is Pepsi OK?

[Weehawky Woke Cracker Barrel]

The age old question.

[DarkCrystalMethod]

Drinking too much of The Good Dr. sent me to a real doctor. Let that be a lesson to you.

[Taxi Driver DeNiro]

Pepsi is too sweet. Coke is a little more dry, a bit less sweet, and ends up a whole lot more drinkable as a result.

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Your dentist always welcomes good customers

[AdahnGorion]

I don´t like sugar water with tons of additives, so no not really... atleast for me.

[Donut]

Pepsi is sweetened with stevia, which gives me a bad aftertaste. So I‘ll stick to coke.

[AdahnGorion]

Donut eredeti hozzászólása:

Pepsi is sweetened with stevia, which gives me a bad aftertaste. So I‘ll stick to coke.

You are not allowed to talk about drugs on steam

[Zwergscheiße]

pepsi is good

[☎need4naiim☎]

It has more harmful qualities than good ones. So, i do not recommend. I know you don't care for its harmful effects, but i still not recommend it nor coke. If we don't care about ourselves, then who will?

[Tonepoet]

That depends on what you mean by "O.K." It is not alright for your health. It is simply empty calories, and some have even been linked to Osteoperosis[www.webmd.com] in women by research from Tufts university. Researchers are not entirely sure why, but one hypothesis is that the phosphoric acid that is used to make it taste tart (and as a preservative) weakens bones, and most dark soda-pops (aside from rootbeer) have phosphoric acid as an ingredient. (More lightly colored sodas flavors such as relatively pale ginger ale or perfectly clear Sprite tend to use citric acid instead)

A regular 12 ounce can of Pepsi also has more sugar than a regular 12 ounce can of Coca-cola. It is 41 grams compared to 38. Granted, this difference is not very large. It comes out to about 9 and a half teaspoons vs ten and one quarter teaspoons (there are approximately 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon). However, it is large enough that every can of Pepsi has 10 more calories than a can of Coca-cola, so with all other factors being equal, Pepsi is technically even less healthy for you than the leading brand.

However, I do drink Pepsi with Real Sugar. One of my local supermarkets sells a dozen cans for $8 or $9 with a buy one, get one free deal. The end result is that I can get a soda-pop sweetened with sucrose for about 33 or so cents per can, whereas most other ways I try to get it is about $1 per 12 ounce glass bottle. The only other canned soda I can find that is sweetened with sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup (H.F.C.S.) is one of those generic store brands, and it still ends up being more expensive than Pepsi from the supermarket on a per-can basis, provided I take advantage of the deal. So I buy two dozen cans of soda to have on occasions when I eat hamburgers, deli sandwiches, or delivered food at home.


Real sugar is sometimes claimed to be healthier than H.F.C.S. The caloric value is technically the same, but a study from Princeton University shows that H.F.C.S. causes more weight gain[healthland.time.com] than sucrose, and H.F.C.S. has also been linked to colorectal poplyps[news.weill.cornell.edu] in laboratory mice. However, to be fair, many food scientists, doctors and dieticians deny that the two are any different[www.forbes.com] and the F.D.A.[www.fda.gov] states there is no evidence to support claims that H.F.C.S. is any less healthy than table sugar. I am not really sure who to believe, but I would rather err on the side of caution in this respect. There are ways to get Coca-cola with real sugar, but those usually either involve importation or waiting for the seasonal kosher for Passover[www.businessinsider.com] variation distinguished only yellow caps, which I can never find anyway. The imported stuff with glass bottles is usually as expensive as any domestic designer brand.

More importantly, I think the sucrose simply tastes better than H.F.C.S. Now this opinion is somewhat abnormal. Taste tests[www.huffpost.com] do show that people can reliably tell the difference between H.F.C.S. sweetened soda-pop, and sucrose sweetened soda-pop, and prefer sucrose sweetened Coca-cola to that of high fructose corn syrup flavored Coca-cola, but people actually prefer the flavor of H.F.C.S. Pepsi to that of Pepsi Made with Real Sugar.

The explanation is a little strange though. The real sugar Pepsi is supposedly sweeter, whereas the H.F.C.S. pepsi is claimed to be tangier and more metalic. First, I am not quite sure what the appeal of a "metallic" flavor is. Metal itself as no flavor (think of Gold or a stainless steel spoon for example), but the tarnishes and residues which develop on it do, but those taste god awful (circulated pennies usually taste yucky, and even silver spoons make food taste worse[www.vice.com]). Second, High Fructose Corn Syrup is actually considered sweeter than sugar for the same amount of grams and calories[www.livescience.com], so I can only suppose the taste testers have developed a bad sense of taste.

Anyway, Pepsi Made with Real Sugar tastes fine to me. I have not tried H.F.C.S. Pepsi in many years though, so in that respect perhaps I am being unfair, but the thing about that is access. If I am buying it from the grocery store, then I would be committing to at least a dozen cans of the stuff. The restaurants in my area usually stock Coca-Cola Bottling Company drinks over Pepsi Co. drinks, and I do know that I prefer sugar sweetened Coca-Cola and root beer (the last time I had H.F.C.S. sweetened root beer was was from a fast-food soda-fountain, and it tasted disappointingly mild compared to the sugar-sweetened bottled stuff).

It should be noted that if you want something that tastes exactly like Coca-Cola, that the only way you will be able to do that is by buying Coca-Cola though. The thing is that somehow, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company has secured exclusive access to the decocainized Coca leaves they use to make Coca leaf extract[www.huffpost.com]. The depleted leaves no longer contain the cocaine, but they might just impart a wholly unique flavor that no other soda may have. (The actual cocaine is sold to Mallinckrodt to make the prescription anesthetic drug cocaine hydrochloride if you must know what happens to that.[krcgtv.com]).

Between Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and Royal Crown Cola, Coca-Cola has the least amount of sugar. I would suppose that either Pepsi and Royal Crown has added sugar to compensate for the lost flavor, or Coca-Cola reduced the amount of sugar to help emphasize the other flavors.

Between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, people will generally report that they prefer the flavor of Coca-Cola in a blind taste test (62%), but fewer than 50% of respondants can correctly identify which one is which according to the Business Insider article We Recreated the Pepsi Challenge to See What People Really Like by Doninic Green and Will Wei[www.businessinsider.com], despite the fact that 100% of the correspondents claimed to be able to tell the difference.

However, the International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (I.J.A.I.E.M.) published the results of a study in a P.D.F. article entitled Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi by Dr. N. Ramanjaneyalu et al (I.S.S.N. 2319-4847)[www.ijaiem.org]. They did both an open and a blind test. The results of the blind test correctly identified that Pepsi was somewhat sweeter, had somewhat more caffeine and was just about as likeable as Coca-Cola, whereas the open test rated Coke as being much sweeter (despite having less sweetener), much more caffeine (even though it really has less) and considerably more likable. The document has some more interesting details, but the fact of the matter is still that fewer than 50% of people can accurately differentiate between the two. Now there were more than just two sodas mentioned in this experiment, but it seems that over 40% of people will identify the product as Pepsi and less than 40% will identify the product as Coca-cola, irrespective of which they are given. As a matter of fact, 39% of respondents given Pepsi-Cola thought it was Coca-cola, whereas only 37% of respondents given the actual Coca-Cola thought it was Coca-Cola. The I.J.A.I.E.M. concludes that Coca-Cola is preferred moreso because of brand name recognition than anything else.

Simply put, there might be a slight preference towards Coca-Cola for a more complex and less cloying flavor profile, but overall the two products are nearly identical and hard to differentiate, and given that the question merely asks "Is Pepsi O.K.?" I would have to say the answer is yes. You will probably be better off with Coca-Cola if you are given the choice, but the difference is not so great as to warrant rejecting a can of Pepsi-Cola in its stead when offered, and if you are one of those people who wants to boycott Coca-Cola for some reason, then you will not be missing out on much for by replacing it with Pepsi-Cola.



[Edit: I corected a misreading misreading of one of the figures.]

[CookieClicker :)]

I used to think Coke was great, but I like Pepsi much more nowadays.

[Blargo]

No.
Pepsi fell down and broke their leg.

[Under there]

Too spicy.

[Electric Cupcake]

Cherry Pepsi is best pepsi.
For regular colas, RC Cola is best.

For non-colas, Dr. Pepper or Cheerwine (just to mess with the Southerners).

Again we see there is nothing you can possess which we cannot take away. Also, Southern BBQ sucks.

[Grendalcat]

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wWDIh6NsCuM/maxresdefault.jpg

[MikeBob2013]

I took that 'Pepsi Challenge' blind taste test three times (on three separate occasions) during the mid 70's, and I chose the competition (rhymes with 'Coke' 😝) all three times.

(My favorite carbonated soft drink is actually Dr Pepper.)

🥤