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
Related Stories
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/05/coca-cola-makeithappy-gakwer-mein-coke-hitler
Coca-Cola has been forced to withdraw a Twitter advertising campaign after a counter-campaign by Gawker tricked it into tweeting large chunks of the introduction to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
...
In a press release, Coca-Cola said its aim was to “tackle the pervasive negativity polluting social media feeds and comment threads across the internet”.
But Gawker, noticing that one response had the “14 words” white nationalist slogan re-published in the shape of a dog, had other ideas.
The media company’s editorial labs director, Adam Pash, created a Twitter bot, @MeinCoke, and set it up to tweet lines from Mein Kampf and then link to them with the #MakeItHappy tag – triggering Coca-Cola’s own Twitter bot to turn them into cutesy pictures.
The result was that for a couple of hours on Tuesday morning, Coca-Cola’s Twitter feed was broadcasting big chunks of Adolf Hitler’s text, albeit built in the form of a smiling banana or a cat playing a drum kit.
The bot made it as far as making Coke tweet the words “My father was a civil servant who fulfilled his duty very conscientiously” in the shape of a pirate ship with a face on its sails – wearing an eyepatch – before Coca-Cola’s account stopped responding.
Twitter has added a custom Coca-Cola-themed emoji next to instances of the hashtag #ShareaCoke:
Twitter will only be offering the feature to Coke and others as part of a package deal to its biggest clients that have already committed a certain amount of their ad budgets to Twitter. A typical move by big media companies is to offer sweeteners to major clients.
The San Francisco company worked with Coke for six months on the project and is currently talking to 10 of its biggest brand-name clients about getting in on the frenzy for winky faces and love-struck cats. A Coke spokesman wouldn't say how much the ad deal with Twitter was worth.
Snaps, a startup that aims to help advertisers and publishers navigate the booming mobile-messaging arena and consumers' growing predilection for using pictures over words, has recently raised $6.5 million in funding. It has already helped create digital stickers and emojis for marketers such as Burger King, Victoria's Secret, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Houston Rockets.
You won't find that emoji in Unicode... yet.
Related: Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk
Hackaday has an article about a 3D advertising sign in Times Square.
Coca-Cola has updated their sign in Times Square, and this one has a mesmerizing 3D aspect to it, giving the spooky feeling you get from watching buildings curl up into the sky in the movie, Inception. That 3D is created by breaking the sign up into a 68’x42′ matrix of 1760 LED screens that can be independently extended out toward the viewer and retracted again. Of course, we went hunting for implementation details
The article looks at the available information on the display modules, and the control of the sign. It also has links to video of the sign in action from the designers, Radius displays
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @10:52AM
Some years later, it's discovered that the new sugar substitute actually causes cancer! Everyone is shocked.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lx on Friday September 08 2017, @11:22AM (18 children)
What if we stop making everything sickly sweet? Are we all whiny toddlers?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:27AM (2 children)
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
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
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)
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)
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: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @05:02PM
Trouble with N2 is that it is inert and doesn't affect flavor:
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=14262.0 [thenakedscientists.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:34PM
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)
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.)
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
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)
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)
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
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
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
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)
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)
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)
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
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.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:28AM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:29AM (4 children)
What's the matter? Stevia not good enough for you? There's hardly any bitter, metallic aftertaste after you get used to it.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday September 08 2017, @02:02PM (3 children)
Also, I find that sucralose (splenda) tastes a lot like sugar. Before I started using it, I looked up some of the studies on its safety, and it seemed fine.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @04:01PM (2 children)
The thing about splenda is it affects your glycemic index, the same as nutrasweet and other "diet" sweeteners do. Your body responds to it the way it would to sugar. Stevia doesn't do that. Also, stevia is kind of self-limiting. There's only so much of it you can use before something reaches a maximum sweetness that can't be surpassed, and that maximum is well below the cloying level sugar can achieve. That has a neat side benefit of training your tastebuds away from craving sweet flavors all the time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 08 2017, @05:08PM (1 child)
Stevia is awesome, yeah. I never touch HFCS now and make my own lemonade and sports drinks (same but add some salt and some KCl) with it. I'm in the weird position of being an American and hating almost all American foods, for the reasons most Europeans and Chinese point out: too sweet, too much fried stuff, no seasonal balance, no real subtlety etc.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @08:27PM
There are glimmers of better options on the horizon as far as the larger culinary scene in America is concerned. I'm a DIY-kind of guy and am quite happy with the organic, heirloom seed banks, green markets and such to secure and make my own healthy meals, but regular consumers are starting to have decent access, too. Thanks to the superfood craze you can get chia seeds, quinoa, hearts of hemp, and that kind of thing at the CostCo's of the world.
If you like to eat out it's still slim pickings, but a few have popped up. One is the Flexit Cafe [facebook.com] in Ellsworth, Maine. At a couple travel plazas in upstate New York a healthy chain has entered the mix of the usual McDonald's and Sbarros (unfortunately, I can't recall their name at the moment or find them online). The wave of people with gluten issues has helped create that market, I think, but the rest of us who don't have those issues can still piggy-back off that to get better food.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:30AM
i need it the sweets!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:40AM
unlimited supply
spiders living in my rectum
furious furry cradling my balls with a light squeeze then hard when I'm about to explode!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 08 2017, @12:27PM (3 children)
Sugar gets bad press, so rather than accept that they'll sell less Coca-Cola than they used to, they try to find a "substitute" that they can use to claim Coca-Cola is healthy.
There's no way to make Coca-Cola healthy. They need to stop pretending. If you want to drink something healthy, just have water or herbal tea.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:57PM (2 children)
Why don't they use stevia? It already exists and after a short adjustment period of about a week nobody will be able to tell anymore. You can bake with it, you can use it in hot things and cold and it can perfectly substitute every place in processed food where sugar is now. I have a ketogenic cookbook that tells you how to use it to make everything from ketchup to chocolate pudding (awesome to make what you crave from scratch, btw--highly recommend it to anyone).
The food industry really should stop killing its customers. They know they're doing it now and it's immoral.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by vux984 on Friday September 08 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
They do use stevia. They use it in dozens of products. Coca-Cola Life is mostly sweetened with Stevia; It's on shelves locally and has been for months; I've tried it... I'm primary coca-cola drinker in the house, and I thought it was ok, but i preferred regular coca-cola. However my wife hated it... so I'm skeptical that its going to take over, and I can see why CocaCola is still looking for something new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Life [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @09:21PM
Thanks, I'll look for that.
FWIW it takes me about a week to get used to stevia and stop noticing its aftertaste. That's if I only have stevia and no other kind of sweetener, because your tastebuds won't adapt otherwise. If you mix regular sugar or honey or even splenda into the mix, you'll hate stevia and not want to have it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driven on Friday September 08 2017, @12:34PM (8 children)
Coke is made with high-fructose corn syrup in the U.S.A. I guess saying "sugar replacement" sounds better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @12:47PM
They said a NEW suger replacement. As in the old sugar replacement, HFCS, isn't good enough anymore.
(Score: 2, Troll) by ledow on Friday September 08 2017, @12:48PM (5 children)
To be honest, I don't get that fuss either.
High-fructose (fructose is a sugar).
Corn. (Made with a natural ingredient).
Syrup. (liquid sugar)
Just because it has an acronym, a scary scientific-looking word, and it sounds "artificial" doesn't mean that it's not just "Liquid sugar made from cornflour".
It's people who think that SUGAR is the evil that are the real problem. It's not. Overconsumption is. Whatever they find, if you over-consume it, it will give you problems. Stop it. Even over-consumption of water kills you.
Sugar is just food. Even starches are technically sugars. Turning sugar into the devil is a red herring against people living their entire lives drinking Coke and eating McDonald's because it's convenient.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday September 08 2017, @03:40PM (2 children)
Sugar is a food that is far and away easier to overconsume than any other. That's the danger of carbohydrates. You can't eat a full day's worth of kcal in fat in one sitting without feeling really sick. You...could eat a full day's worth of protein in whey powder or something, but it's not exactly palatable or cheap to do so. But it's incredibly easy to open a bag of chips and a six pack of cokes and consume 2000-3000 kcal in one sitting. Some people don't even feel bad about doing so.
And no, just because it's from a natural source doesn't mean that HFCS [wikipedia.org] is natural. It is produced by a multi-stage chemical process:
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday September 08 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
"enzyme"
things ending in -ase
and things ending in -saccharides
are in no way indicative of a non-natural source or process.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday September 08 2017, @05:06PM
The process, which uses biological agents derived from nature, is by definition artificial. "Natural" syrups and sugars only exist at far lower purities. Sugarcane goes through an artificial process to become refined white sugar, though this process is more primitive than the HFCS chemistry. Even maple syrup, which is derived from natural tree sap, is technically artificial because of the process of boiling it down.
When it comes down to it, every sugar in our food today comes from an artificial process. Which means we did not evolve to process sugar in these high concentrations.
Artificial [dictionary.com]: made by human skill; produced by humans (opposed to natural )
Natural [dictionary.com]: existing in or formed by nature (opposed to artificial )
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 08 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)
And Cynaide is just a perfectly natural part of a peach pit...
(Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Friday September 08 2017, @07:50PM
Username checks out...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @01:54PM
HFCS is basically a manmade equivalent of honey (about half fructose, half glucose, some water).
It's the AMOUNT of sugar that kills. Processed foods have WAY, WAY too much sugar!
Honey isn't good for you either, BTW.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 08 2017, @02:43PM (5 children)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/28/diet-foods-will-cause-obesity-not-cure-it.aspx [mercola.com]
Diet Foods Will Cause Obesity, Not Cure It
August 28, 2007 • 85,138 views
Previous
Next
Why Breastfeeding in the First Hour of Life is Important
Could Too Many Antioxidants be as Bad as Too Few?
Children eating diet foods in lieu of the full-calorie versions may lead to overeating and obesity when they grow up, according to a report from the University of Alberta, Canada.
In the study, young rats were fed either a regular diet or low-calorie substitutes. The low-calorie versions led the rats to overeat, whether they were lean or genetically predisposed to obesity. Adult rats, however, did not show the same tendency to overeat.
The researchers believe that diet foods with low calorie content disrupt the body’s ability to use taste to regulate caloric intake. This would explain why older animals did not overeat, as they, unlike the younger rats, were able to rely on taste-related cues to assess the energy value of their food correctly.
Lead researcher Professor David Pierce stated, "Based on what we’ve learned, it is better for children to eat healthy, well-balanced diets with sufficient calories for their daily activities rather than low-calorie snacks or meals.”
University of Alberta August 8, 2007
BBC News August 8, 2007
Eurekalert August 8, 2007
MedicineNet.com August 8, 2007
_____________________________________
I've read that, and a few other similar articles. Basically, the taste of that sweetener sends a signal to your digestive system, "Here comes some energy and nutrition!!" When the energy and/or nutrition never arrive, the digestive system sends signals back to the brain, "We got cheated!! We need food quickly before we starve to death!"
False signals are almost never a good thing.
Lay off the "diet" trash, consume the sugar that you intend to consume, and your body will respond more reasonably. You won't feel the need to make up for those lost resources that you have promised your body with the sugar substitute.
If you want a low calory snack, eat some food that actually IS "low calory". Celery sticks, carrot sticks, something that is almost zero calory, but DOES NOT SIGNAL THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM THAT SWEETS ARE COMING!! Instead of anticipating the need to digest sugar, your system gets an honest signal. "Some roughage coming down, stand by while I search for better nutrition!!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday September 08 2017, @02:54PM
Its an exact analogy, on many levels, to the phenomena of "harmless" "non-addictive" medically prescribed painkillers leading eventually to heroin deaths.
Its almost not even an analogy, there's just some irrelevant differences in chemical structure of the chemicals involved. Same human reasoning and behavior and statistical outcome.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @11:39PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 09 2017, @12:25AM (1 child)
Bloody hell - refute the information, confirm the information, or whatever. Don't whine that you think the messanger has body odor, or his cousin gave you the drip. What I hear you saying is, "That data might be interesting, but the author has cooties, so I'm not listening!" Do a search on the subject, "Diet foods cause weight gain". Better, do diet drinks.
Sugar might be considered a drug, if we define the term rather loosely. Artificial sweeteners don't need such a loose definition. They are drugs, and they tend to be addictive. In your quest to satisfy that addiction, you incidentally consume vast quantities of unhealthy calories.
The only sweetener that I know of that is demonstrably healthier than natural sugar is honey. But, wait - isn't honey just an amalgamation of natural sugars? Refined sugar, on the other hand, isn't exactly "natural".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:17PM
Actually what the previous AC said, was: "That guy has a history of talking bullshit, so I'm not going to listen to him because he may be talking bullshit again." Which isn't an unreasonable position to take, as ignoring untrustworthy sources reduces time wasted in fact checking.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Friday September 08 2017, @02:52PM
This press release is weird on many levels
Well, which is it? They don't want sugar so we want something that tastes just like good old sugar. OK then.
Consumers tastes are changing and now they don't like ground up insects in their applesauce. Naturally our corporate reaction to that changing consumer interest, is we'd like to create an artificial flavoring that tastes just like bugs and looks like bug legs, so we can add it to otherwise clean applesauce to make it look and taste like buggy applesauce. You know, because customers don't like that, so we'll give them what they don't want, like Hollywood or prime time TV. WTF?
Sales figures disagree emphatically. Sales figures for disgustingly sweet sugar products aren't bad either... So this whole thing is fake caring. If you want to do fake caring the right way, make a ribbon for car trunk lids that looks like sugar and have a Chinese factory sell it to rubes to "increase awareness" and be done with it. This whole press release is faker than saccharine.
Never seen scientists as "the crowd" anymore, although that is kinda cool. I was worried there for a minute they'd be crowdsourcing to the general public, which would result in discovering the earth is flat and jet fuel can't melt steel beams (like that UK apartment building that didn't collapse a couple months ago).
I think everyone who tries alternative diets has the experience of seeing "low carb" or "gluten free" on the product packaging, then they try the product and it tastes like a chemical plant took a shite in their mouth. That leads to incredible negative publicity about the diet, why all low carb products taste like a re-enactment of 2G1C, so anyone on that diet must be an ascetic holiness signalling moron. However, in reality, real low carb or GF food such as a perfectly grilled juicy steak or a delicious salad actually tastes pretty good. The output of chemical waste plant, despite being GF or low carb, does not necessarily taste good.
I have no interest in chugging a canned drink that tastes like either raw molasses or chemical waste poorly imitating raw molasses. I would be interested in buying a less sweet drink. Occasionally I'll make my own lime-ade with just a dash of sugar to take the edge off the acidity (probably 1/10th the amount of "real" lemonade or "real" limeade) and that tastes pretty good. Heck sometimes I'll go so crazy as to throw a lemon wedge in my water glass with no sugar at all, how... unthinkable. I would like to experience a sugar free root beer sometime. Not a root beer made with disgusting artificial sweeteners but literally sweetener free (or at least reduced).
There is one "natural energy" lime and green tea energy drink that I occasionally consume that is sugar and artificial flavoring free, although its a bit of an acquired taste. I'm the only person in my family who can stomach them, in fact. But they're pretty good once you get used to lime and tea and its convenient when I don't have the time to brew up a pot of tea.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday September 08 2017, @04:43PM
Is this the "new coke" and the return of "coke classic" we are seeing again? Didn't they learn not to fuck with the recipe last time? Sure it was 30ish years ago now so they probably replaced enough people to forget about it or think that this is an awesome idea again.
(Score: 4, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday September 08 2017, @05:14PM
The more Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, etc. you drink, the more weight you gain? I've never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke. But trust me, it's not the worst thing. I have a little button on my desk. I press it, it buzzes the butler. And he brings me Coke. When Obama pressed that button, his imam came in. When Dick Cheney pressed it, George W. Bush would come in. And when Bill Clinton pressed it, they sent in hookers. I have not been involved with hookers in Russia. Not since I became President. 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday September 08 2017, @06:04PM
The Coke Cola Corp. wants to sell something made from the absolute least expensive ingredients and processing requirements possible. They would like to include the cheapest components that trigger a mild addictive, habit forming behavior. Then turn this product over to a multi-billion dollar marketing division to convince everyone it's anything but mildly poisonous trash.
Maybe people are finally waking up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @08:36PM
i love "coke" but i quit drinking it and "other cokes" years ago. You can quit wasting your time looking for a sugar substitute. Your whole antiquated product is being phased out by humanity. People are wising up to the fact that drinking ridiculous sugar water with added poisons, is bad for you. You know, like degenerative disease, bad. Coke is delicious, especially cherry, but i choose no Ass Cancer (or whatever else) instead. Ride the Wave of Ignorance as long as you can and start investing your money in something else right now. You can thank me later.
(Score: 1) by Kalas on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:15AM
Really? They make BILLIONS a year in profit, expect someone to come up with a "healthy" sugar substitute that would let them keep on doing so, yet offer pennies on the dollar of what such they're asking for would actually be worth, doubtless without even the most paltry royalties offered on products using this new substitute.
I really hope anyone clever enough to invent such a thing wouldn't be so naive as to sell it to the Coca-Cola Corporation through this competition.
Hell, if you really could make the perfect sugar substitute, with the right marketing help and some luck, you could probably supplant the CCC as the new king of sweet soft drinks.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday September 12 2017, @09:48AM
The number one item that I want to avoid in my diet is caffeine—I never got addicted to it, and intend to keep it that way. As with all things, sugar in moderation is just fine. It's only 30 calories per teaspoon, so one or two teaspoons each day aren't going to make a difference in your weight: I maintain a constant weight in the lower end of normal for my height and age, without avoiding sugar completely.
Coke contains both caffeine and an amount of sugar (or HFC or whatever high-calorie sweetener is used in the wrong side of the Atlantic) way beyond what can be considered as moderation, so I wouldn't touch it with a 304.8 cm pole.