Everyone is Wrong About Mexican Coke (Even @johnnyharris)

What Hacker News said

Recommends somat · 2025-01 · on “How corn syrup took over America”

I recently watched an interesting video on the subject of corn syrup. Which led me into the fascinating rabbit hole of sugar chemistry. [this video] If I might summarize. Your body can absorb three types of sugar into the blood, glucose, fructose and galactose. glucose is directly used by cells, the other two have to take a trip through the liver to turn them into glucose. Table sugar is sucrose. a complex sugar. which can be best thought of as a fructose and a glucose linked together. Corn syrup is a mixture of ~ 45% glucose 55% fructose Sucrose is quickly broken apart into glucose and fructose in several environments, high heat will do it, but also acidic environments. like your stomach, or a s

Recommends llm_nerd · 2025-01 · on “How corn syrup took over America”

The fructose difference is marginal between normal and Mexican coke. In the acidic medium of a cola, sucrose breaks down to glucose and fructose, just as it does with HFCS. HFCS has a bit more fructose, but not enough to make a paper about fructose suddenly relevant. As to the taste difference, Mexican cola has double the sodium. But even then, most people cannot taste the difference. They think they can, proclaim they can, and talk up how great Mexican coke is, but when actually put to the test they have basically random odds of being right or not. Fructose is mostly considered benign if consumed in moderation. You can get fatty liver if you consume to excess, but for most people it has no

Recommends llm_nerd · 2025-03 · on “Utah becomes first US state to ban fluoride in its water”

Sucrose is 50% fructose, 50% glucose. HFCS has from 42-55% fructose (there are grades), the rest being glucose (well some 25% of HFCS is water, but simplifying to the nutritive parts) In the body it's literally all the same with minor variations in ratios. Indeed, the revered Mexican coke with cane sugar...the sucrose is broken down to component glucose and fructose in the acidic environment [1], exactly as happens with HFCS variants, and it would have been the moment it hit your digestive tract anyways. There is zero scientific justification for the weird focus on HFCS. Yes, glucose and grossly excessive amounts of fructose are a serious problem. Especially in forms that rapidly get absorbe

Cites tredre3 · 2025-01 · on “How corn syrup took over America”

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. [this video]

Cites jldugger · 2025-01 · on “How corn syrup took over America”

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: [this video]

Cites legitster · 2025-07 · on “'It's just better ' Trump says Coca-Cola to change key US ingredient”

The irony is that a significant proportion of the sugar in "old" Coke in the US was not actually cane sugar, but from sugar beets. But the obsession over types of sugar is largely ephemeral. All sugars are highly processed and refined and equally bad. HFCS's only crime is it's cheapness and ubiquity. Funnily enough, for interesting chemistry reasons, it doesn't matter which type of sugar you put in, it all breaks down into glucose and fructose anyway! [this video]

Cites MaxRegret · 2025-09 · on “EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections”

It turns out the acidic environment in most beverages inverts the sucrose in cane sugar to form a 50:50 mix of fructose and glucose. In the end, the fructose/glucose ratio in cane-sugar-sweetened drinks becomes similar to high-fructose corn syrup, which is about 55:42. And the reaction is quick: about half the sucrose gets inverted in about three weeks. [1] [1] [this video]

Cites Mattwmaster58 · 2026-01 · on “Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola [video]”

As far as I know, the HFCS vs Sucrose is unlikely to be the reason for the difference in taste. I'm basing that off this video: [this video] TLDR: carbonic acid breaks down sucrose to glucose/fructose anyway