Still sweet, but different: Coca-Cola switches to cane sugar, Trump rejoices

Coca-Cola has agreed to change its production in the United States to use good old cane sugar, abandoning corn syrup, announced on Wednesday US President Donald Trump, himself a big consumer of the most famous soft drink.

While the food giant uses conventional sucrose in Europe, American consumers swallow high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) through the bubbles.

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"I have discussed with Coca-Cola the use of REAL cane sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed," Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

"I'd like to thank everyone at Coca-Cola. It's going to be a very good decision on their part – you'll see. It's simply better!" he said happily.

"We appreciate President Trump's enthusiasm for our iconic brand," the American company briefly responded on its website.

HFCS spread in the United States in the 1970s thanks to government subsidies to corn producers and high tariffs on cane sugar.

Coca-Cola's decision could affect corn growers in the Corn Belt, a region of the Midwest that is a major source of Donald Trump voters.

Both HFCS and sucrose, more commonly known as "table sugar," are composed of fructose and glucose. However, their structures differ: HFCS contains free (unbound) fructose and glucose in varying proportions, while in sucrose, these two sugars are chemically bound.

Sugars are said to be “free” depending on their sweetening power.

However, these structural differences do not appear to have a significant impact on health. In 2022, clinical studies found no significant difference between HFCS and sucrose in terms of weight gain or heart health.

The only notable difference: an increase in an inflammation marker in people consuming SGHF.

American consumers sometimes have access to Mexican Coca-Cola, already produced with cane sugar, which is sold at a higher price in some stores because it is considered better in terms of flavor.

Donald Trump is a heavy drinker of Diet Coke, sweetened with aspartame, a compound considered "possibly carcinogenic" by experts at the World Health Organization.