--- title: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar: Is It Healthier? description: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar is the drink of summer, perfect for rafting and other activities, or that's what Pepsi would have us believe. canonical: https://time.com/3064288/pepsi-real-sugar-healthier/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-01T12:00:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T09:26:51.433Z article:section: Health og:title: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar: Is It Healthier? og:description: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar is the drink of summer, perfect for rafting and other activities, or that's what Pepsi would have us believe. og:url: https://time.com/3064288/pepsi-real-sugar-healthier/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar: Is It Healthier? twitter:description: Pepsi Made With Real Sugar is the drink of summer, perfect for rafting and other activities, or that's what Pepsi would have us believe. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Pepsi Made With Real Sugar: Is It Healthier? > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=660ee713-ae5b-4565-a7a4-ede0933e1a2e&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Aug 1, 2014 12:00 PM UTC  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Aug 1, 2014 12:00 PM UTC Pepsi Made With Real Sugar is the drink of summer, perfect—from the looks of their TV ads, anyway—for pool parties, river rafting, and other outdoor activities for the young and fit. The product, which is the centerpiece of a summer marketing blitz, ditches high fructose corn syrup for real sugar, but nutritionist experts say it isn’t really any healthier. “It really doesn’t matter. Sugar is just sugar,” said Lisa Sasson, a faculty member at New York University’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health “It’s broken down and it’s the same in our body.” Dr. David Katz, founder of the Yale Prevention Research Center and editor of the journal _Childhood Obesity_, adds that replacing corn syrup with sugar would not yield any public health benefit. Of course, Pepsi hasn’t explicitly said that real sugar makes the product healthier. Its advertisements focus on summer fun and a hearkening back to the soda’s origins, and a Pepsi spokesperson told TIME that the offering is designed to meet a consumer demand for a soda with real sugar. “I can easily imagine people thinking that cane sugar is less processed than corn syrup and is some ways more natural and healthier for you,” said John T. Gourville, a professor at Harvard Business School, who studies marketing and consumer behavior. “It’s an attempt to expand a product category that is struggling to build sales.” Indeed, carbonated beverage sales, especially in the diet market, have been [on the decline](http://business.time.com/2013/12/10/why-diet-soda-sales-have-crashed/) in recent years. This summer isn’t the first time Pepsi has used real sugar. It began selling the product for a limited time as Pepsi Throwback in 2009\. The company launched the Throwback as a permanent fixture in 2011 and added Pepsi Made With Real Sugar last month. 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