Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils, and other flavorings. Cola became popular worldwide after the American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, a trademarked brand, in 1886, which was imitated by other manufacturers. Most colas originally contained caffeine from the kola nut, leading to the drink's name, though other sources of caffeine are generally used in modern formulations. The Pemberton cola drink also contained a coca plant extract. His non-alcoholic recipe was inspired by the coca wine of pharmacist Angelo Mariani, created in 1863.
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo. It was originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham in the United States, and became known as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, before shortening to Pepsi in 1961. As of 2023, Pepsi is the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long-standing rivalry in what has been called the "cola wars".
A soft drink is any water-based flavored drink, usually but not necessarily carbonated, and typically including added sweetener. Flavors used can be natural or artificial. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a sugar substitute, or some combination of these. Soft drinks may also contain caffeine, colorings, preservatives and other ingredients.
Diet or light beverages are generally sugar-free, artificially sweetened beverages with few or no calories. They are marketed for diabetics and other people who want to reduce their sugar and/or caloric intake.
Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word Fresca from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar-free diet soda, sugar sweetened versions were introduced in some markets.
Powerade is a sports drink created and sold by the Coca-Cola Company. Its primary competitor is Gatorade, owned by PepsiCo.
Sun Drop is a citrus-flavored soft drink produced by Keurig Dr Pepper with a yellowish-green color. Among soft drinks, it is known for its high caffeine content. Orange juice is an ingredient in the drink, and remaining pulp matter from the orange juice provides some of the soft drink's taste and appearance. Sun Drop competes primarily against the Coca-Cola Company's Mello Yello and PepsiCo's Mountain Dew.
Naked Juice is an American brand that produces juices and smoothies. The company is based in Monrovia, California and is owned by PAI Partners. The first Naked Juice drink was produced in 1983 and sold in California under the name "Naked Juice", referring to the composition of no artificial flavors, added sugar, or preservatives. Distribution has since expanded, and Naked Juice products are distributed in the United States, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France, among others.
Monster Beverage Corporation is an American beverage company that manufactures energy drinks including Monster Energy, Relentless and Burn. The company was originally founded as Hansen's in 1935 in Southern California, originally selling juice products. The company renamed itself as Monster Beverage in 2012.
Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer is a brand of soft drink, of the birch beer type, whose trademark is owned by USA Beverages, Inc., a beverage bottler operating primarily in the United States. It is available in regular and diet varieties, and is sold in 12 ounce cans, 20 ounce plastic bottles, and 2-liter bottles. Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer's regular variety is sweetened with sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup. Its diet variety has been sweetened with saccharin and/or aspartame as these have gained preferability.
A sugary drink tax, soda tax, or sweetened beverage tax (SBT) is a tax or surcharge designed to reduce consumption of sweetened beverages. Drinks covered under a soda tax often include carbonated soft drinks, sports drinks and energy drinks. This policy intervention is an effort to decrease obesity and the health impacts related to being overweight. The tax is a matter of public debate in many countries and beverage producers like Coca-Cola often oppose it. Advocates such as national medical associations and the World Health Organization promote the tax as an example of Pigovian taxation, aimed to discourage unhealthy diets and offset the growing economic costs of obesity.
Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop Made with Real Sugar, originally named Pepsi Throwback and still branded that way in some international markets, is a soft drink sold by PepsiCo. The drink is flavored with cane sugar and beet sugar instead of the sugar substitute high-fructose corn syrup that has been used in the standard version of Pepsi within North America since the 1980s.
Zevia is a Los Angeles based company that produces soft drinks, organic tea, energy drinks, and mixers sweetened with stevia. All Zevia products are zero-calorie, sugar-free, gluten free, vegan, certified kosher, and certified by The Non-GMO Project. In June 2021, Zevia filed to go public with an IPO.
Pepsi Next is a discontinued cola-flavored carbonated soft drink produced by PepsiCo. It was a variant of the Pepsi cola range.
The sugary drinks portion cap rule, also known as the soda ban, was a proposed limit on soft drink size in New York City intended to prohibit the sale of many sweetened drinks more than 16 fluid ounces in volume to have taken effect on March 12, 2013. On June 26, 2014, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that the New York City Board of Health, in adopting the regulation, exceeded the scale of its regulatory authority and as such, was repealed. The repealed regulation was codified in section 81.53 of the New York City Health Code.
Coming Together is a 2-minute ad created and distributed by the Coca-Cola Company and launched on the night of January 14, 2013, on several cable networks.
Y. Claire Wang is an associate professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on obesity prevention strategies and techniques, such as soda taxes, and how effective they may be in reducing the economic costs of obesity.
Sugar is heavily marketed both by sugar producers and the producers of sugary drinks and foods. Apart from direct marketing methods such as messaging on packaging, television ads, advergames, and product placement in setting like blogs, industry has worked to steer coverage of sugar-related health information in popular media, including news media and social media.
