Comment by somat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somat | Hacker News Reader

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I recently watched an interesting video on the subject of corn syrup. Which led me into the fascinating rabbit hole of sugar chemistry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo

If I might summarize.

Your body can absorb three types of sugar into the blood, glucose, fructose and galactose. glucose is directly used by cells, the other two have to take a trip through the liver to turn them into glucose.

Table sugar is sucrose. a complex sugar. which can be best thought of as a fructose and a glucose linked together.

Corn syrup is a mixture of ~ 45% glucose 55% fructose

Sucrose is quickly broken apart into glucose and fructose in several environments, high heat will do it, but also acidic environments. like your stomach, or a soda. a soda will be slightly acidic due to the carbon dioxide dissolved in it(carbonic acid). And some formulations(like coke) add additional phosphoric acid.

And to spoil the video. Even if you put sucrose into a soda, that is not what you are going to be drinking. I was unable to figure out why it tastes different, are the ratios off? additional trace chemicals in one source?

> I was unable to figure out why it tastes different, are the ratios off? additional trace chemicals in one source?

Turns out the trick is super super simple: It's not the sugar; it's the salt. It's on the label.

The soda brands that have been differentiating their cane sugar products, such as the various "throwback" promotional drinks or "Mexican Coke" all have measurably more salt in the cane sugar versions which tends to enhance the flavors for all the same reasons that salt does that in every other food. If you want your corn syrup american coke to have that south of the border $8 imported flair, put about half a pinch of salt in it. It will taste the same, except you won't get to drink it out of the tall glass bottle.

"European Coke" comes in glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium cans, and I can still taste the difference compared to American HFCS Coke.

- European Coke has zero salt/sodium.

- USA Coke has 75mg per 20 US Fl Oz, which is 127mg per litre.

- Mexican Coke has 130mg per litre.

US: https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/coca-cola/products/or...

UK: https://www.coca-cola.com/gb/en/brands/coca-cola-original-ta... (and a quick check shows it's the same in Germany)

Mexico: https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/769110/100g/1

All sodas, and especially Coke, are pretty transparent that they adapt their formulations by region, plus the water chemistry is different everywhere, so they have to adjust for that too. Labeling laws are also different. I therefore cannot put much stock in anecdotal reports of people finding that one continent's version of a product tastes different than another continent's. In my experience, that is true of every food product there is. My observations come from the US market where brands have often been producing cane sugar "throwback" versions of their sodas in the same bottling plants and for those the sodium content is listed as being a bit higher. Probably that is not the only changed ingredient though.

Passover Coke (similar to Mexican Coke in USA/Canada - made with cane sugar instead of HFCS) lists the same amount of sodium as HFCS Coke (45mg / 12 fl oz):

https://stopandshop.com/groceries/beverages/soft-drinks/cola...

https://stopandshop.com/groceries/beverages/soft-drinks/cola...

It makes sense to me that Mexican coke could taste differently for multiple reasons. Most obvious of which could be a recipe tweak.

US vs Mexican Doritos are a good example. The bags look identical, but the US version is cheesier and the Mexican version has a mild kick of lime. Yet you wouldn't glean this from the nutrition label.

> you won't get to drink it out of the tall glass bottle.

Arguably the most important part. Plastic bottle soda tastes terrible.

Not only that, but it’s also warmer! If you take two identical sodas, one in a glass bottle, the other in a plastic bottle, the second one will always seem not-cold-enough.

A thermometer might report the same temperature, doesn’t matter. Kinda like how smell influences taste so much, the heat conduction of the container changes my perception of how cold the contents are.

And yeah, I realize that a glass bottle or aluminum can is actually transferring more heat into the soda. It’s weird, but I just hate drinking from a plastic soda bottle so much.

This doesn't seem to be the case (I checked the nutritional labels; they have the same percentage of sodium). In my experience mexican coke tastes significantly "drier" (less sweet) but just as importantly, the mouth feel is less viscous than US-bottled coke. Salt wouldn't change that.

As I mentioned in another comment, nutrition facts percentages are meaningless.

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