Why does soda need such a surplus of sugar to be sweet?

[Drain Bamage]

It's insane when you think about how much sugar is in soda. 40-50 grams in a 12 oz can. That's 15 sugar packets in a 12oz drink. That is insane. Why do they put so much sugar?

I can make a 12oz tea or coffee drink and use 2-3 sugar packets which is 6-9 grams of sugar and it tastes sweet as fuck. Sugar has 5-7x the amount of sugar and is maybe... 25% sweeter.

 

[Smokes]

Cause Salt would be Nasty

 

[Domitian]

 

[rocketskates]

They carbonate water and then have a diabetic pee in it

 

[Midnighter]

To get you hooked on it easier.

 

[Drain Bamage]

Cause Salt would be Nasty

 

[dildos]

Because you touch yourself at night ts.

 

[ElKarlo]

Honestly good question. I started drinking tonic water with a bit if juice in it. It actually tastes better than say oj. Too sweet as is. Think they'll make sodas with less sugar in the near future. Hard to get the taste right and be able to mass produce it

 

[Sunnyvale TP]

How else are Americans supposed to tack on mass?

 

[Long Dark Blues]

To mask the taste of the cocaine.

 

[Plastikman_Eire]

Because the other base flavourings must be bitter as fuck.

 

[Patrick Jane]

One of the reasons is that soda is supposed to be consumed when it's very cold. You don't experience tastes as intensely with cold products.

 

[Anaconda99]

More sugar means more people addicted to sugar. I know some people who drink 2 big bottles a day.

 

[Drain Bamage]

Theres some typos in the OP but yall get my ghis

 

[thehighking]

More sugar means more people addicted to sugar. I know some people who drink 2 big bottles a day.

That's probably as unhealthy as getting drunk every day.

 

[Anaconda99]

That's probably as unhealthy as getting drunk every day.

Might be or even worse depending on how much alcohol you drink. Usually people that drink that much are fat and doesnt matter how much you tell them they cant stop. 2 bottles is like 1000 calories. So you take 1000 calories into you but you havent actually consumed anything that makes you full.

 

[Renard]

We had a taste interactions segment in one of my chemistry classes. Co2, bitterness, cold temperature, salt, and acidity all lower the impression of sweetness in a drink. It's like corporations went out of their way to create a trojan horse beverage that can house as much sugar as possible while showing it as little as possible. Gotta get people addicted so they buy more.

 

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

lol tahts gros i havent had a soda in over 3 years its literaly poisin

 

[SalvadorAllende]

I'm drinking sugar free soda these days and is still sweet.

 

[JSN]

We had a taste interactions segment in one of my chemistry classes. Co2, bitterness, cold temperature, salt, and acidity all lower the impression of sweetness in a drink. It's like corporations went out of their way to create a trojan horse beverage that can house as much sugar as possible while showing it as little as possible. Gotta get people addicted so they buy more.

ding modern sodas are universally cold, have at least citric acid, and are carbonated, all of which universally lower how sweet a drink tastes.

I don’t think sodas were engineered to be sugar bombs, but it goes back to their original function as tonics. Coca-Cola was originally a drink meant to make then wonderdrug cocaine palatable. Which is a similar problem to making an aspirin drink taste good. Carbonating, adding an acid bite, and adding sugar are standard ways to go from something this is just insanely bitter to a balanced, enjoyable drink.

Tonic Water is a related example. It was originally a malaria treatment. The active ingredient quinine is bitter asf so the solution is carbonated and lots of sugar added. What’s crazy to me about tonic water is even in its modern form with tons of sugar and very little quinine, it’s so gross and bitter that I never even knew that it had sugar.

I think there’s a strong positive feedback loop going too. People over time have gotten used to sweet sodas and then the tendency upon reformulation is going to be to make them even sweeter.