Place: Jason's Deli
Lunch: Pastrami melt, Texas chili, chips, pickle, mini garlic toasts, mini muffin, ice cream cone, Dr Pepper
Sounds like a lot on paper, doesn't it. But you get half a sandwich with a cup of soup for one price, then they put chips and a pickle slice on the plate, and you have access to the garlic toast and muffins while you wait. And there's free soft serve at the end. It's all very diabolical.
Jason's Deli was one of the early chains to eliminate trans fats from their foods. They make a big deal out of making food...more wholesome, I guess. They have a lot of signs up about things being organic now. Most recently, they've been working to eliminate high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from their menu. Food-wise, they've apparently accomplished that. Coca-Cola aint budging, but Jason's is now apparently buying all their Dr Pepper syrup from Dublin Dr Pepper...the oldest operating Dr Pepper plant in the world. Based in Dublin, Texas, Dublin Dr Pepper never switched to HFCS. They're still using Imperial Sugar.
HFCS exists because it's really cheap to use compared to real sugar. It's been replacing sugar in a significant amount of sugary substances since the 1970's in the US. In recent years, Mexican soda bottlers, who were still using sugar, started making the switch. The Mexican government, concerned about their sugar crops, put a big tax on HFCS drinks. Problem solved.
The HFCS debate has been hot in recent years, with the anti-HFCS crowd looking to get rid of the stuff. Claims have HFCS increasing the aging process and raising bad cholesterol, among other things. The corn industry has responded with an "anti-scare" television campaign claiming HFCS is no big deal "in moderation". So what's moderation? An 8 oz soda instead of the 44 oz one you get at the convenience store every morning? Can I have one a day? 13 a day? Nobody seems to know for sure.
What I drink ultimately comes down to taste. What tastes best?
I was introduced to Dublin Dr Pepper a few years ago in Texas. It took a single can of the stuff to hook me. It tasted smoother, less sugary, and it didn't leave my teeth feeling like they were covered in film. And one 12 oz can satisfied me. So every six months or so, I make a run to the Walmart in Stephenville, TX, and bring back about a six month supply of 12 oz cans. Recently, I bought a can of HFCS Dr Pepper out of the office vending machine. I couldn't finish it. It tasted horrible. I'm far too used to Dublin Dr Pepper. But that's a unique example.
The thing about soda is that the taste profile changes not only based on the sweetener used. The source container plays a role too.
Plastic bottles: I can't drink pop out of plastic bottles. It's horrible. It's almost always flatter than cans. But I CAN drink Pepsi from a 2 liter bottle that has been poured into a glass. Something changes there.
Aluminum cans: Pepsi is fine. Dublin Dr Pepper is great. But have you seen these aluminum bottles that some Pepsi plants use now? (I guess this started with beer.) Don't like it.
Glass bottles: The holy grail of pre-packaged soda containers. I could get US-produced Pepsi in glass bottles until just maybe ten years ago locally. You'd think the hippies would be campaigning to outlaw the plastic bottles the way they are with bottled water, wouldn't you. Especially since everything was in place to reuse glass bottles recently. There's lots of gourmet sodas on the market in glass bottles, but I don't really like any of the ones widely available. Dublin Dr Pepper is available in them, but...go figure...I prefer the cans.
You can still get glass bottles with real sugar Coke or Pepsi in them at better Mexican grocers. You know what? I'm not so fond of real sugar Pepsi. I think I actually prefer the HFCS version.
Fountain tap: Soda from fountains tastes nothing like the pre-packaged stuff. Never. There are SO many variables, including the quality of the source water and the quality of the filtering on the dispenser. Plus the mix of carbonated water vs syrup is never identical. I remember a late night soda run at a Road Ranger where the Pepsi tap was freely dripping pure syrup. That was one rich Pepsi I got that night.
I can drink Coke from a fountain, but I can't stand the stuff in any pre-packaged format...even a real sugar version from Mexico.
The tap Dublin Dr Pepper is radically different than the regular version. Much more mellow. I didn't like it the first time, but I did after that. Yet I can still drink HFCS tap Dr Pepper too.
So what did we learn today? Probably that I drink too much pop. HA HA HA HA!
