The Kosher Coke and Pepsi photos thread! (NSFW?)

As you note, Pepsi has just started to use citric acid, but in a very small amount.

Because I do read ingredients, I buy Kosher Coke and Kosher Pepsi, when it is available in 2-liter bottles, which have yellow caps.

I do this, due to the fact that I don't care for the chemicals in modern Coke, which are absent in Kosher Coke, which is essentially the same Coke that everyone drank up until the 1970's.

This is one of my earlier photos of Kosher Coke, before I put up the window coverings, taken over the holiday's.



This photo, from yet another period of time, shows a couple of extra bottles of Kosher Coke and Kosher Pepsi (lower right corner), which would not fit under the credenza.

Kosher Pepsi has a white bottle cap where regular Pepsi has a Blue cap.



When Kosher cola is not available, which is most of the year, I buy Pepsi made with real sugar. Photo was taken at my Christmas open house on December 25th, 2017.

Just a few more...

Taken in 2018.



This was taken right before Passover. The Kosher Coke on the right is stocked from the floor up. With eight 2-liter bottles in each rack.

Pepsi with real sugar is visible under the credenza.



More Pepsi with real sugar, taken after the Christmas open house. You can see the Real Sugar label on the carton.



In reading the ingredients on the Pepsi with real sugar can, from Amazon photo.



Products change formulations all the time. I don't so much concern myself with what I do not consume as to what I do.

It works better that way.

It appears that both my reading and English comprehension skills are in working order, as are my eyeglass prescriptions.

But thank you for asking.

While we are on the subject, how are yours?

I don't drink anything with Aspartame or Sucralose.

I drank both Coke and Pepsi in my younger days, when it was made with real sugar and none of the chemicals that they adamantly deny that is in them today, with Coke being far worse (so much for "classic" Coke).

Close to twenty years ago, I discovered two things about modern canned Coke. One, that it tastes like crap and two, if I drink more than half of a can of it, my stomach feels like it is rotting. I just dismissed it as getting old and figuring that I did not have the cast iron stomach that I had when I was younger. I mean, Coke is Coke, it has always been this way.

As time went on, thinking, I realized that other than Coke, I could eat every kind of food that I could eat when I was in my teens and none of it would upset my stomach at all. I also realized that all of those foods with the exception of Coke, still tasted the same way as I have always remembered them tasting.

Now, I realize that at least in part, Coke tastes different today, being sweetgened by H.F.C.S. (High Fructose Corn Syrup), but it is more than that. This is because I can drink sodas like Fanta Orange soda and Hires Root Beer without experiencing stomach rot. A bit of difference due to the H.F.C.S. but they don't bother my stomach at all.

A few years ago, I happened to read an article about Dr. Pepper still being made in Texas with real sugar. Doing some research, I found out that they do (but unfortunately it has caffeine that the original formulation did not have). It was at that time, I came across a link about Kosher Coke, which I had no knowledge of its existence of prior to this.

As it turns out, corn is not entirely Kosher for Passover, so a rabbi in Atlanta talked Coke into making coke that was Kosher for Passover.

Here it the writing on the top of the yellow bottle cap.



"On Passover, observant Jews refrain from eating leavened foods or foods with leavening ingredients. The yellow caps indicate that the soda is kosher, or fit, for drinking on Passover. It's made with Coke's original recipe of sucrose instead of corn syrup, which some people think tastes better, anyway."

So I filed this away in the back of my mind. It was about this time of the year. Well, just a couple of months later, I was walking through the grocery store and I see this display, not where the soft drinks are usually kept, but in an isle with the Kosher foods. It was a stack of Kosher Coke. I don't think that I have ever paid any attention for the color of bottle caps before and there was no Kosher Coke sign on the display. It looked like any Coke display, except for the yellow bottle caps, which I would have never have paid any attention to, if I had not read the article a month or so before.

I bought a 2-liter bottle, brought it home and place it it the fridge for several hours to get it nice and cold. I poured some out into a glass that was about 16 ounces. I took a drink, instantly I recognised that it tasted exactly like the Coke I grew up on.

I decide to try an experiment. I drank three full glasses and guess what? No stomach rot, and this was with over 40 oz. of Kosher Coke.

Researching further, I discovered that something that is Kosher can not contain artificial chemicals and that whatever ingredients it had in it had to be disclosed to the rabbi, which meant that it had to be natural. That is when I began buying Kosher Coke.

Now they don't sell it all year round, only about for a month before Passover, which begins this year on April the 8th. So keep a lookout for K-Coke making its appearance about a month before.

Give it a try and see for yourself. get a can of regular modern day Coke and leave them both in the fridge to get good and cold.

The pour out a glass of each. First drink at least a half of glass of K-Coke, then try the regular Coke. You will see just how awful the modern Coke tastes in comparison to the taste of K-Coke. It is an eye opening experience! Even if you are not a Coke drinker it is worth it to try for the experience of it.

Take the Kosher Coke challenge, as it were. Maybe we can get some others to take the challenge this year? Maybe @steve Hoffman and family will give it a try?

I soon found out that Pepsi had their own Kosher Pepsi and I tried that. While it was excellent, the difference was not as extreme as it was for Coke.



A few years back, Pepsi introduced Throwback Pepsi, made with real sugar.



While that name went away, the product remained as Pepsi With Real Sugar.



The carton looks exactly the same as the regular Pepsi does, with the exception of the Real Sugar declaration.

So those shopping for it, need to look at the carton carefully.



I doubt if most people are aware of its existence. In the grocery stores, they don't make a point of actively differentiating them.

The Pepsi made with real sugar tastes real close to its Kosher version.

Mexican Coke, tastes fairly close to Kosher Coke.