I have been drinking diet cherry sodas for many years. Last week, for the first time, I decided to compare two different brands. I bought a four-pack of Jones sugar-free Black Cherry Soda and a six-pack of Hansen’s sugar-free Black Cherry Soda.
I’m never so thirsty that I want to drink two cans of soda at one time so I resisted making a direct comparison (opening both brands at once). I happily drank three bottles of the Jones soda and four bottles of the Hansen’s soda at widely-spaced intervals (several hours at least). Both brands tasted fine.
When I had only three bottles left (one Jones, two Hansen’s) I finally drank a Jones and a Hansen’s side by side: sip of one, sip of the other. It was immediately clear that the Jones was much better. It had a strong clear flavor while the Hansen’s had something fuzzy and metallic about it. A difference I hadn’t noticed. I will never buy another Hansen’s — it was that bad.
The Jones soda cost more. I had never bought it because I saw nothing wrong with the cheap stuff. Now I do. The changes were not just negative: After I noticed the difference, I got more pleasure from the Jones. Now that I am aware of this difference it will be fun to buy other cherry sodas to see how they stack up. The side-by-side comparison greatly increased my hedonic reaction to cherry sodas. Not only will I get more pleasure from the better-made, I’ll get less pleasure from the worse-made.
Thus side-by-side comparisons (which we enjoy) make connoisseurs of us. Connoisseurs, of course, pay more for and create a market for finely-made things, helping artists and artisans make a living. In human prehistory, artists and artisans were material scientists. Their trial-and-error research about how to control materials eventually led to better tools.
More about side-by-side comparisons. The evolutionary function of art.
I think Diet Hansen’s Kiwi Strawberry Soda is the nectar of
the gods. (I drink other flavors of Hansen’s, but not with
the same pleasure.)
My guess is that you didn’t like it so much the first time you tasted it. When I hear “nectar of the gods” I think “strong flavor-calorie association”.
> My guess is that you didn’t like it so much the first time
> you tasted it. When I hear “nectar of the gods” I think
> “strong flavor-calorie association”.
Actually, I went crazy about it on my first can. (I’ve
gotten a bit less enthusiastic as the newness has worn off.)
I remember a similar flavor button being pushed by raspberry
(or maybe strawberry) gum of a particular brand when I was a
teenager, but again that happened on my first taste.
I am, by the way, a successful SLD user. (Thanks for it!)
An idea I’ve played with but never gotten around to trying
is drinking ELOO with a food that I don’t like so that I can
develop a taste for that food.
Hmm, well I better try Strawberry Kiwi. Your ELOO idea is definitely worth trying. And if you do try it please let me know what happens.
I like Aaron’s suggestion of using ELOO to re-engineer the palatability of certain foods. I’m thinking about kids being picky eaters.
We’re familiar with the generalization that French kids have a more varied palate than, say, American kids: “French kids like to eat vegetables. American kids hate to eat vegetables.” Could this be explained by flavor-calorie association?
If a vegetable is characteristically cooked with a significant amount of butter (I am generalizing about French cooking that no French cook would serve a plain steamed or blanched vegetable like I do), then the particular taste of that vegetable should quickly become pleasing due to the calorie association. (Curiously, the flavor of butter itself is pleasing WITH foods, though nobody eats it by the spoonful. Maybe butter flavor just signals ‘this is calorie-laden food’.)
After gaining a certain amount of experience eating super-high-calorie broccoli, won’t the specific flavor of plain broccoli become pleasing in a way that no amount of plain-broccoli-eating would ever produce on its own?
This question affects me personally: I’ve been trying to take daily doses of flaxseed oil for the omega-3 benefit. From the start, I have found the taste of pure flaxseed oil to be nauseatingly vile. Theoretically, though, if I persist, the caloric punch of the oil will eventually force me to like its taste. As an intermediary step, I have taken to drinking it mixed with a very flavorful liquid like lemonade or blueberry juice, sometimes holding my nose, sometimes not. Recently I have actually noticed the thought, “This juice has a pleasant, warm, nutty taste to it.” I think this is the first stirring of liking a flavor that was initially revolting.
Another question: Can flavor-calorie association explain why salt makes food more toothsome?
Salt makes food taste better for reasons that have nothing to do with flavor-calorie associations. It is an immediate unlearned effect.
I think you’re right about slowly learning a flavor-calorie association with your juice — in fact that might be a good way to study that learning.
yeah, we probably like the flavor of butter partly because it is paired with calories. There is also an unlearned preference for the texture of fat; and fat also intensifies other flavors because it dissolves fat-soluble flavor molecules, making them more mobile and detectable.
It always surprises me how artificial-tasting the “natural” Hansen’s diet sodas are.
But I should point out that Jones diet black cherry contains sodium benzoate, as do virtually all mainstream soda brands. Hansen’s is one of the few that don’t. If you believe the recent claim that this chemical could result in DNA damage, that might be an issue.
It may be that you’d have to drink 80 gallons of soda a day to cause any real harm, but I figure why take the chance?
In Japan there are few picky eaters and kids are taught from elementary school to eat everything without picking favorites or avoiding certain foods, big posters and motivational words and everything.
I think that it’s pretty normal for kids not to like certain foods, but perhaps it is because American parents are allowing the kids to be picky eaters. I think it takes everyone a certain number of times to eat a food they hate before they recognize it as palatable.
My mom was almost too militant about making me eat everything, and the number of parents I’ve met who say “Tommy won’t eat this and this” really strikes me as odd. Sometimes I get the impression US kids are being placated with food, and that it is taught to be a reward and a recreation, rather than fuel for them to grow with.
Did the actual containers match the photos? In other words, was the Hansen’s in a can, and the Jones in a bottle? That alone may account for the superior taste of the Jones. I drink very little soda, but I know bottled beer tastes better than canned.
yes, the containers matched the photos.
I totally agree! I’ve done the same test myself. I think Hansen’s is fine, but Jones is better. If you like it, I recommend you give the Root Beer and Green Apple flavors a try as well.