If I offered you big red, Dr Pepper, sprite or water, what you taking?

@Poppies I wondered, so I googled: "High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and table sugar (sucrose) are nutritionally and metabolically nearly identical, both composed of glucose and fructose." Seems the whole "sugar" (cane? beet? something else?) versus high fructose corn syrup -- aka sugar -- controversy is more propaganda than scientific reality. But it's made millions for health experts riding the propaganda.

@ChipmunkErnie I won't contest nutritionally and metabolically. But I know first hand that the flavor of the product with sugar is superior.

@Poppies How do they make that obvious (the real sugar version)? Do they use a red bottle cap? Or is it seasonal, or advertised as Kosher?

@Heartlander nothing obvious like that. The only place I can find it is online or in a specialty soda pop shop where everything they sell is made with real sugar. It costs about double, especially when you are paying for shipping.

@Poppies Not 100% sure, but I THINK sugar costs so much here in the USA because of protective tariffs put in place a century or so ago to protect sugar farmers here in the USA.

@Poppies It may have varied by location but I have a memory of "Mexican Coke" being advertised and distinguished by a bright read bottle cap.

Family on my mom's side was mostly cane farmers and I remember as a kid the disgruntled conversation about the beverage industry switching to high fructose corn syrup during the war and not returning to real sugar after the war.

Sugar was rationed during the war years and in some places for years after the war, and to this day it's difficult to find real sugar in any processed food item.

@Heartlander They sell Mexican Coke here--they put up a sign on the aisle in the grocery store. I never noticed the bottle cap, though.