Better Libations | Healthy Drink Reviews

Retro is in . . . again!

Last year, I began this post with all intentions of finishing it, after I heard the news of Pepsi’s ‘Throwback’ experiment.  I speculated a little on their reasons, mostly whether or not the mounting HFCS backlash had anything to do with it, and planned a long diatribe on using a planned fad disguised as nostalgia to mask another layer of a market experiment.  Needless to say, it got pushed back, and the eight-week run of the stuff ended, the sodas disappeared, and the post was largely forgotten, buried amongst review corpses in the drafts folder.

The idea resurfaced again when Pepsi rolled out another round of  Throwback’s with different designs back in December.  This week, a co-worker showed up toting a twelve pack of it into the break room, and invited me to have one at my leisure.  I put it off for a few days, then grudgingly accepted the open offer on an experimental basis.  I sat down for lunch with a can, and snagged a regular Pepsi out of the soda machine with an idea.  I would write about the marketing angle, and throw in a taste test for good measure.  Now, since I don’t care for Pepsi much, I feel I can remain unbiased when it comes to the taste difference.

The Test: I pulled two paper cups from the water machine and set up my taste test on the table, Pepsi on the left and Throwback on the right.  My palate cleaner sat ready at my elbow for better distinguishing of tastes.  I began with the classic, and was greeted with pretty much what I expected; the Pepsi was syrupy-sweet and over-carbonated, with a slight acidic tang to it.  The sweetness lingered like a sweet glove on my tongue.  I readied my tongue again and had my first ever taste of the Throwback.  The sweetness was more pronounced, but not syrupy, it reminded me of table sugar melting on my tongue.  The carbonation was surprisingly lighter, not giving as much bite as the regular Pepsi.  the same acidic tang is there, but the sweetness fades away much quicker that the HFCS does.  If I had to choose, I would pick the Throwback over the regular Pepsi.  I still don’t care for it, though.

The Complaint: Now that I got that out of the way, I can focus on the more important implications of this second run of Throwback sodas.  The first run came with a press release lavished with self-praise over their new, nostalgic sodas.  In a Throwback review on  BevReview, a Nicole Bradley of Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages noted that, “these products were not created because of any health concerns…”  Many have a hard time believing this, due to the soda industry’s near dependence on HFCS to keep costs lower, and the (at the time) escalating backlash. The corn industry was already leading their own ‘information’ campaign, yet SoBe, a subsidiary of Pepsi, began switching their products to sucrose from HFCS at the same time.  Sugar still isn’t good for you, but many see it as better than HFCS, and the industry must ultimately bend to the will of the consumer if they can’t convince them.

I see this as Pepsi testing the waters of a sugar switch, at least on a small scale, to see how their consumer base reacts.  The reaction has been generally positive; the first run of Throwback sold out, and the second seems to be well on its way to doing so as well.  I’m sure Pepsi is far from ever considering switching their entire supply back to sucrose (the sugar in the Throwback’s being a combination of cane and beet sugars), but the timing may hint at their apprehension with the stirrings in the soda-drinking population about HFCS.  We’ve talked plenty about it and the questions and health concerns its use raises, and would be more than happy to see it disappear from use in drinks of any kind, but know this is still wishful thinking, as long as the population at large remains uninformed about and addicted to HFCS.  Let us just consider the Throwback experiment as a nod to those of us who have become informed, and rejoice.

Score: 3 out of 5. I still don’t care for Pepsi, but it tastes better than its HFCS counterpart.

– WiseGuise

User Reviews: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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3-Star Reviews, Pepsi-Cola, Rants drink reviews, Rants

Corporate responsibility covers more ares than just choosing what goes into your product, which is mainly what I expound on here.  It also has a lot to do with what you do with your profits.  Many companies reward their CEO’s, managers, and often their employees.  Many also donate to various charities and causes.  Why would they do such a thing?  Tax write-offs, mainly.  Occasionally, there is some altruistic motive behind these donations, but I believe that is consistently rare.  What do you do when you find out a company you purchase goods from supports causes that you don’t?  What would you do, ignore this indirect funding or stop purchasing?  Companies pay taxes.  Should they be able to support whatever causes, ideas or legislation they want?  Should these causes, politics or religion color their business?

This post began about a year ago when, in the midst of reviewing a product by Bolthouse Farms, I ran across some information that disturbed me.  Apparently, the former owner donated money to causes support fundamental Christianity and hinder or fight against gay rights.  In fact, their mission statement used to mirror the beliefs of the Bolthouse Foundation, which was founded and is currently run by William Bolthouse, former owner of BF.  The company itself was not necessarily directly supporting causes like the National Christian Foundation and the Alliance Defense Fund, but William owned the company and donated much of his money to these causes.  And although the company was bought out in 2005 by an investment firm, it still remains partially family owned.  William’s son-in-law is currently the chairman of the board.

The company seems to want us to believe that they no longer have anything to do with William Bolthouse of the Bolthouse foundation.  The current CEO of Bolthouse Farms released a letter that says:

The Bolthouse Foundation is a private foundation funded by some of the former owners of Wm. Bolthouse Farms, Inc.  The foundation is a separate entity and is not connected to Bolthouse Farms in any way.   Furthermore, they do not receive financial support or benefit from the profits of Bolthouse Farms.  We appreciate your concern and apologize for the confusion.

The bulk of the scandal surrounding this company erupted in June of last year, but has since then tapered off quite a bit.  Even the boycott that was sparked by the actions of William was called off in October.  However, Alex Blaze of Bilerico dug up a lot of information that seems a bit contrary, to put it lightly. But I could find no articles or blogs about William or the Farms published this year.  So maybe they have taken up some responsibility and cast off the weight of the homophobic former owner, and are striving to remain an unbiased company, or maybe the higher-ups are still covertly funding there negative causes through William.  Until I see proof either way, I’m going to hold off judgement, but I’m also going to hold off purchasing any Bolthouse or Bom Dia products, aside from my latest review.  Consider it me being fair-and-balanced (Oh please, don’t sue me, FOX!)

Whether or not what a company supports is a ‘good cause’ in your eyes, think about it this way.  Business, religion and politics are three things that need to to stay as far away form each other as possible.  When one begins to taint the other, nothing but problems arise.  I hope Bolthouse Farms and all the other companies whose products we review try to maintain some level of corporate responsibility, both with their products and their profits.

Rants corporate responsibility, Rants

Now this was sweet.  I was snooping around the Corn Refiners Association’s website the other day, and I found out that I could sign up as a “Health Professional” with them!  And now they’re going to send me the latest research and news about HFCS!  How considerate.  And somehow, I have this sneaky suspicion that every article I get will either be in favor of high fructose corn syrup, or conveniently neutral towards it.  Call it a hunch.

I’ll keep you posted on what they send, but one thing had me rolling right from the start – the sweet irony of the CAPTCHA text that I got on the registration screen.  As you can see, the correct answer is “blimp”!  Of course, we all know that HFCS contributes in no way whatsoever toward the rapidly increasing obesity rate around the world

Fun Stuff, Rants HFCS, Rants

You will have noticed if you are a regular reader of this blog (or possibly if you accidentally stumbled upon it), that one of our biggest gripes in beverages is the sugar content, but I often prefer some sweetness. Pondering this conundrum, several questions fight their way up to the cerebral cortex of my frontal lobe.

• Why do humans put sugar in everything?
• Why do ‘they’ replace our beloved sugar with substitutes?
• Why do YOU care so much about sugar?

Humans naturally have a ’sweet tooth,’ since sweet is one of the most important tastes after salt (why salt? hint: it keeps you alive). Like salt, sugar can be used as a preservative, since if you don’t get it wet, sugar can last indefinitely. Sugar is a simple carbohydrate that your body breaks down easily, causing the ’sugar rush’ that keeps your hyper-active kids running nonstop for days. Basically, we all love sweets.

Problem: Sugar has a relatively low nutritional value, being simply carbohydrates, and there are a large number who support the idea that it is making us fat. Well, not me, you. The other health problems related to excessive sugar intake range from tooth decay and diabetes to gout and possibly cancer. And nobody likes cancer.
There are, of course, alternatives. Honey is popular, but its distinct flavor and variation keeps it from use in many products, which want a simple, homogenized taste, like the beverage industry. HFCS is currently the most widely used sweetener, but I’ve gone on about that one before.
So what does the industry do to alleviate this ‘problem’? Use low or non-calorie sugar alternatives! Sounds simple, right? Well, it was possible (in the US) until stevia was banned (in the US) as a sweetener in the early nineties. There are myriad other substitutes, some of them low or no calorie, like erythritol, but still are not seen in wide use. But pseudo-health-conscious people still want their sodas, dammit. So what was the burgeoning diet industry to do? Ah-ha! We’ll make sugar. With no calories. Sweet.

The first artificial sugar was accidentally made back in 1879 by a chemist screwing around with coal tar derivatives. This went on to be known as saccharin. It was stable, and sweeter than sucrose, but had an unpleasant bitter or metallic aftertaste. If that isn’t enough to turn you off to it, (oh yeah, it’s still out there) just look at how it’s made. By the way, the U.S. Congress decided it would be cool to repeal the law requiring saccharin products to carry health warning labels. Thanks, republicans!

More recently, other sweeteners have become popular, namely aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal and phenylalanine) and sucralose (Splenda). I have been unfortunate enough to try beverages with these sweeteners in them, even without my knowledge, and I can STILL taste them. Why don’t I like this? I want the sweet taste, right? Yes, I do. But not with that false, almost plastic aftertaste. And although there have been some accusations to the contrary, these two have been deemed relatively safe to ingest, with no real adverse side affects noted. (Side note: packaged Splenda contains bulking agents, giving it 86% the caloric content of sugar, ergo it is NOT low-calorie)

As far as I am concerned, there is no substitute for natural sweeteners, HFCS and CF excluded. I love sweets just as much as anyone; hell, I still drink sodas on occasion, but I still look for the ones with real, natural, relatively unprocessed sugar in them. The key is moderation. I don’t drink a gallon of soda per diem like I used to, instead I rely water, tea and fruit juice for my fluids. If you can’t understand that you shouldn’t drink that 44 oz cola every day, or that 44 oz diet cola, than I doubt even a higher power can help you. If you don’t want to drink empty calories, drink water. And if you still whine because you like flavor, try non-sweetened waters like Hint or Alaya’s Herbal Water.

– WiseGuise

Artificial Sweeteners, Rants Rants

Greetings, friends. I’d like to preface our Japanese drink reviews with a quick word or two.

As you may remember from our flagship post, we said we would not review anything with HFCS unless we had a bloody good reason to turn a blind eye to it. A majority of these Japanese drinks do have a substance somewhat like HFCS (though it’s not corn syrup, necessarily – they use all kinds of sources). Bear with me as I explain our bloody good reasons for reviewing them.

The Japanese have an interesting way of distinguishing sweetener ingredients. They are labeled specifically as glucose-fructose syrup and fructose-glucose syrup, depending on the ratio. (The one possessing a higher percentage comes first in the title.)

Quick review: regular sugar is about a 1:1 mix of fructose and glucose. Usual soft-drink type HFCS is about 55% fructose to 45% glucose. Seems not all that bad until you consider just how much is consumed in a day by the average person. So that particular mix percentage would be labeled fructose-glucose syrup in Japan. (Here’s an interesting bonus fact – honey is actually the same amount of fructose to glucose, 55 to 45 percent. ) But here’s the big kicker:

In Japan, they have another ingredient that is called “High Fructose Syrup”, which entails at least 90% fructose. Now that’s whatcha gotta watch out for! In America, we require no such delineation, we are only told that the 55-45 mix is the “typical” ingredient.

I found only one drink in Japan that possessed this super-fructose mix. And you know what? It was manufactured by Coca-Cola. What a surprise! I wish there was a way to keep a closer eye on the actual amounts of fructose gracing our palettes here in the States. If Coke can get away with it in health-conscious Japan, I definitely wouldn’t put it past them to sneak it in over here, too.

So anyway, for those of you who like lists, this is why we’re reviewing these drinks:

Less overall sugar content
Clearer delineation of fructose-glucose ratio
Unusual and original flavors
‘Cause they’re Japanese and insane

Good enough? Good. Stay tuned for wackiness.

Rants, Tasty Japanese Drinks Rants

As those of you who read this humble blog with any interest or regularity hopefully know, we are working toward a world without a need for the ubiquitous and unhealthy sweetener known as HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup. This unholy substance is used in almost every production food imaginable, including beverages, flavored alcohols, corn and potato chips, soups, candy, packaged vegetables, cereals and even bread. Bread! Why does bread need sugar? Much less hydrogenated oils and enriched (processed) white flour, but that’s a topic for another rant.

As it turns out, we are not the only ones fighting this massively one-sided battle. As you may have noticed, some companies (even those owned by Big Soda) are beginning to sense a change in the tide and have begun to return to more natural sweet stuff; these include, but are not entirely limited to:

• SoBe: all redesigned bottles I have found now contain sugar, and proudly proclaim it
• Jones Soda: has switched many of their sodas to cane sugar
• Steaz: I have no idea who they are, but use only organic cane sugar
• Goose Island: same as above
• Dr. Pepper: it’s called Dublin Dr. Pepper
• Coke: known as the “Mexican” Coke, it is produced south of the border, with regular sugar, and has a better taste in many persons’ opinions, including my own

In recent reading, I found this surprising and amusing poll. An unbelievable NINETY PERCENT of people are at least trying to avoid HFCS, as I found while reading this article on the poll itself. Also in a related article (by related I mean linked) Coke is coming out with Passover Coke, since corn is not OK on passover, despite Coke being kosher.

It seems a lot of people also prefer the taste of sugar over HFCS, as in the MexiCoke. So you may ask, why the HFCS if people prefer the taste of sugar? There are a lot of reasons, but the main ones are simple economics. First, there are sugar tariffs in the U.S., making it more expensive to import (hint: it doesn’t grow well here). Second, there are subsidies for the corn industry in the U.S., making it cheaper to run that corn through the lengthy process of converting it to HFCS; and therefore, cheaper than just buying sugar. Another reason is that it mixes easier with liquids, being a liquid. Less work for the soda companies.

I have read some rumorings of bringing back a stevia-derived sweetener into use again, since it was banned in the U.S. in 1991. Methinks this was a move by other sweetener lobbies to get it out of the picture since it was competition (300 times the sweetness of sucrose!). It has been used in South America for centuries, and if it was killing people, we’d probably know by now.

In conclusion, if you are making an effort to get HFCS out of your life, keep it up, it appears to be working, and maybe one day it will be as rare to see it in a product as it was to see sugar just a few years ago. Choosing healthier drinks is just the beginning.

Thanks to my sources, Wikipedia, the Consumerist and Google.

– WiseGuise

HFCS, Rants Rants

This substance has been on my mind since I first discovered it in beverages a couple months ago. It has the sound of something natural, and for the longest time I have been under the false assumption that ‘fructose’ was strictly a fruit sugar. Not so.

I’m not going to go into the lengthy description of what it is and how it’s processed by your body, you may need physics and biology degrees to understand some of it, and I have neither, so I’m not going to try and explain it. Basically it comes down to this. Crystalline fructose is a sugar that is created by letting fructose crystallize in ‘fructose-enriched’ corn syrup. Hmm.

Ergo, it is produced from and similar to HFCS, but NOT the same, however, both are high in fructose, which is broken down by the liver, and too much of this over time can have adverse effects, including a fatty liver and cirrhosis. Not good. And even more disturbing, (if that isn’t enough), CF contains arsenic and other heavy metals, deadly poisons you do not want collecting in your body.

From now on there will be no more reviews of drinks by me personally on this website that contain this ingredient, and Danithius had agreed to the same. I am sorry for any previous promotion of any beverage containing this substance.

-WiseGuise

Crystalline Fructose, Rants Rants