So many accusations have been leveled at high-fructose corn syrup – mostly that it makes us obese and, more abstractly, that it isn’t as “real” as “real sugar” – that many of us who take our food consumption rather seriously respond to it with horrified disgust. No, we wouldn’t touch that stuff with a 10-foot straw.
Neither sugar nor HFCS gets high grades as far as caloric intake is concerned, but when they get mixed into America’s favorite beverage, Coca-Cola, what is the difference when it comes strictly to taste? We hear a lot of blather about how real-sugar Coke (aka Mexican coke) is superior to HFCS coke. Some of us here at the magazine wondered whether the average joe could actually discern the difference.So, on a recent Saturday morning, the My Table magazine crew trotted out samples of both at the Urban Harvest Farmers’ Market on Eastside to find out whether the high-fructose or sugar Coke would reign supreme. (And speaking of horrified disgust, you should have seen the looks on some people’s faces when asked to participate: “Uh, no, I don’t drink soda.”)
To level the playing field, both versions of Coke were the glass-bottle kind – no aluminum or plastic to mar the delicate flavors. Of the 25 people who blind-tasted both, (drum roll, please) 17 preferred the real sugar Coke. An overwhelmingly common remark was that it tasted “sweeter,” while others called it “effervescent,” “clearer,” “zestier” and just plain “real.” Both Ryan Pera (chef at the soon-to-open Revival Market in the Heights) and Chris Shepherd (chef at Catalan, soon at Underbelly) stopped by our table. Both chose the sugar Coke – with Pera identifying notes of caramel – although neither chef seemed particularly keen on either.
As for the high-fructose corn syrup Coke, respondents who preferred it explained, “It has more bite” and, of course, that it “tastes less sweet.”If one thing proved true, it is that there is at least a discernable difference between the two and when it comes to preference, as one taste-tester put it, “Coke is one of those things where it probably has a lot to do with what you’re used to.”