To me the biggest and most obvious is to compare Coke made with corn syrup (US) versus the Coke that is bottled in Mexico and shipped to the US. It's made with cane sugar.

To use a term from wine, it tastes "drier". And less viscous. I first noticed this as a kid when trying soda from McDonald's (I believe at the time, back in the 1980s, cane sugar was used to make canned coke in the US, while I think the fountain soda was HFCS already. My memory and facts could be faulty, though).

They’re not equivalent products, though. Go compare nutrition labels. Mexican coke has more sodium. So it’s not as simple as saying the difference is purely from the HFCS vs sugar.

I did compare the labels and they have the same amount of sodium as US- 3%.

Percentage means nothing. Look at mg per oz or mL.

https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/coca-cola/products/or...

For a 20oz (591mL) regular US Coke it's 75mg of sodium. A Mexican Coke is 355mL and has 85mg of sodium. A US 20oz has more coke and less sodium.

Percentage means everything, I'm assuming the serving size is identical (as one normally does when comparing these sorts of things in the context that we are).

Your point is that US products are larger, which is generally true, and people typically consume an entire product at once, thus getting more total sugar (and water).

Percentage means everything, and yet here we have two things which obviously have different sodium content per mL and yet have the same %DV.

The percentage DV isn't telling you how much of the food is sodium, it's some reference to some "ideal" diet and food intake.

If the percentage of the drink was the same, the larger serving would have a higher amount in milligrams. But despite being almost 240mL more it has fewer total milligrams of sodium! .13mg/mL (US), the other is .24mg/mL(MX).

Is .24 == .13? Which is a bigger number?

So repeat after me, the %DV is meaningless. It's not telling you what you think it is.

Duh. Yes. I'm so accustomed to working with % solutions (weight by volume) I forgot nutrition labels give %DV.

Comparing, my costco mexican coke = 85mg sodium in 355mL, my gas station coke = 75mg in 591mL.

No worries. Just a daily reminder to always double check the units in the specs! :D

Wait, what, you think the percentage is the percentage of the product that's sodium? No. You didn't notice that one product is 240 calories and one product is 150 calories?

I forgot that nutrition labels are % daily, not % w/v.

Fountain sodas are a crap shoot. Maybe the syrup bag is running low, maybe the carbonation source is about to fail, maybe someone switched around the diet coke and cherry coke lines and didn't switch the syrup:carbonated water ratios. Maybe the water line is too warm (which can also throw off ratios), or maybe a shifty manager adjusted the ratios to steal from the customers / company. Or maybe your ice just melted =)

Plus the whole smell == taste thing to account for. Maybe drinking from a straw obscured the smells you can get versus an opened can.

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo

> But most people don't eat raw corn syrup.

Growing up, I went through a very brief period where I put corn syrup on my pancakes instead of regular syrup. My parents weren't home, we had no syrup, and I didn't know exactly what corn syrup was except that it tasted sweet and was thick like regular syrup. I continued to do it just for the novelty until one of my parents saw me putting corn syrup on my pancakes and told me to knock it off.

Thinking back on it now always grosses me out and makes me avoid corn syrup where possible, but eating it raw like that honestly didn't taste bad.

But "regular syrup" is just corn syrup with added flavors and colorings? At least, here in the USA it is. I've not sure I've seen any pancake syrup that's made with cane sugar. Besides real maple syrup, of course, but I'm not sure I've seen any thickened maple strup products either?

Really? I guess I didn't know that, TIL! I knew it wasn't pure maple syrup, but I figured it was, I dunno, similar.

Things like Aunt Jemima/Pearl Milling Company Pancake Syrup has these ingredients, and it's been pretty similar for decades:

. CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WATER, CELLULOSE GUM, CARAMEL COLOR, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SODIUM BENZOATE AND SORBIC ACID (PRESERVATIVES), SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE.

https://www.pearlmillingcompany.com/products/syrups/original

But things which are labeled "pure maple syrup" have some pretty solid USDA standards; its a pretty regulated terminology. Even the generic/house brands are real maple syrup.

https://www.kroger.com/p/private-selection-100-pure-grade-a-...

Similarly you gotta watch out for real honey versus fake honey flavored corn syrup. Most bottles you'll find in the store will be real honey but little packets will often be "honey sauce".

You can buy pure maple syrup, but it costs more and you have to read the labels. The big brands, and most restaurants are serving you corn syrup though.

Importantly, corn syrup is not the same thing as HFCS either. They’re different things (and HFCS is sweeter, too).

Back in the day (early 90s) my mom would sometimes serve Karo corn syrup on pancakes, even when we had maple syrup around. I thought it was a typical thing for a long time!

I know a lot of families that would do that.

You'd have a lot of recipies call for some amount of corn syrup but rarely go through a whole bottle. Mom probably didn't want to just throw it out, and the Aunt Jemima was pretty much the same with some caramel color and a few other added flavors. Might as well use up the two year old Karo on the kids waffles and get some fresh stuff for the next holiday baking season.