WASHINGTON, D.C. — “Coke is it” was a popular TV ad for the famed soda back in 1982, featuring teens singing Coca-Cola’s praises around a piano. It was around that same time when the company started using high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) instead of cane sugar in their main product — and would soon launch the flop known as “New Coke” — so a better catchphrase might have been, “Which Coke is it?”

Fast forward 43 years, and for U.S. and Canadian consumers of Coke, it’s primarily the fresh taste of HFCS that they’re enjoying, unless they’ve paid a premium for Mexican Coke, which is made with cane sugar. The labels in the U.S. clearly state HFCS as an ingredient, but laws in Canada allow bottles containing HFCS to be labelled with “Sugar (glucose-fructose),” implying that it’s real sugar. It’s

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