George Zaidan explains how sucrose in cane-sweetened sodas quickly breaks down into glucose and fructose, making it chemically identical to high-fructose corn syrup.
What people say. Recommended for explaining how acidic environments in sodas break down sucrose, making Mexican Coke chemically similar to high-fructose corn syrup.
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On “How corn syrup took over America”
I recently watched an interesting video on the subject of corn syrup. Which led me into the fascinating rabbit hole of sugar chemistry. link to this video 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 s…
…great Mexican coke is, but when actually put to the test they have basically random odds of being right or not. Fructose is mostly considered benign if consumed in moderation. You can get fatty liver if you consume to excess, but for most people it has no caloric value and is excreted from the body as a non-nutritive sweetener. Good related video- link to this video…
On “Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water”
…s, and indeed enzymes turn that starch to free glucose almost immediately when eaten. So from a glucose perspective flour is much worse than an equal amount of sugar. And of course nutritive sweeteners in all their forms should be avoided. But table sugar isn't more wholesome or better than HFCS. 1 - Fun video about the sucrose in Mexican coke - link to this video…
Sucrose breaks down to fructose and glucose very rapidly so by the time you consume it there's no longer any sucrose in the drink to the point that it is chemically identical to a soda sweetened with HFCS. link to this video
But most people don't eat raw corn syrup. And the sugars in sodas breaks down into the same stuff very quickly in the presence of acids. Example: link to this video
On “'It's just better ' Trump says Coca-Cola to change key US ingredient”
The irony is that a significant proportion of the sugar in "old" Coke in the US was not actually cane sugar, but from sugar beets. But the obsession over types of sugar is largely ephemeral. All sugars are highly processed and refined and equally bad. HFCS's only crime is it's cheapness and ubiquity. Funnily enough, for interesting chemistry reasons, it doesn't matter which type of sugar you put in, it all breaks down into glucose and fructose anyway! link to this video
On “EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections”
It turns out the acidic environment in most beverages inverts the sucrose in cane sugar to form a 50:50 mix of fructose and glucose. In the end, the fructose/glucose ratio in cane-sugar-sweetened drinks becomes similar to high-fructose corn syrup, which is about 55:42. And the reaction is quick: about half the sucrose gets inverted in about three weeks. 11link to this video
As far as I know, the HFCS vs Sucrose is unlikely to be the reason for the difference in taste. I'm basing that off this video: link to this video TLDR: carbonic acid breaks down sucrose to glucose/fructose anyway
On “Mars Bar from 1991 found – and it's 20g bigger than today's”
I remember watching a video (something like link to this video , but probably not that exact one) where they did the analysis and determined that Mexican cane-sugar coke contains the exact same proportion of sugars as HFCS coke - and it's because of the chemistry of how the sugars break apart in the presence of acid in the liquid. So in theory an extremely fresh mexican coke might be different, but in practice you're getting the same thing.
