[Paulus Invictus]

It's not just sugar but the "fake" man-made sugar from corn, the high fructose corn syrup that is the main culprit for the huge increase in diabetis and obesity. The food and juice manufacturers put it in most every food and drink. It's much cheaper than real cane sugar. Look it up and learn.

Even Pepsi got the message recently and produced a new "Throwback" Pepsi made with only cane sugar. It tastes great, better than their sucrose-laden drink, but it is hard to find in the stores. Costco sells Mexican-made Coca Cola that is also made with cane sugar. It's not as tasty as the Throwback Pepsi, but both are bad for your health.

[Bigg Red]

Not a soda drinker myself — one eating vice I don’t have —but I recently purchased Sierra Mist for my husband because I had learned that it was made without HFCS. I can’t tell you yet how he likes it, as he has not tried it yet.

[WackySam]

It's not just sugar but the "fake" man-made sugar from corn, the high fructose corn syrup that is the main culprit for the huge increase in diabetis and obesity.

No, it's not. It's the qty of sugars being consumed that is causing the increase. You could replace all of the HFCS in foods with any other type of sugar and the results would be identical. This increase in the amount of sugars consumed by Americans is mostly due to the arrival of "low fat" and "no fat" foods- where the fats were replaced by sugars.

[exDemMom]

It's not just sugar but the "fake" man-made sugar from corn, the high fructose corn syrup that is the main culprit for the huge increase in diabetis and obesity. The food and juice manufacturers put it in most every food and drink. It's much cheaper than real cane sugar. Look it up and learn.

Even Pepsi got the message recently and produced a new "Throwback" Pepsi made with only cane sugar. It tastes great, better than their sucrose-laden drink, but it is hard to find in the stores. Costco sells Mexican-made Coca Cola that is also made with cane sugar. It's not as tasty as the Throwback Pepsi, but both are bad for your health.

Chemically, I think the major difference between corn syrup and cane sugar (sucrose) is that the former is a mixture of fructose and glucose in monosaccharide form, and the latter is fructose and glucose covalently bonded as disaccharides. Your body makes and breaks those bonds fairly readily, so there is no reason to think that, biologically speaking, the difference is significant. Also, I have no idea what you mean by "man-made", since all sugars are extracted from plants.

I don't drink sodas. The taste of them isn't that good, and trying to swallow a carbonated fizzy liquid feels like trying to swallow a suspension of tiny glass shards. Plus, the sugar in sodas and other drinks makes them so sweet and thick, they could almost be used as a pancake syrup. Why so many people like them is a complete mystery to me.