Cane Sugar in Coke Will Not Save Us

[justaprogressive]

President Donald Trump, a Diet Coke enthusiast, has channeled the might of the presidency into a major policy change that will improve the lives of millions of Americans.

Just kidding. What he actually did was yell on his social media site, which led Coca-Cola to release a cane sugar–sweetened version of its signature soda, which is usually sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

On Tuesday, Coca-Cola announced it would begin to sell cane sugar–sweetened Coke in America starting this fall, after Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed the company to do so. The cane sugar Coke, which has long been sold in Mexico, won’t replace normal Coke, but will just be a supplemental offering, and likely a pricier one. And it’s still, you know, soda, which decades of research has shown to be pretty bad for your health.

RFK Jr. has been a longtime critic of high-fructose corn syrup, saying that it “is just a formula for making you obese and diabetic” in campaign videos. It’s not that cane sugar is much better than high-fructose corn syrup—excess consumption of both can cause weight gain and higher blood sugar, but studies have found that neither is worse than the other. It’s also worth mentioning that Americans can already buy “Mexican Coke,” which is made with cane sugar, at major retailers like Costco and Target, but no matter.

Trump heralded the cane sugar Coke on Truth Social, which was later announced on the White House X page and retweeted by RFK Jr. The same social media fawning happened when Froot Loops promised to cut synthetic dyes by 2027, when PepsiCo said it would eliminate artificial colors and flavors from Lay’s and Tostitos chips and that it’s doing a prebiotic version of Pepsi Cola with cane sugar and fiber, and when Steak ’n Shake promised to nix seed oils.

https://prospect.org/health/2025-07-24-cane-sugar-in-coke-will-not-save-us/