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.
You ever run a double blind experiment on that or were you knowing it was US coke versus European coke?
I knew what it was, for every can I had. As someone who is hypoglycemic I don't need a double blind experiment to tell me what a sugar rush and an insulin response feels like in the chest.
Chemically, in an acidic and water environment like a can of soda, sucrose will quickly break down to the simple sugars in which HFCS has less glucose. So unless you're getting cans only a day or two from the factory, they're pretty much the same sugar-wise assuming the same mg/L (which they might be different, I don't know!).
What are the labels? Are the total sugar content that different? (EDIT: Rereading, only 2.5% off...by volume or DV%?) Because if they're the same, the European coke would have a smidge more free glucose than an HFCS-55 would have by definition.
Really? Because I absolutely notice a clear difference in how "jittery" I get, and the different feel of the ensuing insulin response, from a US Coke Original vs. a European ditto made with sucrose. The difference in total sugar content is a mere 2.5%.