[novalis78]

That question - in and by itself - gives you away as an American. As a central European who grew up on water, fruit juice (80-60% water thinned) and tea (green, herb and on and off black) it made me chuckle. I have never seen so much soda consumption anywhere on this planet before coming to the US.

[lazythrowaway]

America definitely drinks more soda than anyone else: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/map_of_the_.... 3x as much as most central European countries.

[novalis78]

Notwithstanding the golden "correlation != causation" adage, I found that only two things are truly consumed in much larger quantities in America than any other country I know: soda and high fructose corn syrup...at the same time being the only country with a 35% obesity rate...hmmmm

[vonmoltke]

Oh really?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/mexico-obesity_n_35...

Relevant numbers from the article:

US obesity rate: 31.8% Mexican obesity rate: 32.8%

Also, Mexican soda exclusively uses cane sugar. I buy Mexican Coke for the new times I drink regular soda for that reason.

[adventured]

Not true. Saudi Arabia is the most obese country on earth, at 70%.

Britain, Australia, and New Zealand are also substantially obese. All of those are coming increasingly close to catching America in obesity, with their obesity levels exploding higher.

[kissickas]

Here's the latest data I know of on this:

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi/components/...

The United States comes in at 8th highest obesity rate, after Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, South Africa, and Mexico.

[boydjd]

A lot of the "fruit juice" (in America, at least) contains just as much HFCS as soda.

I don't know if this is the case in the rest of the world or in this study though.

[shawabawa3]

I'm fairly sure in the UK you can't legally call fruit juice with added sugar/sweeteners "juice" - it would have to be fruit drink or something

[boydjd]

It's the same in the US ... except you can call it "juice drink" or "juice cocktail", which isn't very clear.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Wow that's weird, if I heard "juice cocktail" I'd think Mango and Orange or something. "Juice drink" is plain misleading.

[Symbiote]

Of the ~20 countries I've visited I think only the US had HFCS in the fruit juice. (It tastes funny/unfamiliar, so I notice.)

Instead they contain sugar, natural or added, and about as much as cola (~10%). The cola also has sugar instead of HFCS.

[adventured]

The US Government's vast, and continued, subsidization of corn is what led to the creation of HFCS. Makes sense, unfortunately, that the US would be drowning in it.

[andor]

That's what we have regulations for ;-) Everything called "fruit juice" in the EU needs to be 100% juice (but it can be made from concentrate).