Even people who aren't struggling with weight issues of their own have been taken by the story line: Warped American farm policies, which make high-fructose corn syrup cheap and plentiful, have warped American bodies.
Laura Miedzianowski has become so disgusted with Big Ag in general, and the corn industry in particular, that she's started growing her own corn in her Overlea backyard.
"They are modifying what we eat," said Miedzianowski, 28, who works in information technology. "It's unnatural."
That's part of the reason she and her boyfriend embraced Pepsi Throwback and Heritage Dr Pepper, scooping them up at the Timonium Walmart as if they were heirloom tomatoes at a farmers' market.
"We were cleaning them out," said Miedzianowski, who hasn't found the sugar-sweetened sodas on shelves since January or February. "I knew it was a limited release. We would buy up to 10 cases at a time."
Bucking the high-fructose-industrial complex is only part of the appeal. She thinks the sodas with sugar taste better.
"When I had the Pepsi Throwback the first time, when they first released it last spring, I was floored because I hadn't tasted that Pepsi since I was a kid," she said.
Sodas made with sugar have always had a following in a town where a neon Domino Sugars sign is part of the skyline. Sugar-soda devotees used to have to sniff out bodegas such as Tortilleria Sinaloa on Baltimore's Eastern Avenue, which sells Coke made with sugar in Mexico. (It's $2 per 12-ounce glass bottle.) Only recently have Mexican-made soft drinks shown up in mainstream supermarkets such as Costco and Wegmans (Wegmans sells Mexican Coke for $1.50 a bottle, or $26.99 for a pack of 24.)
And then there are the kosher-for-Passover sodas. Observant Jews do not eat high-fructose corn syrup during the eight-day holiday because grains are prohibited. So the soda companies offer drinks made with sugar around that time.
"It's the real, classic Coke in a sense," said Avrom Pollak, president of Star-K Kosher Certification. "People who really want 'The Real Thing,' they can be a fine Catholic ... but they want the real stuff and they stock up on Coke and Pepsi products when it's available in the stores around Passover time. It's not something the beverage companies want you to be aware of because it probably makes production [cost] a little bit more."
Higgins, the gentile kosher Coke-seeker from Owings Mills, said it tastes "100 percent better" than ordinary Coke. She used a term more commonly associated with wine-tastings to explain why: the "mouth feel" in the high-fructose stuff isn't right.
"The syrup isn't syrupy anymore," said Higgins, an accounting professional. "It's not a solid dissolved in a liquid. It's a viscous liquid dissolved in a liquid."
She's under no illusions that the kosher cola is health food.
"It's like my treat," Higgins said. "A 2-liter bottle will last me until it goes flat."
And once her kosher supply runs out, she won't buy soda for another year. She figures there's not much worth buying until Passover rolls around again.
