I hate coffee.
Okay, maybe “hate” is a little strong. It’s not like my grandmother choked to death one night, then during the autopsy, they found a bunch of whole coffee beans lodged in her throat, leading me to fly to South America so I could wreak havoc across the Colombian coffee bean fields in a massive and violent rage of despair. I just really dislike the flavor.
I’ve tried various kinds and they all tasted yucky. I once showed up late to a picnic and almost everyone had finished eating. One person pointed to about two-thirds of a chocolate cake that hadn’t been eaten and said, “It’s all yours!” My eyes lit up and I began gorging myself… for three bites. Half the people who’d tried it couldn’t taste the coffee inside, but it was enough to spoil my appetite for a chocolate cake, so… yeah. I really dislike the flavor.
Consequently, my caffeine source of preference is Mountain Dew. Go ahead, judge all you want, Judgey McJudgerson. It helps me stay focused when I’m studying and stay awake when I’m in class (the tired head bob is really awkward and really noticeable when you’re in a class of 12 people). And the sugary taste doesn’t hurt, either.
In class last week, the person sitting next to me saw my Mountain Dew and mentioned a show that revealed in each can, there are [blank] packets of sugar. (I don’t remember the number, but I did my own research later that night…) I was surprised, then took a big gulp from the can. Yummy.
So here’s what I found upon further research via Google and the can of Dew I was drinking—if these numbers are wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments section:
There are 4 grams of sugar in a packet of sugar.
There are 46 grams of sugar in a can of Mountain Dew.
Therefore, the sugar content in one can of Mountain Dew is 11.5 packets of sugar.
Since I was looking at sugar content, I decided to look at some caffeine content as well:
There are 54 mg of caffeine in a 12 oz can of Mountain Dew.
There are 260 mg of caffeine in a tall coffee (12 oz) at Starbucks. (Sorry, forgot to write down the web address where I found that number…)
Therefore, the caffeine content in a tall coffee at Starbucks is 4.8 cans of Mountain Dew.
According to these numbers, if I ever find a way to stand the taste of coffee, going to Starbucks and getting a proportional amount of sugar to caffeine as Mountain Dew means I’d have to order: “Tall coffee, no cream and 55 packets of sugar, please.”
