[bbatha]

> Ask someone from 100 years ago to sweeten a glass of lemonade "to taste" and you'd get something so weak that a consumer of diet soda would mock it like the meme "hint of hint of lime" or "transported on a truck near strawberries" flavors of LaCroix.

This is quiet a suspicious claim if you've studied food or beverage history. We have cocktail recipes dating back 150 years, and punch recipes dating back almost 500. They are almost universally sweeter than today. Similarly food recipes also used a good deal more sugar. Some of this was no doubt to cover off flavors, less sweet varieties, and for the preservative power of sugar. You're going to need some citations that the normalization is the problem behavior.

[twic]

Reminds me of how sweet champagne used to be [1]:

> The most common style today is Brut [(6 to 12 grams of sugar per litre)]. However, throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th century Champagne was generally much sweeter than it is today. Moreover, except in Britain, Champagne was drunk as dessert wines (after the meal), rather than as table wines (with the meal).[55] At this time, Champagne sweetness was instead referred to by destination country, roughly as:[56]

> - Goût anglais ("English taste", between 22 and 66 grams); note that today goût anglais refers to aged vintage Champagne

> - Goût américain ("American taste", between 110 and 165 grams)

> - Goût français ("French taste", between 165 and 200 grams)

> - Goût russe ("Russian taste", between 200 and 300 grams)

By way of comparison, my favourite Orange Muscat dessert wine has 110 g/l sugar [2], a bog-standard ruby port has 102 g/l [3], my favourite sweet-ish sherry has a svelte 50 g/l [4], and a decent PX has an excruciating 417 g/l [5]. So Americans and the French alike used to drink champagne that was considerably sweeter than today's fortified and dessert wines!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne#Sweetness

[2] https://www.nicks.com.au/products/2003-brown-brothers-specia...

[3] https://www.vinello.co.uk/fine-ruby-port-taylors-port

[4] https://www.vinello.co.uk/apostoles-palo-cortado-vors-gonzal...

[5] https://www.vinello.co.uk/pedro-ximenez-san-emilio-emilio-lu...

[carlmr]

I think this might have to do with sugar being more expensive.

Today sugary drinks are associated with poverty, lack of self-control, lack of education. Champagne is a status signaling drink, you don't want to signal that.

[aidenn0]

I think normalization is the problem but not because people didn't drink sweet things; my suspicion is that previously they were drunk rarely and in smaller quantities (due to cost, if nothing else).

We've gone from "Twelve full ounces, that's a lot" to a 12oz can being the smallest commonly available size, and a 20oz bottle being common in vending machines.

Over my lifetime, the "medium" size soda at a fast-food restaurant has roughly doubled.

[tmedina]

Well thankfully shrinkflation is helping curb this. They now sell those mini-cans for as much as the regular sized one.