I used to be a big Pepsi drinker, until I accepted that I was a big Pepsi drinker. Mostly eliminating sodas from my diet made me lose a fair bit of weight. I still have one a couple times a month, when the wife and I go on a date, but after awhile I just stopped missing the taste, as my body was presumably weaned off the sugar addiction. Eventually I started avoiding things that were sugary, because now if I eat too much sweets it makes me feel ill.
Im still a big guy, but my weight is slowly trending downwards, and I feel better now than I ever did before. It’s funny, they tell you that sugar is close to pure energy for the the body, but once I cut back on it I found I had more energy than I did before. I even started running last year.
Anyway, the point of my rambling is to tell you all that they’re all pretty much poison, no matter the brand, and you’ll start feeling better if you stop drinking them at all. If I could do it, so can you, and you’ll thank yourself later. I promise.
When I was in high school in the 90’s, we had a soda machine that was owned by the school, and had all the different brands - Coke, Pepsi, RC, etc.
One year, they took out the old, independent machines and replaced them with Pepsi machines that were owned by either Pepsi Co or some nameless vendor. They only contained Pepsi brand products - Pepsi, Mountain Dew, etc.
At first we were annoyed, but eventually… I’m now a Pepsi guy for life. I drastically prefer it to Coke or anything else.
At the time, their ad slogan was “The Choice of a New Generation” - And they ensured that by making contracts favorable to school district’s bottom lines in a successful attempt to groom me into being a Pepsi guy.
And it worked. I was groomed, and I still abide by my programming to this day, even while being fully aware of it.
If you think you’re immune to corporate programming because you’re aware of it and are a skeptic at heart - you aren’t.
I honestly think people who prefer one over the other would not be able to tell them apart in a blind test.
Funny you mention that! Pepsi literally made this a huge ad campaign in the 80’s. They found that in blind tests between Coke and Pepsi, the vast majority of people picked Pepsi as their favourite, even the people who said they preferred drinking Coke.
Oddly enough, Coke ran a campaign at the same time saying “I picked Coke” and it was a smash hit. Pepsi ended up being meme’d on despite their blind tests showing they were better. It’s great proof that what sells a product isn’t how good the product itself is, but how good its marketing is.
One idea I heard is that Pepsi is sweeter, so people prefer it when it’s only a shot glass amount. But a full can people prefer less sweet coke.
+1 and the wiki actually mentions that theory,
In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), author Malcolm Gladwell presents evidence that suggests Pepsi’s success over Coca-Cola in the “Pepsi Challenge” is a result of the flawed nature of the “sip test” method.[6] His research shows that tasters will generally prefer the sweeter of two beverages based on a single sip, even if they prefer a less sweet beverage over the course of an entire can.[7] Additionally, the challenge more often than not labeled the Pepsi cup with an “M” and the Coca-Cola cup with a “Q,” suggesting letter preference may drive some of the results.[8]
Tested myself in an a-b test a while ago and tried to figure out what intricate differences are in the tastes specifically, after being a pepsi fan. Turns out here in europe pepsi tastes a lot sweeter, while coke has a lot more sparkle. The lesser sweetness turned me into a coke fan.
Many people don’t have a good pallet, but it’s pretty easy to tell the difference via the texture. Pepsi is a bit more syrupy, and sweeter, whereas coke is a more bitter-sweet taste. Both are absolutely carb bombs, but as soon as you spend just a little time comparing the tastes of the two, you can pick out their distinct flavor notes easily. I’m only comparing the shitty HFCS beverages in America which both coke and pepsi use. Cane Sugar Pepsi, vs Cane Sugar Coke I’m not so sure about. I do prefer Can Sugar Coke (i.e. mexican coke) over HFCS. I haven’t had a cane sugar pepsi in years.
*palate. A pallet is what you transport stuff on. (EDIT: Actually a pallet can also be the word for a crude type of sleeping arrangement)
But I think I saw a thing about a blind test where what people said they preferred weren’t what they actually said they enjoyed the most during the blind test. I don’t remember whether it was coca people enjoying pepsi or pepsi people enjoying RC or whatever, but it was something.
Pepsi is definitely sweeter, at least the 0cal products. Both taste fine.
I have done that before and I was able to tell the difference. Coca cola has this “soapy” taste to it which I sometimes prefer but usually I prefer pepsi
Well I hate fizz.
So. Pepsi wins easy.
There’s a funny anecdote from Professor Ian Roberts that he tells at the launch for his book “The Energy Glut”.
He was approached by coca cola to carry out a study for them and they even suggested they would write the proposal for him so they could work together.
He suggested his own proposal that he research the road deaths and injuries attributed to transporting their nutritionally valueless sugary drink around the world.
He didn’t hear back from them!
Sodas in the US have about 6 - 7 times the amount of sugar as the rest of the world.
False.
And? It’s fuckin’ soda, nobody goes in expecting health food.
And…it can be important to understand the specific nutritional content of things we put in our bodies and not think of it as a binary between “health food” and “everything else.” Otherwise if I’m not drinking water I might as well just drink kerosene, right?
There are also cultural and socioeconomic things to understand around how different industries operate around the world and how different globally-available products differ in different markets. Like how Pizza Hut in Japan offers a pizza with mayo and diced potatoes.
single-serving cans > 2L bottles
At least if you are drinking that by yourself and have no one else to share it with.
Bigger bottles are better for the environment.
Yes, but so does drinking water only
What’s your point?
I’m a dr Pepper kind of guy, but when it comes to cabornation, coke goes WAY too hard for my taste. Like I just taste the sourness of the carbonation. Nothing else.
The “burn” of the fizz is what I’m addicted to, I’ve realized. I feel like I need that icy throat burn for a meal to be complete.
Fritz > Coke > Pepsi