Sugar-sweetened and prebiotic sodas

• Coca-Cola — six ingredients, 39 g of sugar, and the new cane-sugar version that changes the taste but not the numbers
• Dr Pepper — the 23-flavor cola with the same sugar, caramel color, and phosphoric acid as Coke
• Sprite — clear, so no caramel color or dyes; the corn syrup and citric acid are the whole label
• 7 Up — Sprite’s closest competitor: six ingredients, no benzoate, and no lithium since 1948
• Fanta Orange — more sugar than Coke, two dyes that carry a warning label in Europe, and zero orange
• Sunkist — the same dyes as Fanta, 41 g of sugar, and 19 mg of caffeine most people don’t know is there
• Pepsi — Coke’s label with a second sugar and citric acid; 41 g, and two zero-sugar colas with different sweeteners
• Mountain Dew — the most sugar, the most caffeine, Yellow 5, and a trace of real orange juice; the BVO is gone
• Poppi — a good low-sugar soda with 3 g of fiber, an $8.9M settlement over the gut claim, and a quiet reformulation under PepsiCo
• Olipop — the prebiotic soda whose fiber claim holds up: 6 or 9 g depending on the can, 4 g of sugar, and no caramel color in the colas

Quick answers: Does Sprite have caffeine? (no) · Pepsi vs. Coke (two extra ingredients, a tie on health) · Sodas without phosphoric acid (every cola has it; the clear and fruit sodas don’t)

Diet and zero-sugar

• Diet Coke — aspartame alone, more caffeine than regular Coke, and the three ingredients worth a second look
• Coke Zero Sugar — three sweeteners (aspartame, Ace-K, and a trace of stevia), engineered to taste like the original; how it differs from Diet Coke
• Pepsi Zero Sugar — Coke Zero’s formula under a Pepsi flavor, and 38 mg of caffeine, not the 69 the internet still quotes
• Diet Pepsi — aspartame and Ace-K, 35 mg of caffeine, and the aspartame PepsiCo removed in 2015 and brought back
• Dr Pepper Zero Sugar — Diet Dr Pepper plus Ace-K: the same 41 mg of caffeine, phosphoric acid, and 60 mg of sodium
• Sprite Zero Sugar — seven ingredients: two sweeteners, two potassium salts, no caffeine, no color, no phosphoric acid

Quick answers: Coke Zero vs. Diet Coke (one sweetener vs. three, a tie on health)

Sports and hydration

• Start here: all six sports drinks compared → — the sodium number that sorts them, and which half fail it
• Gatorade — 34 g of sugar and 270 mg of sodium: a well-built exercise drink that does nothing at a desk
• Gatorade Zero — the same electrolytes with sucralose and Ace-K instead of sugar, and a dye-free switch PepsiCo promised for fall 2026
• Powerade — electrolytes on the front, corn syrup and Blue 1 on the back
• Prime Hydration — 700 mg potassium, 10 mg sodium; backwards for sweat, and the sweeteners nobody mentions
• BodyArmor — the cleanest label in the cooler and the wrong electrolyte: “780 mg electrolytes,” 680 of them potassium and 25 sodium
• Liquid I.V. — 560 mg of sodium in a stick: essentially Pedialyte with cane sugar, and the one that works — when you actually need it
• Vitaminwater — 27 g of crystalline fructose, surplus vitamins, “electrolytes” with 0 mg of sodium, and the lawsuit where Coca-Cola said no one would think it was healthy

Energy, coffee, and tea drinks

• Start here: all six energy drinks compared → — caffeine, sugar, sweetener, and which is “healthiest”
• Red Bull — 80 mg caffeine, 27 g sugar, 1,000 mg taurine; the smallest dose of the big names and the only one without artificial sweeteners
• Red Bull Sugarfree — the original minus 27 g of sugar, plus sucralose and Ace-K; same 80 mg of caffeine, 5 calories
• Monster Energy — 24 ingredients, two that matter, and sucralose hiding in the sugared original; 120, 160, or 240 mg depending on the can
• Celsius — 200 mg caffeine, no sugar, the shortest label in the category, and a “thermogenic” claim worth examining
• Bang — 300 mg of caffeine, zero sugar, and the “Super Creatine” a jury found wasn’t creatine
• Ghost — 200 mg in a Sour Patch Kids can, with every dose printed on the label
• Alani Nu — Celsius in a pink can: 200 mg, two sweeteners, and the most-asked pregnancy question answered
• Starbucks bottled Frappuccino — five real ingredients, nothing artificial, and 46 g of sugar in a 13.7 oz bottle, with caffeine the label doesn’t print
• AriZona Green Tea — high fructose corn syrup before the honey, 42 g of added sugar in a 22 oz can, and about 20 mg of caffeine

Quick answers: Is Celsius healthier than Monster? (yes against the green can, a near-tie against Zero Sugar) · Energy drinks without taurine (Bang, Reign, Zevia Energy, and coffee) · Sucralose-free energy drinks (Red Bull original, Zevia Energy, yerba mate, and coffee)

Explainers that apply across the aisle

• High fructose corn syrup — the sweetener in nearly every sugared drink, and the corn-syrup-vs-sugar question settled
• Aspartame — the Diet Coke sweetener and the 2023 WHO classification, in context
• Sucralose — in most “zero” sports and energy drinks; what the research since 2022 found
• Acesulfame potassium — the sweetener that’s always paired with another one and rarely on the front of the can
• Stevia — in Poppi, Olipop, Zevia, and a trace in Coke Zero; which side effects are real and which belong to its blend partner
• Erythritol — the sugar alcohol in stevia blends and some zero-sugar cans, and the 2023 heart study explained
• Caramel color — why cola is brown, and the 4-MEI warning California almost required
• Phosphoric acid — the cola acid, and what it does to enamel and bone
• Citric acid — the acid in everything that isn’t a cola: safe to eat, made by fermentation, and hard on enamel
• Sodium benzoate — the preservative in diet sodas and fruit drinks, and the benzene chemistry worth knowing
• Natural flavors — on nearly every label, and what the term is allowed to leave out
• Red 40 and synthetic food dyes — what’s in the colored drinks and the 2026–2028 phase-out
• Taurine — the energy-drink ingredient that isn’t a stimulant and isn’t from bulls

Or see every ingredient we’ve covered in the ingredients index →