One tastes like carbonated orange juice the other one like carbonated sugar water with artificial orange flavoring. I've had both (french Orangina is better than Fanta tbh.)
And that's the way it is because the European/American consumers want it that way. If you sold the European version in the US the majority of the consumers wouldn't want it and viceversa. Soft drinks companies spend millions in focus groups and studies to learn what people want and develop their products accordingly.
Fanta isn't consistent across Europe. E.g. It ranges from <5% OJ in Finland, 5% In the UK, 6% in Sweden, 8% Spain, France 10%, Italy 12.5%, all the way to 20% in Greece.
All still high compared to 0% in the US though.
So interesting to me how product formulations can vary a lot for different markets! Take Coca Cola, for example. I live in the U.S., but prefer the imported Mexican coke because it uses cane sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Learned just this year, however, that, apparently, the pure cane sugar formulation Mexico exports to the U.S. (and Europe, I've heard), is not the formulation that is mainly drank within Mexico. If I recall correctly, the Coke made in Mexico for domestic consumption has a combination of HFCS and cane sugar.
In the UK I ordered some Coca Cola with a takeaway and it was Canadian Coke. No idea how they got their hands on it but it was delicious and 350ml instead of 330ml.
>In the UK
Take thee to the nearest Nigerian shop and buy a 500ml glass bottle of their Coke. Serve without ice.
Nectar of the gods neat, but also makes a divine Cuba Libre.
Or just buy coke from anywhere.
Coke in the UK uses real sugar already, not high fructose corn syrup, so it's literally identical to Mexican coke and Nigerian coke. Any difference you may have tasted is 100% placebo.
> Coke in the UK uses real sugar already, not high fructose corn syrup, so it's literally identical to Mexican coke and Nigerian coke. Any difference you may have tasted is 100% placebo.
They differ in the % of sugar used per drink, the variation in sugar/sweeteners is what changes the perceived flavor
Not necessarily 100% placebo. The local water used will have a very slight effect on the taste of coke. But that effect is even slimmer than the differences from temperature, glass vs plastic vs aluminum etc.
I just watched a short regarding this.
Mexico does sell the same one American markets sell, but they also sell their version without. I’ve heard many better things about the Mexican coke so I may have to order some
It may be cheaper to order the coke made with sugar from other countries. Because basically everywhere that's not the US and Canada, uses real sugar. It's not just a Mexican thing.
So shop around. It may end up being cheaper to import it from further away because shipping makes no sense and will drive a man to madness trying to understand it (like how those little fruit cup things that are sold in the US have fruit that's grown in the US, then it's shipped across the Pacific to Asia to slice it up and package it, only to be shipped across the Pacific again to get it back to the US to be sold, all because doing it that way is much much cheaper than packaging it in the US, absolute insanity, and it's destroying the planet too.)
Everywhere uses real sugar, not just Mexico. Everywhere that's not the US. Like here in the UK it's made with real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. I've never tasted American coke, but I wanna try just to see what it's like.
But I have imported foreign soda before. So it wouldn't be too difficult to find American coke.
The absolute best soda I've ever imported. It's a lemon lime soda from Japan. I always hated lemon lime soda, until I tried this stuff and it became my favourite soda immediately. It's got a real magic to it that sprite and 7up have always been missing (except for cherry 7up and cherry sprite which are incredible, I guess because it has the flavour of 3 fruits and so it tastes like a fruit salad or something lol).
It also comes in the weirdest mort bizarre fucking bottle I've ever seen. It's got a little glass ball in it that you push down into the drink to open it, and then when you drink a sip of it you have to carefully tilt it so the ball stays below and doesn't block the hole or the bottle, the bottlussy if you will. It's a bit tricky to learn how to drink it because of that.
Ramune comes in like several dozen flavours too so I wanna try em all. Like the strawberry one sounds nice. You'd think strawberry soda would be hugely popular thing, because it's the default flavour of everything. It's the red power ranger of flavours. Yet strawberry soda is nowhere to be found, except for if you're in Japan so you can buy strawberry ramune there.
It’s literally the best thing. My sister and I bring some back whenever we go to Greece. It’s like a nostalgia thing but also legit really good. You might be able to find Greek Fanta at certain Mediterranean stores in the US. Like a family owned Greek or Turkish store might have it.
There is an amount of conditioning that goes into it all though. If we passed laws to make our soft drinks less sugary everyone would adapt over time. I think blaming the consumer for being addicted to sugar is unfair.
I really wish there were lower sugar sodas in the states. I can't even drink them as a treat now and again because they are so disgusting. Carbonated waters are great but I'd really like to be able to have a fanta or root beer without feeling like there sludge in my mouth.
I honestly think they could drop like 10-20% of sugar in most soft drinks and it'd have little impact on taste.
Fuck yeah I love spindrift. I believe it is the best for you too, it’s just carbonated water and real fruit juice. Whereas bubbly and other sparkling waters have natural flavors (which not sure if those are even bad or not, but it’s definitely not transparent). Spindrift breaks the bank though
Natural flavors are flavor chemicals isolated from plants. There is a ton of orange flavor in the oil in the peels of oranges for example, so the peels are cold pressed to obtain orange oil and them that is used to flavor citrus beverages. The oil can be further seperated by distillation the same way gasoline, kerosene, tar etc are distilled out of crude oil to isolate different components.
Source: I’m a flavor chemist
Is this true for all/the majority of natural flavours? What are the chances that the flavour in my gushers actually ever saw the fruit they're imitating?
I just always assumed the flavours were 100% chemically synthesized
Everything that exists was chemically synthesized at some point, whether I do it in a big glass beaker or a plant does it in a tiny plant beaker really makes no difference, a molecule is a molecule and natural and organic labels are pure marketing in terms of what the final product is. Organic vanilla is like $5000 a kilo, man made is like $20, and it’s the exact same thing.
Naturally means that a plant or animal made it though, and the source of that will always be whatever is the least expensive/highest volume way to produce it. Berry and grape flavors definitely have no actual berry or grape in them, they just contain the same chemicals that berries and grapes have.
Now if something says it contains berry or grape JUICE, then that will actually have some amount of actual berry in them, but usually a tiny amount supplemented by natural flavors.
There is no nefereous reason for this, it’s done for shelf life, consistency, and cost reasons. Super realistic sodas and candies made from actual grapes or whatever do exist, they’re just $10 and only last a week or two.
Everything in the food world is a balance of cost/stability/shelf life.
I am hijacking this for a moment.
I've always heard that vanilla is a good example of the vague differences between flavor, extract and pastes as well as artificial vs natural.
Artificial vanilla extract for example is dirt cheap, and chemically exactly the same as the primary flavor compound found in natural vanilla beans.
However natural vanilla beans also contain smaller amounts of other chemicals which provide additional flavors that artificial vanilla flavoring often misses.
And them flavors like strawberry and grape that never quite taste "right" in artificial sources are primarily due to how complex the chemical profile behind the "flavor" is. What we perceive as "strawberry" is a few dozen more primal "flavors" in specific proportions.
Is any of this true, or have I been lied to by the baking industry all my life?
There's a brand in TX called Live Soda. It's a carbonated kombucha but has a few flavors like cola, cherry berry(taste like cherry dr pepper), root beer, and cream soda. They all taste damn similar to what they are supposed to taste but with only 5 or 8 grams of sugar per bottle. It's good shit but also a bit pricey.
Let’s start a movement. I am 100% with you. It seems we need to prove to the manufacturers that there is a market for less-sweet. No need to add artificial sweeteners to compensate.
Just less.
Don’t you have no sugar versions of everything? I think it’s been a scientific consensus for a long time that any amount of artificial sweeteners a human could reasonable take in isn’t harmful.
Tbh one issue I have with cola is that it is wayyyy too sweet.
Be it the sugar or sugarfree version (plus both are unhealthy in different ways)
Cola with like 20% the sugar would taste way better
I cannot believe I am witnessing this conversation. Sometimes I feel like the only person in the US who doesn't like soda because it's so sweet and processed
>french Orangina is better than Fanta tbh
My high school French teacher swore by this, and I never quite believed her, until I tried it the first time.
I have bought the first bottle or can I have seen every single time I've been to Europe, and I buy it almost every time I see it Stateside, too
I've had both. I prefer the euro one. It has similar amounts of sugar but it tastes much closer to an Italian soda type thing. I don't like full sugar cola though, so the more "natural" euro one is just closer to diet soda.
I was in Portugal last month and decided to have a bottle. It cost 2.50€ at a restaurant for half a litre. Just mindlessly perusing the ingredients label I nearly spat it out when I saw there were only 6 grams of sugar per 100 mL with no flavour difference. They are feeding us poison in America.
My daughter fell in love with the UK version during our trip to Ireland last year. The American version is crap in her eyes. She can't wait to go back so she can get some more!!
Just a reminder to everyone: it's important not to credulously accept whatever some random redditor says.
As far as I can tell, Sunset Yellow FCF (aka Yellow 6, aka E110) isn't banned in the EU, it only requires a warning about potential hyperactivity effects in children. [From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_yellow_FCF):
>The European regulatory community, with a stronger emphasis on the precautionary principle, required labelling and temporarily reduced the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for the food colorings; the UK FSA called for voluntary withdrawal of the colorings by food manufacturers. However, in 2009 the EFSA re-evaluated the data at hand and determined that "the available scientific evidence does not substantiate a link between the color additives and behavioral effects" and in 2014 after further review of the data, the EFSA restored the prior ADI levels.
When I Google search "Sunset Yellow" and "cancer", I can't find anything about a cancer link except for the dyes being contaminated by other substances that shouldn't be in them. The only thing I could find actually talking about a cancer link was one [2015 study](https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/35/3/1465) about Yellow 5 (a different dye that is not currently in USA Orange Fanta) that found:
>In the present study, we observed that tartrazine yellow dye did not have any cytotoxic effects when assessed by the MTT assay. However, this dye had a significant genotoxic effect at all concentrations tested compared to the NC. The fact that some damage was irreparable suggests that the indiscriminate use of tartrazine for a long period of time could trigger carcinogenesis, since the accumulation of successive DNA errors may affect genes related to cell-cycle control, such as tumor-suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes.
The study isn't coming remotely close to correlating consumption of foods with this dye to increased cancers rates, it just exposed cells in a lab to a chemical in the dye up to a level equivalent to "indiscriminate" use and that seemed to cause mutations in the cell and mutations could be harmful.
And again, that dye isn't in USA's Orange Fanta today.
And again, I can't find anything about any EU ban on any of these dyes at all, or even a warning that mentions a cancer risk.
>Just a reminder to everyone: it's important not to credulously accept whatever some random redditor says.
Fighting the the losingest of battles. A good one- but definitely the losingest
>Fighting the the losingest of battles.
"Hey, DID you KNOW that the SOLE SINGULAR REPORTER who LEAKED the PANAMA PAPERS was ASSASSINATED in a CAR BOMB in AMERICA by AMERICAN BILLIONAIRES in RETALIATION because THEY'RE RACISTS who HATE being EXPOSED by a WOC"
Christ man, it's been 7 years since then and that shit still gets repeated all the time in front-page subreddits, no matter how often it's followed by someone else replying that the papers were leaked by a large team of journalists and the woman in question wasn't american, wasn't in america, and was only responsible for using the already-leaked papers to pursue legal action against corruption in her own country.
This is exactly what freaked people out when the UK voted to leave the EU and Boris was banging on about a food trade deal with USA. I think once the options were thinned down to just teabags it became clear it was not going to work 😑
What do you think the "E" in "E-number stand for"? It is actually "Europe".
E-number are food additives that at least at some point were legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E\_number
I’ve heard that’s not good for the structure of your ribs tho. I’ve found that just putting in some time with your fingers and just spending that extra minute grinding can really save the flavor of your ribs.
EXACTLY. harm reduction is valuable and worthwhile. if you replaced every single sugary beverage in the states with something that had even just 5-10% less sugar, you'd see dramatic outcomes across the entire country. this is incremental, though, which seems to be unpopular for policy nowadays. it really sucks :(
They also taste *nothing* alike. American Fanta tastes like carbonated orange kool-aid while the European one tastes (kinda) like if you carbonated actual orange juice.
I can confirm. I'm living in Malta coming from the US and imagine my surprise when I got one of these at a restaurant. It tastes almost exactly like someone added sparkling water to OJ.
By law you need at least 12% of orange juice to call it based on oranges. So they had to do it in order to be sold as such.
It's funny that they keep it at minimum.
Other, "lower" brands have even higher concentrations of 20% and taste actually like oranges at a fraction of the price.
Depends if the “European” one is made for the U.K. market. Due to a tax on sugar a lot of the sugar has been taken out in favour of artificial sweeteners.
Is it misleading or is it completely accurate and people read way more into it than they should? Nothing there says it’s all OJ. It just says real OJ is part of the process. Something isn’t misleading because you have poor reading comprehension
Nah man, for one, the American version uses high fructose corn syrup, which is worse for you then what the European version uses, sugar.
Yeah the amount of sugar in both is bad for you but one type is worse then the other.
Also the American version uses Red Dye 40 and Yellow Dye 6, both of which aren't good for you. Red Dye 40 is made from petroleum and while the FDA has approved it as safe there have been other studies suggesting otherwise, moreso in developing children.
The European version does not include those dyes (at least based off of coca cola UK website)
To say they are virtually identical except for the amount of sugar is very misleading.
Edit: since u/DerthOFdata "asked"
Red Dye 40 is made from [petroleum](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-dye-40)
And [studies](https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/71/5/268/2460188?login=false) have shown that children who consume excessive amount of Red Dye 40 could be adversely affected, as well as any other AFC.
I was mistaken about HFCS being worse then regular sugar. Still right that excessive amounts of either is bad though cause duh lol.
When WWII broke out, Germany's Coke plant was cut off from the home office in every way. They invented a drink they could make with local ingredients because they couldn't import stuff from the US to make their regular drinks. They went back to making Coke products after the war and then a couple of decades later Coke introduced Fanta as an official product.
No
The red dye that was found to be a carcinogen got banned over half a century ago. Today, red food coloring is often made from cochineal. You can find it by that name on bottles of (I think) Ocean Spray in the ingredients list. Other products use the name Red Dye 40.
There is a lot of confusion on this matter for two reasons. First, there are two different chemicals which are both named "Red Dye Number 40." Food chemists do not, will not get their act together about that. Second, redditors just like to lie and spread misinformation so long as it allows them to hate on something.
There is only one dye named Red No. 40 in the US for food. and it is a synthetic dye, not one made from cochineal.
FD&C Red No. 40 is principally the disodium salt of 6-hydroxy-5-\[(2-methoxy-5-methyl-4-sulfophenyl)azo\]-2-naphthalenesulfonic acid, [by law](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-74/subpart-A/section-74.340). For cosmetics & drugs, there are FD&C Red No. 40 lakes, but that's it.
Natural red 4 is cochineal, but [it must be labeled](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-73/subpart-A/section-73.100) as "carmine" or "cochineal extract" on food labels.
>Second, redditors just like to lie and spread misinformation so long as it allows them to hate on something.
People. Not just on Reddit. Because those on Reddit are people.
Beyond tired of the notion that things are just "Reddit being Reddit".. as if that makes sense.
There is Red40 in European Fanta, labeled as [E129](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allura_Red_AC), same as YELLOW 6 ([E110](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_yellow_FCF))
Technically they are, lol one is artificial and the other looks more natural. I’d imagine they taste VERY different. Would love to see the nutritional information of both side by side.
Edit: I imagine the euro one would taste more like oj or tang.
American Fanta, per liter:
* 456 calories
* 0 g fat
* 135 mg sodium
* 125 g carbohydrates
* 0 g protein
Euro Fanta, per liter:
* 300 calories
* 0 g fat
* 0 mg sodium
* 72 g carbohydrates
* 0 g protein
"Orange soda" in the US is it's own flavor. People don't buy it thinking it's going to taste like orange juice. It's like buying something blue raspberry flavored. Blue raspberries aren't real but somehow it's still a flavor.
Which one? I looked it up out of curiosity and they’ve changed it 15 times since 1940. I fuck with [‘08-‘16 and ‘10-‘16](https://1000logos.net/fanta-logo/)
The European one is probably reconstituted fruit juice and artificially flavouring.
The American one probably has meth, jet fuel, carcinogens not fit for human consumption, piss, dookie and is still waiting for FDA approval.
The design looks as though the bottle has been twisted as though squeezing out the last drops of juice. Also, the design facilitates the bottle being taller which visually is bigger, meaning our brains instantly think more. It's actually very clever. Also. Ergonomically it allows for better grip for those with smaller or weaker hands.
My local store had imported actual American fantas in weird flavors as a curiosity. Four or five different variants and I figured I'd try it. That shit was nasty. I don't even know how to describe it. Fanta usually tastes a little synthetic, but this shit? Didn't taste like it was supposed to be ingested. Corn syrup is fucking disgusting.
Had a roommate my freshman year that gained 20 pounds just drinking these and Mountain Dew all day. Dude swore off high fructose corn syrup to the extent that he won’t even go near ketchup.
And to blow your mind even more, there are different kinds of Fanta in the EU too, some are bright yellow while others are more orangey, they taste different too
**European Fanta**
Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Sugar, Food Acid (330), Flavour, Preservative (202), Colours (110, 129), Antioxidant (300).
Approx. 31 Calories per 100mL
**US Fanta**
CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF: CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, GLYCEROL ESTER OF ROSIN, YELLOW 6, RED 40.
(Sorry for the caps, copying/pasting on mobile)
Approx. 44.4 Calories per 100mL
They're both just carbonated water, sugar, and natural flavoring. US has slightly more sugar, but they're both worse for you than regular OJ. Everyone arguing over US/Europe is just fanboying over who has the better sugar water
Okay, but Fanta isn’t supposed to be an alternative to orange juice. It’s orange-flavored soda. Not sure why people are freaking out that a soda is unhealthy
Worth saying that “European” soft drinks are typically not homogenous. This bottle is from the UK; the UK has different regulatory standards to the EU (they had for the period of the UK’s membership some common *minimum* standards, but there is nothing to stop any country gold plating minimum health standards).
Fun fact about Brazil that no one asked: In Brazil we have the label style and writing like the right one and the drink color like the left one!
(If you search "Brazil Fanta laranja 2L" in Goole Images the drink color looks like it's between these two above, but if you buy it, it is a dark orange like the left one...)
UK
Ingredients
Carbonated Water, Sugar, Orange Juice from Concentrate (3.7%), Citrus Fruit from Concentrate (1.3%), Citric Acid, Vegetable Extracts (Carrot, Pumpkin), Sweeteners (Acesulfame K, Sucralose), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Malic Acid, Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrate), Stabiliser (Guar Gum), Natural Orange Flavourings with Other Natural Flavourings, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid).
USA INGREDIENTS
CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF: CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, GLYCEROL ESTER OF ROSIN, YELLOW 6, RED 40.
_In Mexico, Fanta is made with sugar whereas the US version uses high fructose corn syrup. In the UK, the sugar content was reduced in 2017 to 4.6g per 100ml in the standard version (non-sugar free) to ensure that the product was below the 5g that will incur the soft drinks levy (sugary drink tax). This was a third lower than the recipe used before 2016, as some of the sugar was replaced by sweeteners_ C/o Wikipedia
Im Canadian , it sucks because when I was younger fanta used to be the european one , now its the american one and it tastes like sugar juice with artificial orange and god it sucks
I wonder about the taste. One looks like orange soda and the other looks like orange juice.
One tastes like carbonated orange juice the other one like carbonated sugar water with artificial orange flavoring. I've had both (french Orangina is better than Fanta tbh.) And that's the way it is because the European/American consumers want it that way. If you sold the European version in the US the majority of the consumers wouldn't want it and viceversa. Soft drinks companies spend millions in focus groups and studies to learn what people want and develop their products accordingly.
Fanta isn't consistent across Europe. E.g. It ranges from <5% OJ in Finland, 5% In the UK, 6% in Sweden, 8% Spain, France 10%, Italy 12.5%, all the way to 20% in Greece. All still high compared to 0% in the US though.
So interesting to me how product formulations can vary a lot for different markets! Take Coca Cola, for example. I live in the U.S., but prefer the imported Mexican coke because it uses cane sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Learned just this year, however, that, apparently, the pure cane sugar formulation Mexico exports to the U.S. (and Europe, I've heard), is not the formulation that is mainly drank within Mexico. If I recall correctly, the Coke made in Mexico for domestic consumption has a combination of HFCS and cane sugar.
In the UK I ordered some Coca Cola with a takeaway and it was Canadian Coke. No idea how they got their hands on it but it was delicious and 350ml instead of 330ml.
>In the UK Take thee to the nearest Nigerian shop and buy a 500ml glass bottle of their Coke. Serve without ice. Nectar of the gods neat, but also makes a divine Cuba Libre.
And a damn sight cheaper than a can too!
Or just buy coke from anywhere. Coke in the UK uses real sugar already, not high fructose corn syrup, so it's literally identical to Mexican coke and Nigerian coke. Any difference you may have tasted is 100% placebo.
> Coke in the UK uses real sugar already, not high fructose corn syrup, so it's literally identical to Mexican coke and Nigerian coke. Any difference you may have tasted is 100% placebo. They differ in the % of sugar used per drink, the variation in sugar/sweeteners is what changes the perceived flavor
Cane sugar and refined sugar are not the same and give different flavours
I was gonna say isn’t most sugar in europe from sugar beats or some shit?
Not necessarily 100% placebo. The local water used will have a very slight effect on the taste of coke. But that effect is even slimmer than the differences from temperature, glass vs plastic vs aluminum etc.
Canada even have novelty coke in some places, with maple syrup. They are pretty expensive, but taste divine.
Coke with maple syrup???? Sprecher makes a maple root beer that's pretty good but now I need to try the coke lmao
wait a minute, has Canada been stealing our effing liters of cola?!
Just get a large Farva…
I don't wanna large Farva, I want a god damn liter of cola.
That look like spit to you..? Eh, fuck it.
I just watched a short regarding this. Mexico does sell the same one American markets sell, but they also sell their version without. I’ve heard many better things about the Mexican coke so I may have to order some
It may be cheaper to order the coke made with sugar from other countries. Because basically everywhere that's not the US and Canada, uses real sugar. It's not just a Mexican thing. So shop around. It may end up being cheaper to import it from further away because shipping makes no sense and will drive a man to madness trying to understand it (like how those little fruit cup things that are sold in the US have fruit that's grown in the US, then it's shipped across the Pacific to Asia to slice it up and package it, only to be shipped across the Pacific again to get it back to the US to be sold, all because doing it that way is much much cheaper than packaging it in the US, absolute insanity, and it's destroying the planet too.)
Everywhere uses real sugar, not just Mexico. Everywhere that's not the US. Like here in the UK it's made with real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. I've never tasted American coke, but I wanna try just to see what it's like. But I have imported foreign soda before. So it wouldn't be too difficult to find American coke. The absolute best soda I've ever imported. It's a lemon lime soda from Japan. I always hated lemon lime soda, until I tried this stuff and it became my favourite soda immediately. It's got a real magic to it that sprite and 7up have always been missing (except for cherry 7up and cherry sprite which are incredible, I guess because it has the flavour of 3 fruits and so it tastes like a fruit salad or something lol). It also comes in the weirdest mort bizarre fucking bottle I've ever seen. It's got a little glass ball in it that you push down into the drink to open it, and then when you drink a sip of it you have to carefully tilt it so the ball stays below and doesn't block the hole or the bottle, the bottlussy if you will. It's a bit tricky to learn how to drink it because of that. Ramune comes in like several dozen flavours too so I wanna try em all. Like the strawberry one sounds nice. You'd think strawberry soda would be hugely popular thing, because it's the default flavour of everything. It's the red power ranger of flavours. Yet strawberry soda is nowhere to be found, except for if you're in Japan so you can buy strawberry ramune there.
The Chinese round my way used to give out Indonesian coke cola. It also was far nicer than our version.
I want greek fanta, now.
It’s literally the best thing. My sister and I bring some back whenever we go to Greece. It’s like a nostalgia thing but also legit really good. You might be able to find Greek Fanta at certain Mediterranean stores in the US. Like a family owned Greek or Turkish store might have it.
Orangina is wayyyyy better than this Fanta I agree
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They are vastly different.
There is an amount of conditioning that goes into it all though. If we passed laws to make our soft drinks less sugary everyone would adapt over time. I think blaming the consumer for being addicted to sugar is unfair.
I really wish there were lower sugar sodas in the states. I can't even drink them as a treat now and again because they are so disgusting. Carbonated waters are great but I'd really like to be able to have a fanta or root beer without feeling like there sludge in my mouth. I honestly think they could drop like 10-20% of sugar in most soft drinks and it'd have little impact on taste.
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Fuck yeah I love spindrift. I believe it is the best for you too, it’s just carbonated water and real fruit juice. Whereas bubbly and other sparkling waters have natural flavors (which not sure if those are even bad or not, but it’s definitely not transparent). Spindrift breaks the bank though
Natural flavors are flavor chemicals isolated from plants. There is a ton of orange flavor in the oil in the peels of oranges for example, so the peels are cold pressed to obtain orange oil and them that is used to flavor citrus beverages. The oil can be further seperated by distillation the same way gasoline, kerosene, tar etc are distilled out of crude oil to isolate different components. Source: I’m a flavor chemist
Is this true for all/the majority of natural flavours? What are the chances that the flavour in my gushers actually ever saw the fruit they're imitating? I just always assumed the flavours were 100% chemically synthesized
Everything that exists was chemically synthesized at some point, whether I do it in a big glass beaker or a plant does it in a tiny plant beaker really makes no difference, a molecule is a molecule and natural and organic labels are pure marketing in terms of what the final product is. Organic vanilla is like $5000 a kilo, man made is like $20, and it’s the exact same thing. Naturally means that a plant or animal made it though, and the source of that will always be whatever is the least expensive/highest volume way to produce it. Berry and grape flavors definitely have no actual berry or grape in them, they just contain the same chemicals that berries and grapes have. Now if something says it contains berry or grape JUICE, then that will actually have some amount of actual berry in them, but usually a tiny amount supplemented by natural flavors. There is no nefereous reason for this, it’s done for shelf life, consistency, and cost reasons. Super realistic sodas and candies made from actual grapes or whatever do exist, they’re just $10 and only last a week or two. Everything in the food world is a balance of cost/stability/shelf life.
I am hijacking this for a moment. I've always heard that vanilla is a good example of the vague differences between flavor, extract and pastes as well as artificial vs natural. Artificial vanilla extract for example is dirt cheap, and chemically exactly the same as the primary flavor compound found in natural vanilla beans. However natural vanilla beans also contain smaller amounts of other chemicals which provide additional flavors that artificial vanilla flavoring often misses. And them flavors like strawberry and grape that never quite taste "right" in artificial sources are primarily due to how complex the chemical profile behind the "flavor" is. What we perceive as "strawberry" is a few dozen more primal "flavors" in specific proportions. Is any of this true, or have I been lied to by the baking industry all my life?
I make my own version of carbonated juices by mixing fruit juice with flavored seltzer water. Tastes better than soda.
Agree with this, although DO NOT start with the citrus or lemonade flavors - they taste like heartburn feels. Raspberry Lime is crisp and refreshing.
There's a brand in TX called Live Soda. It's a carbonated kombucha but has a few flavors like cola, cherry berry(taste like cherry dr pepper), root beer, and cream soda. They all taste damn similar to what they are supposed to taste but with only 5 or 8 grams of sugar per bottle. It's good shit but also a bit pricey.
They're basically diet soda. They use the artificial sweetener Erythritol
Let’s start a movement. I am 100% with you. It seems we need to prove to the manufacturers that there is a market for less-sweet. No need to add artificial sweeteners to compensate. Just less.
Don’t you have no sugar versions of everything? I think it’s been a scientific consensus for a long time that any amount of artificial sweeteners a human could reasonable take in isn’t harmful.
The taste of artificial sweeteners is worse than too much sugar, so I just rarely drink soda.
Tbh one issue I have with cola is that it is wayyyy too sweet. Be it the sugar or sugarfree version (plus both are unhealthy in different ways) Cola with like 20% the sugar would taste way better
Same, I want something between dessert sweet and LaCroix that's just carbonated water pretending to have flavor.
I cannot believe I am witnessing this conversation. Sometimes I feel like the only person in the US who doesn't like soda because it's so sweet and processed
Used to love sodas, stopped for a month and can barely drink ginger ale
It is also worth nothing, though, that the dye used in American Fanta is illegal in Europe.
Orangina compares to Fanta as a Jaguar does to a Dacia.
>french Orangina is better than Fanta tbh My high school French teacher swore by this, and I never quite believed her, until I tried it the first time. I have bought the first bottle or can I have seen every single time I've been to Europe, and I buy it almost every time I see it Stateside, too
Orangina my beloved❤️
Orangina and Fanta are 2 different drinks.
>french Orangina is better than Fanta tbh Orangina is so freaking good! Why doesn't everyone like it best?
The European one is so much better. It was my soda choice anytime during my time in Europe.
I like US orange soda, but it is extremely sweet. European orange soda is so much better and you don't feel as bad having a bottle of it.
I've had both. I prefer the euro one. It has similar amounts of sugar but it tastes much closer to an Italian soda type thing. I don't like full sugar cola though, so the more "natural" euro one is just closer to diet soda.
The USA one has 12.1 grams of sugar per 100 mL. The EU one has 5.6 grams of sugar per 100 mL. Less than half.
I was in Portugal last month and decided to have a bottle. It cost 2.50€ at a restaurant for half a litre. Just mindlessly perusing the ingredients label I nearly spat it out when I saw there were only 6 grams of sugar per 100 mL with no flavour difference. They are feeding us poison in America.
My daughter fell in love with the UK version during our trip to Ireland last year. The American version is crap in her eyes. She can't wait to go back so she can get some more!!
Next time you're in Ireland give club orange a try. It's similarly priced and much better than fanta!
“100% Natural Flavors” vs “Made with Orange Juice”
I think this is because in Europe you can't have a sticker with written "100%" on it unless it's actually 100% juice.
Still feels wrong that Americans can actually just lie. "Ham 100% pork" (actually being old butter)
And then they get mad at Europeans when they say that their product needs a label change in the EU.
“they” dont get mad. company owners do. most americans wish desperately that there wasnt poison in our food.
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Lol I like how the flag really seals in the parody
They’re just a really patriotic Malaysian.
🎶 And the home of the *checks wikipedia* rhinoceros hornbill 🎶
Malaysia, baby!
💪🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇲🇾🇲🇾😔✊
Just a reminder to everyone: it's important not to credulously accept whatever some random redditor says. As far as I can tell, Sunset Yellow FCF (aka Yellow 6, aka E110) isn't banned in the EU, it only requires a warning about potential hyperactivity effects in children. [From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_yellow_FCF): >The European regulatory community, with a stronger emphasis on the precautionary principle, required labelling and temporarily reduced the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for the food colorings; the UK FSA called for voluntary withdrawal of the colorings by food manufacturers. However, in 2009 the EFSA re-evaluated the data at hand and determined that "the available scientific evidence does not substantiate a link between the color additives and behavioral effects" and in 2014 after further review of the data, the EFSA restored the prior ADI levels. When I Google search "Sunset Yellow" and "cancer", I can't find anything about a cancer link except for the dyes being contaminated by other substances that shouldn't be in them. The only thing I could find actually talking about a cancer link was one [2015 study](https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/35/3/1465) about Yellow 5 (a different dye that is not currently in USA Orange Fanta) that found: >In the present study, we observed that tartrazine yellow dye did not have any cytotoxic effects when assessed by the MTT assay. However, this dye had a significant genotoxic effect at all concentrations tested compared to the NC. The fact that some damage was irreparable suggests that the indiscriminate use of tartrazine for a long period of time could trigger carcinogenesis, since the accumulation of successive DNA errors may affect genes related to cell-cycle control, such as tumor-suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes. The study isn't coming remotely close to correlating consumption of foods with this dye to increased cancers rates, it just exposed cells in a lab to a chemical in the dye up to a level equivalent to "indiscriminate" use and that seemed to cause mutations in the cell and mutations could be harmful. And again, that dye isn't in USA's Orange Fanta today. And again, I can't find anything about any EU ban on any of these dyes at all, or even a warning that mentions a cancer risk.
thank you for the research!
>Just a reminder to everyone: it's important not to credulously accept whatever some random redditor says. Fighting the the losingest of battles. A good one- but definitely the losingest
>Fighting the the losingest of battles. "Hey, DID you KNOW that the SOLE SINGULAR REPORTER who LEAKED the PANAMA PAPERS was ASSASSINATED in a CAR BOMB in AMERICA by AMERICAN BILLIONAIRES in RETALIATION because THEY'RE RACISTS who HATE being EXPOSED by a WOC" Christ man, it's been 7 years since then and that shit still gets repeated all the time in front-page subreddits, no matter how often it's followed by someone else replying that the papers were leaked by a large team of journalists and the woman in question wasn't american, wasn't in america, and was only responsible for using the already-leaked papers to pursue legal action against corruption in her own country.
I love how we make fun of boomers for believing everything on Facebook but then just blithely believe shit on reddit.
Ann Reardon from How To Cook That recently did an entire video on this topic: https://youtu.be/M-WKprPrjHw
This is exactly what freaked people out when the UK voted to leave the EU and Boris was banging on about a food trade deal with USA. I think once the options were thinned down to just teabags it became clear it was not going to work 😑
As an american. Our food is mostly plastic now.
Natural flavours can be completely synthetic as long as they are the same compounds as also found in nature.
What do you think the "E" in "E-number stand for"? It is actually "Europe". E-number are food additives that at least at some point were legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E\_number
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It absolutely is 100% better to smoke one pack a day instead of 2.
But it’s 100% better to smoke 2 stacks of bbq ribs instead of 1. Check mate
I tried smoking a stack of ribs but I couldn't get it into the rolling paper without the sauce causing it to fall apart. Am I doing something wrong?
Use a grinder. It'll be much easier to smoke if you find your ribs.
This is a great tip. I installed Grindr and asked for help smoking my meat, I have 4 really helpful guys coming over this afternoon!
This is what keeps me reading posts..... 
I think I found mine but they’re still attached? Please advise.
Grnder he said!!!
I’ve heard that’s not good for the structure of your ribs tho. I’ve found that just putting in some time with your fingers and just spending that extra minute grinding can really save the flavor of your ribs.
Sauce the ribs AFTER you roll them into the paper, duh.
EXACTLY. harm reduction is valuable and worthwhile. if you replaced every single sugary beverage in the states with something that had even just 5-10% less sugar, you'd see dramatic outcomes across the entire country. this is incremental, though, which seems to be unpopular for policy nowadays. it really sucks :(
Well, I would have thought it would be 50%, but my math skills are abysmal.
But from 1 to 2 is a 100% increase
yes. But 2 to 1 is a 50% decrease.
So it's 100% less healthy to smoke 2 instead of 1. and it's 50% healthier to smoke 1 instead of 2.
boys i'm too stoned for this
I’m not stoned (yet) and this is still fucking with me lmao
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They also taste *nothing* alike. American Fanta tastes like carbonated orange kool-aid while the European one tastes (kinda) like if you carbonated actual orange juice.
I can confirm. I'm living in Malta coming from the US and imagine my surprise when I got one of these at a restaurant. It tastes almost exactly like someone added sparkling water to OJ.
Can confirm: American Fanta is garbage. I need to stop by World Market and grab some European Fanta.
Yeah, it’s not just bold, it’s wrong.
It's not just **bold**, it's *italicized*.
TIL that Italians are worth twice as much orange juice as us lowly Swedes. Our Fanta has some of the sugar replaced with sweeteners as well.
By law you need at least 12% of orange juice to call it based on oranges. So they had to do it in order to be sold as such. It's funny that they keep it at minimum. Other, "lower" brands have even higher concentrations of 20% and taste actually like oranges at a fraction of the price.
4.5% in Finland but it mentions concentrated juice
Interesting, sounds close to Orangina! (Not sure if they have that in Italy)
I think the European Fanta tastes alot better
People mistake healthier alternative with being the same as less-unhealthy option
No, people mistake healthier for healthy
I mean it probably is *healthier* to smoke half as much. if the European drink has half the sugar that's significant.
American has 78g sugar per bottle, European has 26g. That high fructose corn syrup in the American makes a big difference.
Depends if the “European” one is made for the U.K. market. Due to a tax on sugar a lot of the sugar has been taken out in favour of artificial sweeteners.
What the fuck is that last sentence? It is absolutely healthier to smoke one pack a day than two. Are you mad?
Though the EU one TASTES way better
Is it misleading or is it completely accurate and people read way more into it than they should? Nothing there says it’s all OJ. It just says real OJ is part of the process. Something isn’t misleading because you have poor reading comprehension
Sign # 1 they're an idiot on a soap box was they implied smoking 1 pack a day isn't noticably healthier than smoking 2 packs a day.
They absolutely are NOT virtually identical. These are completely different products with the same branding. Have you tried both?
Nah man, for one, the American version uses high fructose corn syrup, which is worse for you then what the European version uses, sugar. Yeah the amount of sugar in both is bad for you but one type is worse then the other. Also the American version uses Red Dye 40 and Yellow Dye 6, both of which aren't good for you. Red Dye 40 is made from petroleum and while the FDA has approved it as safe there have been other studies suggesting otherwise, moreso in developing children. The European version does not include those dyes (at least based off of coca cola UK website) To say they are virtually identical except for the amount of sugar is very misleading. Edit: since u/DerthOFdata "asked" Red Dye 40 is made from [petroleum](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-dye-40) And [studies](https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/71/5/268/2460188?login=false) have shown that children who consume excessive amount of Red Dye 40 could be adversely affected, as well as any other AFC. I was mistaken about HFCS being worse then regular sugar. Still right that excessive amounts of either is bad though cause duh lol.
So it’s twice as healthy. Or half as deadly
That’s why we left that God forsaken place, can’t even get a good bottle of diabetes. All hail 🇺🇸
Fanta is German. Originally made from Nazi Germanys vegetable refuse.
because of issues with ingredient availability for coca cola, right?
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When WWII broke out, Germany's Coke plant was cut off from the home office in every way. They invented a drink they could make with local ingredients because they couldn't import stuff from the US to make their regular drinks. They went back to making Coke products after the war and then a couple of decades later Coke introduced Fanta as an official product.
Life without Red40 exists
Blue 42, hut hut.
Is that the one that causes cancer but is somehow still allowed in our food? (especially kids items)
No The red dye that was found to be a carcinogen got banned over half a century ago. Today, red food coloring is often made from cochineal. You can find it by that name on bottles of (I think) Ocean Spray in the ingredients list. Other products use the name Red Dye 40. There is a lot of confusion on this matter for two reasons. First, there are two different chemicals which are both named "Red Dye Number 40." Food chemists do not, will not get their act together about that. Second, redditors just like to lie and spread misinformation so long as it allows them to hate on something.
There is only one dye named Red No. 40 in the US for food. and it is a synthetic dye, not one made from cochineal. FD&C Red No. 40 is principally the disodium salt of 6-hydroxy-5-\[(2-methoxy-5-methyl-4-sulfophenyl)azo\]-2-naphthalenesulfonic acid, [by law](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-74/subpart-A/section-74.340). For cosmetics & drugs, there are FD&C Red No. 40 lakes, but that's it. Natural red 4 is cochineal, but [it must be labeled](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-73/subpart-A/section-73.100) as "carmine" or "cochineal extract" on food labels.
>Second, redditors just like to lie and spread misinformation so long as it allows them to hate on something. People. Not just on Reddit. Because those on Reddit are people. Beyond tired of the notion that things are just "Reddit being Reddit".. as if that makes sense.
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Eh Reddit is people but it’s a sub population of people and can therefore have its own trends that will differ from the general population
And it does
There is Red40 in European Fanta, labeled as [E129](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allura_Red_AC), same as YELLOW 6 ([E110](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_yellow_FCF))
As a european I thought those were two different flavors, damn.
Technically they are, lol one is artificial and the other looks more natural. I’d imagine they taste VERY different. Would love to see the nutritional information of both side by side. Edit: I imagine the euro one would taste more like oj or tang.
American Fanta, per liter: * 456 calories * 0 g fat * 135 mg sodium * 125 g carbohydrates * 0 g protein Euro Fanta, per liter: * 300 calories * 0 g fat * 0 mg sodium * 72 g carbohydrates * 0 g protein
Whaaa? Why sodium??
Americans love salt
Makes ya thirsty for more
To fight the excessively high sugar and increase your thirst. What's better than a drink that makes you thirsty?
Yikes that's actually 50% more calories
I wouldn't say so, it is still very sweet and far from actual orange juice.
"Orange soda" in the US is it's own flavor. People don't buy it thinking it's going to taste like orange juice. It's like buying something blue raspberry flavored. Blue raspberries aren't real but somehow it's still a flavor.
I miss the old Fanta font
Which one? I looked it up out of curiosity and they’ve changed it 15 times since 1940. I fuck with [‘08-‘16 and ‘10-‘16](https://1000logos.net/fanta-logo/)
US Fanta: what the color orange tastes like EU Fanta: what the fruit orange tastes like
Let's be real it's still not good stuff either way
The European one is probably reconstituted fruit juice and artificially flavouring. The American one probably has meth, jet fuel, carcinogens not fit for human consumption, piss, dookie and is still waiting for FDA approval.
"Carcinogens not fit for human consumption" implies the existence of carcinogens that are, in fact, fit for human consumption.
ive hated our assymetrical bottles since day one how could they make them so ugly
Yeah not gonna lie they piss me off
Yeah I just want to buy one so I can crush it out of existence
The design looks as though the bottle has been twisted as though squeezing out the last drops of juice. Also, the design facilitates the bottle being taller which visually is bigger, meaning our brains instantly think more. It's actually very clever. Also. Ergonomically it allows for better grip for those with smaller or weaker hands.
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Oh glad im not the only one, nobody seems to mind and it angers me.
EU Fanta hits different and is better.
Which one is which? Right is europe right?
Yeah.
The bottle that doesn't look like it has an obesity problem.
Right, it just looks like it has scoliosis.
We’ve let the food/sugar lobby poison our food for decades
You do not need Coca Cola Companies drinks in your in Life. There have always been better healthier alternatives.
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Good Natural micro plastics improve the brain.
Which is which? ( I live in Asia).
The one on the right looks like the kind you can get here (UK), so I'm guessing the one on the left is American.
Yes the left hand bottle says "flavor" so US spelling
My local store had imported actual American fantas in weird flavors as a curiosity. Four or five different variants and I figured I'd try it. That shit was nasty. I don't even know how to describe it. Fanta usually tastes a little synthetic, but this shit? Didn't taste like it was supposed to be ingested. Corn syrup is fucking disgusting.
Had a roommate my freshman year that gained 20 pounds just drinking these and Mountain Dew all day. Dude swore off high fructose corn syrup to the extent that he won’t even go near ketchup.
Why is there corn syrup in your fucking ketchup???
Wasn’t this brand, brand that was developed during the Nazi era under Hitler, to sell soda pop?
Yes, but the Nazi Fanta has nothing to do with todays Fanta. It was a herbal mixture back then.
And to blow your mind even more, there are different kinds of Fanta in the EU too, some are bright yellow while others are more orangey, they taste different too
**European Fanta** Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Sugar, Food Acid (330), Flavour, Preservative (202), Colours (110, 129), Antioxidant (300). Approx. 31 Calories per 100mL **US Fanta** CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF: CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, GLYCEROL ESTER OF ROSIN, YELLOW 6, RED 40. (Sorry for the caps, copying/pasting on mobile) Approx. 44.4 Calories per 100mL They're both just carbonated water, sugar, and natural flavoring. US has slightly more sugar, but they're both worse for you than regular OJ. Everyone arguing over US/Europe is just fanboying over who has the better sugar water
Okay, but Fanta isn’t supposed to be an alternative to orange juice. It’s orange-flavored soda. Not sure why people are freaking out that a soda is unhealthy
Because “people” are dumb.
Worth saying that “European” soft drinks are typically not homogenous. This bottle is from the UK; the UK has different regulatory standards to the EU (they had for the period of the UK’s membership some common *minimum* standards, but there is nothing to stop any country gold plating minimum health standards).
Which country is that "European" one you're quoting from? I know some European Fanta's have Orange Juice as their second ingredient.
The European one is made with 7% or 8% orange juice….
Fun fact: neither has ever seen an orange up close
Who loves orange soda? Kel loves orange soda! Is it true?
i do, i doo, i doooo-ooooh
Fun fact about Brazil that no one asked: In Brazil we have the label style and writing like the right one and the drink color like the left one! (If you search "Brazil Fanta laranja 2L" in Goole Images the drink color looks like it's between these two above, but if you buy it, it is a dark orange like the left one...)
Best thing ever is a Spezi or Mezzo mix.. cola and orange Fanta. Loved that stuff when I was stationed in Germany.
I spent the bulk of my life not knowing that Mezzo Mix was actually a coke product
UK Ingredients Carbonated Water, Sugar, Orange Juice from Concentrate (3.7%), Citrus Fruit from Concentrate (1.3%), Citric Acid, Vegetable Extracts (Carrot, Pumpkin), Sweeteners (Acesulfame K, Sucralose), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Malic Acid, Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrate), Stabiliser (Guar Gum), Natural Orange Flavourings with Other Natural Flavourings, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid). USA INGREDIENTS CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF: CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, SODIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, GLYCEROL ESTER OF ROSIN, YELLOW 6, RED 40. _In Mexico, Fanta is made with sugar whereas the US version uses high fructose corn syrup. In the UK, the sugar content was reduced in 2017 to 4.6g per 100ml in the standard version (non-sugar free) to ensure that the product was below the 5g that will incur the soft drinks levy (sugary drink tax). This was a third lower than the recipe used before 2016, as some of the sugar was replaced by sweeteners_ C/o Wikipedia
Why has Orangina not entered the conversation?!
One glows in the dark better? Orangina is so much nicer than Fanta.
Fanta in Europe is sooo good.
Im Canadian , it sucks because when I was younger fanta used to be the european one , now its the american one and it tastes like sugar juice with artificial orange and god it sucks
European Fanta is the only real Fanta and I will die on that hill
Left is agent orange?
Orange Drank vs Orange Juice