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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.
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:50PM
It's true that diet foods are bad for you, but eating the full-sugar ones is no answer. The best thing is to eat those celery sticks, carrots, and what-not instead. It's tough to break out of the sugar cycle that America and some of the rest of the world are on, but once you manage it the cravings for the stuff subsides. You become happy with having a piece of fruit once in a while. A sweet treat made with stevia satisfies. Snacking on nuts or pork rinds serves the salty palate.
Soon enough your body adjusts and begins to disdain the empty, harmful filler that is processed food and to crave nutritious stuff instead. You'll be given the choice of a soft-serve icecream cone and chia pudding and choose the chia pudding instead and marvel at the creature you've become.
Washington DC delenda est.