A Mexican restaurant near us SELLS COKE MADE WITH REAL SUGAR!!!

[Dennis S]

My Mom and Pop grocery store sells the. They have a small Mexican section. They are about $1.25 for 12 oz.

[macphanatic]

Coke wasn't the only one to switch to corn syrup. The entire soft drink industry did it. IIRC, it was done to help the farmers who weren't doing so well at the time.

[richorlin]

Cane sugar or corn fructose doesn't matter much to me. I only drink Coke Zero: none of the calories but all of the caffeine. Buzzzzzz...Zap!!

[Black Landlord]

guitarist wrote:
Latin American countries have cheaper local access to sugar plantations? Beats me.

Yeah, I think so. When I was in Ecuador a vendor selling sections of fresh sugar cane was never far.

[Speedy]

Having it come out of a glass bottle also makes a difference.

[MikeF]

Sold at Costco in 24 bottle flats. 12 oz bottles with an English sticker put on the bottle...

[mattkime]

i believe there are high tariffs on importing sugar and that is what makes corn syrup competitive.

[guitarist]

There's a whole political/economic/protectionist/farm subsidy thing around corn. It's distorted the food industry and distorted prices of consumer goods. The NYT did a feature on this not long ago.

[Rolando]

guitarist wrote:
There's a whole political/economic/protectionist/farm subsidy thing around corn. It's distorted the food industry and distorted prices of consumer goods. The NYT did a feature on this not long ago.

NPR had a great interview w/Michael Pollan, google it!

You can get "real" coca cola in any town w/ a significant Mexican immigrant population!, from San Antonio to New Jersey!

[SteveO]

What mattkime and guitarist said. Cane is abundant in Latin America, or they would've switched to corn syrup long ago.

>IIRC, it was done to help the farmers who weren't doing so well at the time.

No disrespect, but this is funny. The soft drink industry has never been interested in anything but themselves and their bottom line.

Greg: you're speaking of Tienda Casa Paloma near 83rd and Metcalf, yes? That is a great little joint! One of the owners is from Mexico. Their food is pretty dang tasty as well! Make your way around the menu, lots of interesting flavors.

The only thing I worry about when drinking Latin American [cane] soda is the water. They don't have the same environmental regs that we do, so for me it tends to cancel out any benefit of switching to their soft drinks. Of course, we don't have much room to talk with the use of atrizine, for instance. Sigh. Frustrating.