Asymmetrical Information

I think there will always be people out there -- myself included -- who will be suspicious of no calorie sweeteners and won't drink 'em.

All those fake sugars taste nasty. I think its pretty funny that people have a preferance for which nasty aftertaste they wish to endure, and even funnier that some will choose the nastier aftertaste based on 1 calorie.

I actually prefer the Diet Coke taste, the Classic stuff is too sweet, Pepsi makes me barf.

Obviously the anti-fake-sugar crowd has never had Splenda; the stuff is amazing. Not that this is what's being used here - apparently that will be for Diet Coke, which is just New Coke with aspartame instead of sugar - but it's great stuff.

BTW, I'm getting rejected for "questionable content" for an email address that ends in (the numeral eight)@hotmail.com ... why?

Not everyone experiences a "nasty aftertaste" after eating something with an artificial sweetener in it, but I seriously doubt that they can make a Coke that would taste just like the regular Coke, even to those of us who don't experience the aftertaste.

I disagree with the premise that nobody chooses coke because of the calories. I am sure there are times people choose a sugary soda specifically for the sugar rush. I drink both diet and non diet sodas and almost everytime that I choose non diet, it is because I want the sugar. Ever buy Jolt? It’s twice the sugar and twice the caffeine.

BTW, this article says that "Coca-Cola Zero will have a unique taste." What makes you think it will taste the same?

Any chance that they’ll come out with a no calorie “Mello Yello”?

I prefer it to Mountain Dew but I’ve always been a bit miffed that they never came out with a diet version.

Splenda most certainly tastes different than sugar. It's not as bad as nutrasweet and certainly not as bad and the icky stuff in sweetn'low, but it is still icky stuff compared to sugar.

I take it you haven't worked at something late into the night recently? Coke is perfect for those sessions, it has all the basic ingredients you need - sugar to keep your brain working and caffeine to keep you awake. Artificial sugar can't do that for you.

apex

Years ago, back in the early '90s, I read an article in one of the bicycling magazines about what professional cyclists consume during a big, multi-stage road race like the Tour de France.

There was all the stuff you'd expect — massive intakes of carbohydrate-heavy foods like rice and pasta — but there were some surprises. One of the real shockers for me was that a popular drink on the back of the bike was plain old Coca-Cola, right out of the can. The sugar made for a very quick energy boost for the end of a hundred-plus-mile, five-hour race.

I guess nowadays they have all these high-tech fructose- or glucose-based supplements, but ten or fifteen years ago, Coca-Cola was the energy drink of choice.

I never figured out how they managed to drink it on the bike, though. The bubbles made me feel queasy whenever I tried it.

Ever buy Jolt? It’s twice the sugar and twice the caffeine.

...and tastes like a muddy rain puddle in which were dissolved a partially-decayed rat and bag of Haribo's Gummi Cola, and which still has less kick than a good old fashioned heavily-sweetened coffee.

(The above is admittedly uncharitable to the Haribo Gummi Cola, which is rather tasty in its unadulterated form.)

Coke C2 has been my refreshment of choice ever since it came out last summer. It's got half the calories of regular Coke, and IMO actually tastes better. I'd been addicted to regular Coke for decades, which now tastes almost sickeningly sweet to me. Unfortunately, I think C2 has fared about as well in the marketplace as the XFL or McDonald's McLean Deluxe (I can't quite compare it to the infamous New Coke of 1985), and is slowly becoming harder to find on supermarket shelves (and impossible to find anywhere else). To my regret, I'm sure C2 will disappear without much fanfare sometime this year.

Hopefully, one of these days I'll muster up the discipline to stop drinking cola altogether. It stains your teeth, helps make you fat (if sugared), and according to what I've read (mainly in Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman's book on life extension, Fantastic Voyage) could impact long-term health in several deleterious ways. Excessive suger intake can lead to diabetes, saccharine is a potential carcinogen, and aspartame is mildly toxic in several ways (among other things, it may lead to chemical imbalances in the brain, and also releases slight amounts of methanol when metabolized). Also, these drinks are little more than carbonated phosphoric acid, and must be neutralized by alkaline blood buffers which are then less available to detoxify your body's natural acidic byproducts. As a result, your body's alkalinity may decline slightly, a state which is healthier for cancer cells and unhealthier for regular cells. Phosphoric acid also leeches calcium from your bones, contributing to osteoporosis and kidney stones.

All-in-all, not great stuff. Tastes good, though.

Anything sweetened with asperatame is going to taste different than something made with real sugar. As far as I'm concerned, Coke Zero has no chance of tasting just like regular Coke.

US-bottled Coke already tastes like ass, due to being sweetened entirely with corn syrup. The real deal is made with cane sugar, and only available in the US through importers like popsoda.com, thanks to Archer Daniels Midland and sugar tariffs. No fake-sugar soda will ever be able to match it (if you've had a soda in Europe or South America, you know what I'm talking about).

I dunno Jane. I think you need to think harder about the marketing strategy here. iIt is not just Coke that is proliferating brands. Indeed, it seems to be basic marketing strategy to bring out a brand to appeal to every possible market sector. Coke, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke with lemon, Coke w/o caffeine. Its the same in other areas too -- think Miller, Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Ice, etc. Also think the dozens of houshold products on the shelf, akll manufactured and distributed by P&G and Unilever. These companies must have a plan beyond cannibalism, right? As always, I rely on you (my favoraite B-school whiz kid) to explain it for me.

PS I kinda like regular Coke and since I hardly ever drink more than one every wek or two I don't mind the calories. I can get them from wine anyway.

Noah, the fructose/sucrose argument leaves me cold. Living in Texas, I occasionally get access to Dr. Pepper made with fructose, and while I can tell a slight difference, I can't really say that one is better than the other, or even that they're sufficiently different that I'd know which one you gave me in a blind test.

Jane, a willingness to cannibalize your own products is what keeps a company on top in the long run. If you don't bring out the new and better product[1], someone else will.

Look at what happened to IBM when they tried to keep their PC business from growing too fast and cannibalizing the mainframe product line.

[1] Not that I expect any diet drink to be better. Or even as good.

As a diabetic, I don't exactly have a choice in sugar intake. I've been using Splenda for my coffee for a while now, and I've been trying to find this new-new Coke.

I tried Coke C2 and couldn't finish the bottle. Of course I'm a Coca-Cola purist who has never forgiven them for changing the formula under the cover of the New Coke interval. "Classic Coke" is not the same, there is a citrus note to the flavor which substitutes for the wintergreen note which came from the decocanized coca leaf in the old formula. I put in as much inventory as I could when New Coke was announced, and still had some when the "Classic" was introduced. The difference was subtle but real.

Sadly, the reporting in the original news story is terrible. To quote the story:

"The drink will be sweetened partly with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium."

Wanna know why Pepsi isn't planning a competitor to this? It's because Pepsi One is sweetened with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium. The AP story claims Pepsi One is sweetened with Splenda, which is just plain wrong.

How do I know this, you might ask? I undertook the investigative journalistic technique of picking up a bottle of Pepsi One and reading the ingredient list. Splenda, i.e., sucralose, is nowhere to be found; the others are.

Lesson? The next time you read an AP story, remember that they didn't get a story about sodapop right.

Karl, you should know that Pepsi One is in the process of changing their formula. Grey cans are old flavor, black are new.

And all the black ones have the Splenda logo and sucralose on the ingredient list.

Now, acesulfame potassium is also still on the list.

The reason they want so many sub-brands is that it leads to more shelf space at supermarkets.

And the brands that loose shelf space aren't Coke or Pepsi products, it's smaller brands and products.

On the subject of "a taste for every tastebud": my personal favorite (to hear about, notsomuch to drink) is Diet... Cherry... Vanilla... Dr. Pepper. Why'd they leave out spearmint? Cinnamon? Maple?

Wow -- isn't anyone going to call out Rob Leder's unfortunate "acidity = cancer" argument? Egads!

US-bottled Coke already tastes like ass, due to being sweetened entirely with corn syrup. The real deal is made with cane sugar, and only available in the US through importers like popsoda.com, thanks to Archer Daniels Midland and sugar tariffs.

Coke that is kosher-for-Passover is made with sugar, since corn is not allowed at Passover; many non-Jews look out for it for that reason. And it should be coming to supermarkets (the ones with a big enough Jewish clientele, anyway), pretty soon. (Passover is late in April this year.)

I stopped drinking sweetened soda several years ago (due to a family history of adult diabetes - we're big fat people), and artificial sweeteners taste so foul to me (and sometimes induce migraine headaches) alas, i've switched to drinking seltzer water cause i still love the fizz. sometimes i like flavored seltzer water, and i'm just waiting for coke to come out with a coke-nothing where they remove the sweeteners and acid and leave the vanilla-lemon-whatever the secret formula is in, along with the caffeine.

our culture has a weird sweetness fetish.

While I don't plan on drinking C2, as I have long been drinking diet coke and am excessively fond of it and have no reason to increase my sugar intake, I have been adding one artificial sweetener and one sugar to my coffee for years. More than one sugar is just too cloyingly sweet, yet one not quite sweet enough for me, and one artificial sugar has a harsh aftertaste, but together they are just right. So I certainly support the idea of C2, and I'm sorry it isn't succeeding. (But not sorry enough to start drinking it).

Wow -- isn't anyone going to call out Rob Leder's unfortunate "acidity = cancer" argument? Egads!

I did not claim "acidity = cancer", anymore than I claimed "beer = death by cirrhosis". I said "your body's alkalinity may decline slightly, a state which is healthier for cancer cells and unhealthier for regular cells." Also, it was just a statement, not an argument (for support in the form of evidence or reference to biological principles, I'm completely unqualified), and not even MY statement at that. As previously mentioned, the source for pretty much everything I know about the health effects of cola is a book written by entrepreneur/inventor Ray Kurzweil and M.D. Terry Grossman, Fantastic Voyage - Live Long Enough to Live Forever, published last year. In this particular case, the relevant passage is on page 46:

Consuming acidic foods such as soft drinks may also create an ideal environment for cancer to form. Animal cells survive best in an alkaline environment with a blood pH of 7.35 to 7.45. Plant cells are the opposite; they prefer an acidic environment. As our bodies become increasingly acidic, some cells adapt through an internal evolutionary process and become more like plant cells. These abnormal plantlike cells have a high tendency to become cancer cells, which thrive in an acidic environment. So an important strategy for preventing or treating cancer is to maintain an alkaline environment in the body.

To what extent is this true? I don't know. The authors seem fairly credible to me, and have appeared on mainstream tv (e.g. CNBC). Also, a quick scan of their extensive footnotes reveals a lot of legitimate-sounding scientific and medical journals. Some ideas in the book (regarding things like the future of cybernetics, etc.) are clearly speculative, and presented as such, but the above passage does not fall into that category. If you want to dispute their assertion that consuming soda may slightly increase the risk of cancer, go ahead and do so, but don't simply reduce it to "acidity = cancer". Egads!

I for one will not be switching. (I get migraines. Aspartame exposure, for me, means a day or two spent in utter uselessness wondering whether a bullet to the head would hurt more than the headache that killing myself would eliminate.)

I prefer the sugar version to the corn syrup version (for any kind of pop), but will tolerate either. No diet versions, though.

Hey, Rob: Thanks for commenting and not returning the head-biting. I apologize for the knee-jerkness, because it's the same argument that guy Kevin Trudeau uses on that damned infomercial of his.

You're right; you didn't say "acidity=cancer." I was wrong. (I might note that I was in a hurry and shortened the argument.) I agree with your and the authors assessment that soda is bad for purely on the basis of the sugar. However, it's the other arguments that have a biochemical flavor to them that raise my antennae. Let me see if I can argue them point by point (now having all the free time in the world, granted running only on 2 hrs. sleep in the last 24)

1. Saccharine/Aspartame: I buy concern about saccharine, because it's one of the early sweeteners and you just don't know. Aspartame is one of those that gets hung on as being bad because of the methanol issue. I would argue that there just isn't enough to make a difference. The reason why those artificial sweeteners are chosen is not just because of their 'non-caloricity', but also because they ring the taste buds that much more than sugar. Therefore you need that much less of them. I searched around and found that there's 200 mgs of aspartame in a 12 oz Diet Coke. I did the calculation and found that means there's 22 microliters (less than half an eyedrop) of methanol able to be released per Diet Coke. That's if each and every molecule of aspartame was metabolized by your system. Enough to make a difference? Maybe -- but I doubt it. Yeah, I know people say it gets in your brain, but still -- I don't think 22 microliters of methanol makes a difference. Dose makes the poison -- and I just don't think there's enough. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

2. I keep hearing about how acidic Coke is because of the phosphoric acid -- bothers the hell out of me until I actually found that Coke was pretty acidic. (Like those e-mails you get telling you that state troopers use Coke to wash deer blood off highways. Yeah -- 'cause covering blood in sugar water is going to help.) But it does have a low pH. But I'd argue that the stuff is going into your stomach which has a relatively good buffer system in place. It's going to use that system rather than relying on your blood to do its work. Stomach's got a pretty robust equilibrium going on -- Coke's not really going to budge things much. Don't quote me on that, it's just a feeling. (P.S. According to snopes, phosphoric acid is 0.20% to 0.30% of the actual formula. So,Coke's just carbonated sugar water, not acid.)

3. Finally, the alkalinity/cancer thing. I don't have the silver bullet for this argument, because no one knows the "true state" of the cancer cell. First of all, I like the fact that Kurzweil et al. are gutsy enough to put forward a 'mode of action' that suggests that cancer cells are abnormal and plant-like. However, I'm bothered by not being told why plant cells like acid (I can guess) and also that there are plant-like cancer-intermediate cells. What makes them plant-like other than their acidophilia? It bothers me that I cannot put a finger on why I think this theory smells so much -- perhaps when I have more sleep, I will be able to tell you why. Thanks for reading, Rob. Cheers, Klug.

Rob, "Plant cells are the opposite; they prefer an acidic environment." is utter bullshit. There's a reason that farm stores sell lime (alkaline) in bulk along with the fertilizer and seed.

For that matter, cancer turning animal cells into plant-like cells is also utter bullshit.

But I'd argue that the stuff is going into your stomach which has a relatively good buffer system in place. It's going to use that system rather than relying on your blood to do its work. Stomach's got a pretty robust equilibrium going on -- Coke's not really going to budge things much. Don't quote me on that, it's just a feeling.

Most acids - citric acid for example - are burned off in digestion. This is not true of phosphoric acid. Therefore, although orange juice has a pH of 3.5, it doesn't pose the same biochemical challenge to your body that soda does.

(P.S. According to snopes, phosphoric acid is 0.20% to 0.30% of the actual formula. So,Coke's just carbonated sugar water, not acid.)

It's been about 15 years since I've sat in a college chemistry class, but I'm pretty sure this way of talking about acids is incorrect. I think the entire solution is phosphoric acid, it's just stronger or weaker depending on the concentration of phosphorus ions. Anyway, the pH of coke is 4.0 - not exactly something you're going to use to strip furniture, but quite acidic nonetheless; a single can of the stuff would certainly lower your blood pH to a fatal level if the body didn't have buffering mechanisms to deal with it.

Rob, "Plant cells are the opposite; they prefer an acidic environment." is utter bullshit. There's a reason that farm stores sell lime (alkaline) in bulk along with the fertilizer and seed.

No, it's not bullshit. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that most plant life favors a soil acidity below 7.0 (neutral). You can find this information in many, many places, here for instance. As far as selling lime along with fertilizer and grass seed, maybe grass is one of those plants that prefer a neutral or alkaline environment. Or maybe most soil tends to be too acidic already, and the lime is used to raise pH to a more hospitable (but still acidic) level. I don't know, you'll have to go ask a gardner or landscaper.

cancer turning animal cells into plant-like cells is also utter bullshit

Then it's a good thing nobody here has made any claim which even resembles that. The argument in the quotation I gave was that lower alkalinity in the body may provide a selective environment whereby new cells with some characteristics (I don't know exactly which characteristics) that are more often found in plant cells either thrive or at least have a better chance of survival. It's long been known that evolutionary processes can occur on a cellular level as well as to species as a whole: evolution occurs anywhere there is reproduction, mutation, and selective pressure. If you are going to dispute the specifics of the particular process the authors mention, then provide some facts, rather than just calling it "bullshit".

Coke without sugar!? Is there no decency left?

Klug, just to clarify, that's half a drop of methanol if all the aspartame in 12oz of Diet Coke were converted to methanol. (Going by your calculations, as I have no idea how to figure that.) A microliter is one millionth of a liter; since there are 33.8 oz in a liter, 22 microliters would be about 0.00075 oz, or about 1/1350 of an ounce. Half of a small drop.

Anyway, the pH of coke is 4.0 - not exactly something you're going to use to strip furniture, but quite acidic nonetheless; a single can of the stuff would certainly lower your blood pH to a fatal level if the body didn't have buffering mechanisms to deal with it.

Rob, no one's mentioned it, but the overwhelming fraction of acid in soda is carbonic acid, ie the carbon dioxide dissolved in the soda. I haven't been able to find the pH of plain soda water, but it should be close to that of Coke or 7up.

If the body couldn't control its pH, we wouldn't get far. Every time we exhale CO2 (which is, um, every time we exhale), we become slightly more alkaline. (Respiration, in fact, is one of the ways the human body tries to maintain a blood pH of around 7.4.)

I haven't been able to find the pH of plain soda water, but it should be close to that of Coke or 7up.

Maybe that acid, like citric acid, is capable of being dealt with during the digestive process, whereas the acid in cola is dealt with in the bloodstream. Or maybe the sources who single out cola as being something less than the elixir of life simply all have short positions in Coca Cola and PepsiCo. What can I tell you? I'm getting tired of defending their position, to be honest.

If the body couldn't control its pH, we wouldn't get far

Of course that's true, but it doesn't really have any bearing on the issue of whether or not cola is slightly bad for you. If the body couldn't deal with all sorts of toxins and regulate all sorts of levels, we wouldn't get very far. The fact that your liver can process alcohol doesn't mean it's a good idea to drink a quart of vodka every day.

In this case, nobody is claiming that coke turns your blood into battery acid. I haven't seen the low-level details of the research, but I'm sure the claim is simply that your blood is not perfectly efficient at buffering phosphoric acid, and drinking a can of coke tends to temporarily lower your blood pH by a small amount (I dunno, from 7.4 to 7.3?) which, like breathing second-hand smoke or eating greasy french fries, might increase certain health risks if you do it several times a day for a few decades. Not to mention the fact that the aforementioned buffering process uses up some essential minerals which you may or may not be adequately replacing, and those used-up solidified minerals increase the risk of kidney stones.

All-in-all, pretty modest warnings, and while I am by no means any sort of medical expert, they did not strike me as obviously kooky or outrageous. Take it or leave it. As for me, I'm tired of discussing the issue.

Personally, I can't stand diet sodas, but sweet-n-low works fine for me adding it to unsweetened ice tea. Aspartme tastes just plain nasty to me, and too many places here use it in their sweet tea. Given a choice, I'll take real sugar when possible, but it just won't dissolve in iced tea unless it was put in during the brewing process while the water was hot.

Oh, and Jolt has "All the sugar (as opposed to corn syrup) and twice the caffine." Tasted pretty much like RC to me. You want something that tastes like what was described above, go for Red Bull or any energy drink put out by the big soda companies. I'd stick with Bawls (Kind of creme sodaish tasting) or WhoopAss (Tastes like a carbonated Flintstones Chewable Vitiamin) for weird high energy drinks.

>On the subject of "a taste for every tastebud": my
>personal favorite (to hear about, notsomuch to
>drink) is Diet... Cherry... Vanilla... Dr. Pepper.
>Why'd they leave out spearmint? Cinnamon? Maple?

Because Spearmint, cinnamon, and maple are not traditional flavors for soft drinks. Cherry and Vanilla are. Back before "Cherry coke" in a can (which, btw, tastes nothing like real cherry coke) many to most fast food places indiginous to Texas or nearby (like Dairy Queen) would have a bottle of cherry syrup (often manufactured from real cherries) and a bottle of vanilla syrup sitting next to the coke dispenser, to squirt in on order - that's a real cherry Coke. Many people would order both - 1 squirt of each. Some people would do that with Diet Coke, after it came out - the syrup added some calories, but not as many as the coke had before.

When I say "Coke" above, I mean Coke, DP, RC, whatever. It is a generic term, like "Kleenex" or "Xerox".

DCVDP actually targets an extant market, at least down here.

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