Sugar High

The other day I saw some Dr. Pepper at Wal-Mart that had the Imperial Sugar "Pure Cane" logo on them. I was kind of curious, even though I don't drink Dr. Pepper unless the server misunderstands my request for Diet Coke and I don't drink the non-diet carbonated beverages on a regular basis.

One reason is that since the late 1970s and early 1980s, these beverages have been made with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is cheaper than sugar. It's also gooey and gummy to my taste, especially after I switched to the unleaded version of most soft drinks while working for the newspaper. If there's nothing else around and I'm desperate, I'll have one of these, but since I need to rinse my mouth out with about a gallon of water afterwards so my tongue won't feel like it's packed in light sweet crude I doubt I'll ever re-develop my taste for it.

But I was intrigued and picked up a six-pack. Holy cow, this stuff is 150 calories of crack in a can.  Just as sweet as the corn syrup version, but next to no gloppy taste to get in the way of the carbonation tang.

The best-known bottling plant to stick with sugar following its price spike is in Dublin, Texas, leading the sugared version of the drink to sometimes be called "Dublin Dr. Pepper," even though some other bottling plants around the country also continue to use sugar instead of corn syrup. Jones Soda is another fairly well-known company that makes all of its non-diet products with sugar as well.

In a way, I'm glad that pop bottlers made the switch -- I might not have switched myself if feeding my carbonation habit didn't involve something better poured on pancakes instead of drunk through a straw. As I said, I don't even like Dr. Pepper all that much but I could see myself drinking every one of the 70-plus pounds I've lost in the last five years and then some back on if I were to buy it on a regular basis or if my preferred carbonated beverage were to be made from cane sugar instead of corn syrup.