We know that Coca Cola sold in the US is sweetened with corn syrup, and that Coke Zero is formulated to be as close as possible to the standard recipe.

But… Coca Cola here in the UK has always been sweetened with cane sugar.

Is the UK version of Coke Zero formulated differently to imitate the flavour of cane sugar instead? Or do we get a Coke Zero that’s trying to imitate HFCS?

(Side note: I’m aware a certain president recently decided Coke US should be made with cane sugar too, but that fact makes my question less interesting so I’m choosing to ignore it.)

  • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    21·
    3 days ago

    Yeah, I was confused by the wording of the question. Wasn’t trying to weasel around the comment as much as I was trying to make sense of it.

    I read it again. You seem to think that Coke Zero in the US is made to taste like HFCS because that’s what the US puts in regular soda? Because that’s not the case. Sucralose doesn’t emulate the flavour of HFCS or cane sugar.

    Here’s a Wikipedia article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose

    As to whether it tastes different, I suppose it might. Coca-Cola prides itself on a “secret recipe” known only to a few, but like a few other products that claim the same, this is mostly marketing. The “secret” to Coca-Cola is that, in the US, the company has the exclusive right to import the coca plant and extract from it. This process can be used to make the narcotic cocaine, and in fact Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine. It doesn’t now, but it does still contain coca extract, which no other soda from another company can do. I do not know how the United Kingdom regulates the coca plant. If they don’t grant Coca-Cola the right to use it, they cannot make US Coca-Cola in the UK, and they probably can’t import the safe, cocaine-free extract from the US, either. It depends.

    So, I think your question should have less to do with how the beverage is sweetened or if the UK lets them make it the same way the US does. I assume the UK is your country, since Coke is made in the US (was invented there, in/near Atlanta, Georgia) so it’s kind of the baseline.