This is article. Actually high fructose syrup is not that different
from sucrose which I would assume under the acidic soda conditions would
invert to the 50/50 mixture of fructose and glucose. Brings back old
memories as one summer I worked in a control lab at ICI in plant that
made sorbitol and mannitol which are the hydrogenated products of
glucose and sucrose. Sorbitol and mannitol are dietetic type sweetners
but consuming to much has laxative action.


Pepsi
Sweetening it old school: Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback.

Recently, I wrote a C&EN News of the Week article about Coca-Cola's
plans to substitute petrochemically derived ethylene glycol with glycol
made from sugar and molasses to make polyethylene terephthalate beverage
bottles (C&EN, May 25, page 9). Researching the story made me wish that
Coca-Cola could put sugar to better use, namely, making soda.

For soda lovers like me, the past 30 years have been unkind in one
respect: High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has replaced sugar in nearly
all beverages in the U.S.

The TWO SWEETENERS are chemically different. Common sugar is sucrose, a
disaccharide of glucose and fructose. High-fructose corn syrup is a
mixture made of glucose and fructose—55% fructose in HFCS-55, the type
of syrup used in beverages. To make HFCS, corn refiners use the enzyme
glucoamylase to break cornstarch down into glucose and then use the
enzyme glucose isomerase to convert some of the glucose into fructose.

HFCS was introduced in the late 1960s, and by the 1980s, it had
conquered the U.S. beverage industry. In 1982, the U.S. government
imposed quotas that limit sugar imports. Since then, U.S. sugar prices
have generally been much higher than global sugar prices. And HFCS-55
has been cheaper on a comparable basis—it contains about 23% water—than
sugar in the U.S. Recently, however, the margin between the two has
narrowed.

Because of the price differential, and because it's easier to handle a
liquid than a solid on an industrial scale, use of HFCS in soft drinks
and processed food skyrocketed in the 1980s. According to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, per capita annual consumption of sugar was 84
lb in 1980. By 1990, it was 64 lb. During the same period, per capita
annual consumption of HFCS increased from 19 lb to 50 lb.

Today, finding soda made with sugar in the U.S. is as difficult as it
was to procure Levi's dungarees in the Soviet Union. That's an
exaggeration, but one does have to know where to look. One source is
Coca-Cola made in Mexico, typically available for sale at any grocer
that displays a Mexican flag prominently in the window. Another source,
kosher Coca-Cola, can be found in many supermarkets around Passover
because corn is shunned during that holiday.

There are other sugar-based sodas as well. One Dr Pepper bottler in
Dublin, Texas, still uses sugar. People can buy "Dublin Dr Pepper" over
the Internet or stumble across it at, say, a truck stop along a Texas
highway. There are also gourmet brands such as Jones Soda or Royal Crown
Draft that use pure cane sugar.

This past spring, Pepsi made life easier for soda aficionados. It
released Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback brands made with real sugar,
which was available from April to June.

One wonders about Pepsi's motives. Some nutritionists say HFCS is a
worse contributor to obesity than sugar is, so there could be some
marketing benefit.

Whatever the company's motivation, its efforts offered a rare
opportunity to settle the matter of which tastes better, soda made with
sugar or with HFCS.

I arranged a Pepsi Challenge—normal Pepsi versus Pepsi Throwback—at
C&EN's Northeast News Bureau. Admittedly, I had a very small statistical
sample for the blind taste test: three subjects, including my biased
self. All agreed that regular Pepsi made an immediate impact on the tip
of the tongue, whereas the subtler effects of Pepsi Throwback worked
toward the back of the mouth. One subject liked regular Pepsi better,
noting that Throwback "tastes like diet." The two others, including me,
preferred sugar.

Alexander H. Tullo wrote this week's column. Please send comments and
suggestions to .