Some people can’t taste the difference between Coke and Pepsi, just like how some people can’t taste the difference between vomit and chocolate cake. The two brands of soft drink taste COMPLETELY different, and yet for some reason people like to boast about how they both taste the “same” to them. Yeah okay, keep on braggin’ about how you’ve got the palate of a dead fruit fly, that’ll get you far in life.
I’ll admit, however, that it’s a little more difficult to taste the difference between canned coke and bottled coke. Personally I think canned diet coke is gross – but that might only be because I used to drink at least five every day at the BroBible office and now just thinking about that silver little container makes me nauseous. Soda from a gun or glass bottle will always be better than the kind that comes in a can, but why do the two taste differently? According to science, it’s all because of polymers:
According to biochemist and founder of Science by Design Sara Risch, it’s because of the liquid reacting with polymers in the packaging.
Polymers are the molecules inside packaging – themselves built from smaller units strung together – and add properties to the material they are used in.
In the case of aluminium cans, the polymers lining the packaging may absorb some of the soluble flavour from the drink.
“While packaging and food companies work to prevent any interactions, they can occur,” explained Risch.
Meanwhile the polymer acetaldehyde, which is used in plastic bottles, could transfer into the coke inside the bottle, subtly altering its flavour.
And even though food standards agencies regulate the contact between food and its packaging, there are tiny amounts that could get through according to Popular Science. (via)
Glass is reportedly “the most inert substance used for packaging and therefore gives the most unaltered drinking experience.” But is having a tastier coke really worth paying the extra $2 that comes with the glass bottle? Probably not – I’ll take a diet water with a lemon instead, then go ahead and down an entire bag of jalapeno chips as a reward for being so “healthy,” thank you very much.
[H/T Mirror]