What's in a Coca-Cola Around the World?

So which is the least healthy?

Coca-Cola's recipe is famously short, so the real story is the sweetener and how much of it ends up in your glass. We've standardised everything to a 330ml can (local cans vary: the US and Mexico sell 355ml, Australia 375ml, Japan and India 300–350ml). The USA uses high-fructose corn syrup; Mexico famously uses cane sugar; Japan blends HFCS and sugar; and the UK, Germany, India and Australia use plain sugar (sucrose). Crucially, despite the UK's 2018 soft-drinks sugar tax, full-sugar Coca-Cola Original Taste was never reformulated — Coca-Cola chose to pay the levy and steer shoppers toward Zero Sugar instead, so the classic recipe is still roughly 10.6g of sugar per 100ml.

By the can, Japan edges it as the most sugar-dense Coca-Cola at about 11.3g per 100ml — and like the USA it leans on high-fructose corn syrup. But honestly, the differences are marginal: every market's classic Coke is a full-sugar drink delivering 35–37g of sugar per 330ml. The bigger surprise is that the UK's much-publicised sugar tax left Coca-Cola Original Taste completely unchanged — there is no stevia-reformulated, low-sugar classic Coke on the shelf, only the separate Zero Sugar line.