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posted by martyb on Friday September 08 2017, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the How-sweet-it-is! dept.

Coca-Cola is using the HeroX crowd-sourcing platform to hold a $1 million competition for a new sugar substitute:

"Sugar is now the number one item that consumers want to avoid in their diets," says Darren Seifer, a food and beverage industry analyst with the NPD Group. The message to consume less is coming from health experts around the globe.

It's a challenge for the beverage industry, as is the fact that many consumers don't like the idea of artificial sweeteners found in diet drinks. So, the search for new, alternative sweeteners that can appeal to consumers' changing tastes is in full swing. And Coca-Cola has turned to crowd-sourcing.

The company has launched a competition on the crowd-sourcing platform HeroX. According to this description on Coca-Cola's corporate website, Coke is seeking "a naturally sourced, safe, low- or no-calorie compound that creates the taste sensation of sugar when used in beverages." The company says, "one grand prize winner will be awarded $1 million in October 2018."

So, can scientists come up with this kind of sweetener? "Well, this is a hundred-million dollar question, because it's so difficult and so potentially lucrative," says Paul Breslin, a professor in the nutritional sciences department at Rutgers University and a member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

Hang on, is it a one million dollar question or a hundred-million dollar question? Maybe I should get Silicon Valley to fund my sugar substitute instead of Coca-Cola.

Related: Coca-Cola Pulls Twitter Campaign after being Tricked into Quoting "Mein Kampf"
Twitter Monetizes By Adding Coca-Cola Emoji (where is our sponsored emoji?)
How Coca Cola's 3D Times Square Advertising Sign Works


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by lx on Friday September 08 2017, @11:22AM (18 children)

    by lx (1915) on Friday September 08 2017, @11:22AM (#565020)

    What if we stop making everything sickly sweet? Are we all whiny toddlers?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:27AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:27AM (#565021)

    But if you did that, you would have to sell something with a taste.
    That might require actual food ingredients. Supersweet is good because it covers up and dominates all the other flavors...
    Sugar is cheap!

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 08 2017, @12:18PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 08 2017, @12:18PM (#565033) Journal

      But if you did that, you would have to sell something with a taste.

      Mmmm... i would think some flat water from Fukushima springs will qualify

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday September 08 2017, @07:20PM

      by epitaxial (3165) on Friday September 08 2017, @07:20PM (#565265)

      You mean high fructose corn syrup is cheap. Your body processes HFCS differently than sugar.

  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by ledow on Friday September 08 2017, @12:43PM (10 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday September 08 2017, @12:43PM (#565044) Homepage

    Generally, you might be right.

    However carbonated drinks taste like crap unless they've been sweetened. They are horrible and bitter. That's why you can't just grab a juice and make it fizzy - it doesn't work. You have to counteract the taste.

    And though, generally, you could argue that's unnecessary, I think Coke and Pepsi would be the first people to disagree and look for an alternative rather than shut down their entire core businesses.

    • (Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday September 08 2017, @01:59PM (1 child)

      by sgleysti (56) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 08 2017, @01:59PM (#565089)

      I suppose they could use nitrogen gas to make the bubbles instead of CO2. N2 is inert and wouldn't affect flavor. That said, I do like plain seltzer water.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:34PM (#565109)

      However carbonated drinks taste like crap unless they've been sweetened. They are horrible and bitter. That's why you can't just grab a juice and make it fizzy - it doesn't work. You have to counteract the taste.

      This is, of course, utter bollocks. At least in Europe we actually do this and it works fine. Perhaps to your over-sweet American tastes it doesn't work, but well - your food and drink is just generally bad anyway.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:45PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:45PM (#565115)

      However carbonated drinks taste like crap unless they've been sweetened. They are horrible and bitter.

      You say that, but in my experience it's just not true. I drink a lot of diet pop (pepsi or dr pepper in the morning, ginger ale in the evening), but I also like black cherry seltzer water now and then as a treat. It's unsweetened, and I don't find it "horrible and bitter" at all. (Funny thing -- the seltzer water costs more. The list price is similar, but you can buy the pop when it's on sale, and they don't put the seltzer water on sale very often.)

      That's why you can't just grab a juice and make it fizzy - it doesn't work. You have to counteract the taste.

      I dunno about that; if you're talking fruit juice, most already are sweet, sometimes even too sweet, so that doesn't make sense -- maybe for something like cranberry juice. i don't have a carbonation rig (though I've often thought about it), so no first-hand experience, but I know some people do carbonate juices with them, and AIUI the main issues don't involve taste, but the fact that any particles in the juice serve as nucleation sites, so anything not completely clear can end up rapidly (for something like pulpy orange juice, explosively) decarbonating when you let off pressure. I haven't seen anybody talking about how their tasty juice turned bitter and horrible (tasting) when they carbonated it, just that it worked, or that it made a horrible mess.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:35PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 08 2017, @03:35PM (#565147) Journal

        I know some people do carbonate juices with them, and AIUI the main issues don't involve taste, but the fact that any particles in the juice serve as nucleation sites, so anything not completely clear can end up rapidly (for something like pulpy orange juice, explosively) decarbonating when you let off pressure. I haven't seen anybody talking about how their tasty juice turned bitter and horrible (tasting) when they carbonated it, just that it worked, or that it made a horrible mess.

        We do this. We pick wild sumac (it looks like the first image on this page [google.com].) in Prospect Park in NYC and brew it up like sun tea. Then we run it through a fine mesh sieve and sweeten it with stevia. We bottle it, cool it in the fridge, and carbonate it with our SodaStream. It's delicious. Somewhere between ginger ale and cherry juice. It's chock full of vitamin C, too. My kids clamor for it, and from August when it ripens through October when our supplies run out we buy no soda or any other juice at all.

        It grows all over NE America through the upper Midwest.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Friday September 08 2017, @03:12PM (3 children)

      by Arik (4543) on Friday September 08 2017, @03:12PM (#565133) Journal
      "However carbonated drinks taste like crap unless they've been sweetened. They are horrible and bitter. That's why you can't just grab a juice and make it fizzy - it doesn't work. You have to counteract the taste."

      Yeah that's just not true. Sparkling water doesn't taste "horrible and bitter." Sparkling water with a little juice is very tasty stuff, far from bitter.

      Of course if you bathe your taste buds in a sugary syrup, some kind of Cola for instance, THEN you've got them condition to taste ANYTHING that isn't packed full of sugar as "horrible and bitter." You just need to give your sensors a chance to recover.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday September 08 2017, @07:22PM (1 child)

        by epitaxial (3165) on Friday September 08 2017, @07:22PM (#565267)

        Sparkling water and seltzer taste rather unpleasant to me. The best description is salty but it's not.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @09:35PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @09:35PM (#565337)

          Some sparkling mineral waters are objectively pretty salty, indeed (not necessarily purely NaCl). Doesn't mean it's to blame on the CO2, though.

      • (Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday September 15 2017, @12:38AM

        by toddestan (4982) on Friday September 15 2017, @12:38AM (#568180)

        Sparkling water is quit bitter to me too. I can hardly stand to drink the stuff. And it's not that I'm used to colas and other sugary drinks, as ordinary water (like straight from the tap) tastes just fine to me.

        Dissolving CO2 into water produces carbonic acid, so it's really no wonder that sparkling water is a bit bitter. Colas and such add tons of sugar (actually corn syrup) to compensate, but with sparkling water there's nothing to cover it up.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 08 2017, @06:10PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday September 08 2017, @06:10PM (#565246) Journal

      Carbonated waters (San Pellegrino, La Croix, Perrier, Poland Spring, and many more [thrillist.com]) taste fine or good and are big sellers these days. No added sweeteners. Might not be your preference but many millions of people are buying them. Carbonated juice (like Orangina) contains sugar, added or natural! People mix club soda, juice (sugar), and booze all the time!

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by Snow on Friday September 08 2017, @02:52PM (3 children)

    by Snow (1601) on Friday September 08 2017, @02:52PM (#565122) Journal

    As someone with a serious coke addiction (~ 4 cans per day) -- DON'T FUCKING TOUCH MY COKE!

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:43PM (2 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 08 2017, @03:43PM (#565151) Journal

      Is it a coke addiction, a sugar addiction, or a caffeine addiction? It might be worth playing with those variables and seeing if you can chart a course to healthier alternatives. Black and green teas, for example, will deliver the caffeine without the sugar and confer the anti-oxidant benefits at the same time. If it's sugar, statistically it's a matter of time before it gives you diabetes, obesity, or some other injury. You can sweeten tea or unsweetened fruit juice with stevia, which tastes sweet but doesn't affect your glycemic index (splenda, nutrasweet, etc all do affect it, btw, and make you as fat as sugar does).

      Also, most soft drinks like coke contain a lot of acids that eat your teeth. Mountain Dew is particularly bad and linked to shockingly poor dental health in places where it's heavily consumed like Appalachia.

      Me, I used to have an addiction to Dr. Pepper, but time, age, and health compelled me to give it up.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by Snow on Friday September 08 2017, @04:15PM (1 child)

        by Snow (1601) on Friday September 08 2017, @04:15PM (#565171) Journal

        I think it's the bubbles. And the slightly metallic taste. And the delicious, delicious, tooth-rotting phosphoric acid.

        No one in my extended family is fat or has diabetes, so my risk is low. I do, however, have a lot of fillings. Thank god I have dental coverage.

        One day I'll have to cut it out. Probably about the same time I start going to the gym and running and stuff.

          ;) ;)

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @09:15PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 08 2017, @09:15PM (#565325) Journal

          At first you drink soda to feel good, but before long you'll drink it just to keep from feeling bad...

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.