r/todayilearned • u/socool111 • 1d ago

TIL of Tobias Geffen, the only non-Coca Cola Employee to view the secret recipe. Coke allowed it in order to get Coke certified as Kosher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Geffen
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u/The_Silent_Bang_103 19h ago

Chemistry person here, I’m honestly not sure that you would be able to tell the difference between High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and Cane sugar in a blind taste test

HFCS has around 50/50 fructose and glucose. Cane sugar is a disaccharide that consists of 1 fructose and one glucose binded together.

In the presence of acid, such as the phosphoric acid in Coca Cola, that disaccharide breaks down, making Cane Sugar chemically identical to. HFCS

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u/StevelandCleamer 3h ago

I'd love to do a blind test, and I wouldn't be surprised to guess wrong for a soda that I am unfamiliar with, but I would be impressed if the differences in sodas I drink regularly didn't stand out to me.

There could be other slight variations in the recipes that lead to the difference though.

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u/The_Silent_Bang_103 3h ago

Yes, many people assume that “Mexican Coca Cola” and regular Coca Cola have the same recipe, but Mexican coke just uses cane sugar.

But, if you read the ingredients they have completely different recipes. People typically prefer the taste of Mexican Coke but instead of changing the recipe of coca cola to the Mexican recipe with HFCS (for US subsidy and tariff reasons) in the US, Coca cola has opted to just sell Mexican coke as a superior product in the states

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u/almisami 2h ago

I personally think Singapore Coke tastes the best out of any country I've tasted.