to compete with WORLD prices of sugar. WHICH ARE CHEAP.

#40–ECA==I believe you but seems every 6 months or so we get a posting about some country suing some other country over trade tariffs and such. How do we “get away with” imposing a tax and not getting sued, if we can be?

42,
ASK BUSHjr. and his 25% tax on canadian lumber products, EVEN when NAFTA says we dont tax Mexico and canada..

#45 Me? I mix 2/3 diet coke/coke zero and 1/3 coke.

Pommac! I thought maybe that was limited to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I remember it had a very light taste and was supposed to have a cognac flavor. Having now tasted cognac (I was a teenager then), I don’t see the resemblance. But I did like it a lot!

As to the difference between Coke and Pepsi, back when both were mainly available in 12 oz. glass bottles, I used to try a little trick where I would firmly clamp a thumb over the opening of the bottle, shake it well, upend it over a glass and let the soda squirt into the glass under pressure. If the pressure fell, I would shake it some more until the pressure built again and allow more soda into the glass. The idea was to see if I could empty the entire bottle of soda, leaving behind a bottle full of nothing but the CO2 (carbon dioxide). This was always much easier with Pepsi, and I could usually work it so that there was even some pressure left in the CO2. With Cokes, there was usually no pressure left and it was harder to empty the whole bottle of soda.

Contrary to ECA’s post #43, CO2 is not a sweetener; it is an acid, or rather it forms one when dissolved in water (carbonic acid H2CO3). This (and the other acids in them) is what gives carbonated beverages their “zing” or “tang.” Also, letting all the CO2 escape will not decrease the fluid volume of the beverage, just as dissolving salt in water won’t increase its volume.

Strange as it is to say, having been born and raised in the Corn Belt, it appears more and more that corn is the enemy. Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs and Steel” (highly recommended by the way) looked at the foods available to human civilizations in the old & new world. It seems the “Indians” had to make do with mostly corn, beans and chilis, plus a few fruits. I’ve talked to several medical professionals who have worked with Native Americans and they have all been amazed at the amount of morbidity in those populations. It’s not very scientific, but I blame the thousands of years of limited diet, largely dependent on corn, for their inability to thrive on the typical Western European diet that became the norm in this country.

So don’t give up your corn-on-the-cob at family dinners or picnics, or cornbread with barbecue or chili, but I do recommend you try to avoid any other manifestation of it, especially HFCS.

#48, Uncle Pat,

While I don’t disagree, simply because I am not an expert, (maybe we should ask Cow-Patty) I toss this out to you for thought.

It has only been the past 150 years that people have been able to enjoy preserved vegetables. Until then people either ate what was in season or stable items such as bread products and starchy vegetables that would keep. Late summer was often very lean times for many agricultural families.

Most people had a very bland diet with little variation. The few times they would feast would be for a Harvest Fest type celebration when the peasants would splurge and feast on perishable, expensive foods. After we learned how to preserve foods without salt then these perishable items could be eaten all year, and even better, transported great distances.

Also it wasn’t until the advent of the popularity of the stove that culinary habits changed. Until then almost all foods were stewed in a large pot suspended over a fire or breads that were cooked next to the fire. The stove added boiling, frying, and baking to cooking styles which had a great influence on what foods could be palatable.

So while Native Americans had a narrow diet, at the same time so did most other populations. Although too expansive to go into detail, the Great Irish Potato Famine is one example of little variation in a diet.

#51, isn’t that a private, non-profit organization?

#53 Yeah, no fatty Aussies.

Let’s boycott hfcs pepsi until they replace it with the Throwback formula!

Here is a medical reason:

The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Some researchers believes that HFCS turns off the “I’m full signal in the brain”, therefore we eat too much and get fatter or worse yet develop Diabetes.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2007) — Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

Go here for the complete article.