Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences between
Mountain Dew in the UK and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In the UK, Mountain Dew comes in three portion sizes.
Firstly, we have this 330-milliliter can.
Then we have a 500-milliliter bottle.
Then we have our largest size,
which is a 1-liter bottle.
In the US, Mountain Dew comes in six portion sizes.
The smallest is this 7.5-ounce mini can.
Then we have our standard 12-ounce can,
then a 16-ounce,
or 1-pint, can.
Then we go to bottles.
We have a 16.9, or 500-milliliter, bottle.
Jump up to the 20-ounce bottle,
and our largest size,
the 2-liter bottle.
As you can see, I don't currently have a 1-liter bottle,
as it was surprisingly hard to track down.
I finally thought I'd found some on Amazon
and ordered a six-pack.
Then this showed up.
They helpfully sent me 12 500-milliliter bottles,
which is the same as six times 1 liter.
However, not really what we were going for. Thanks, guys.
Ha! Our largest size is double the size of the UK's,
and we don't even stop there.
In the US, our largest single Mountain Dew item is this.
[cheering]
24-pack of 12-ounce cans.
That's 8.52 liters of Mountain Dew,
or 2.25 gallons.
It's a little unclear what our largest single item is.
On the UK website, there is a multipack listed,
but it doesn't say how many cans are in one,
and I also couldn't find one anywhere.
So I called Britvic, who manufacture Mountain Dew
here in the UK on behalf of PepsiCo,
and an employee for them told me that
the multipack actually doesn't exist.
The largest item that the company had
on their own records that they produce is this.
A 24-pack of cans.
However, this is technically marketed at retailers
rather than consumers, as you can see
by the fact that they have prices on the cans.
We don't usually count wholesale on this show,
so technically a 1-liter bottle is our largest size,
if you can find one.
Joe: That makes the US's largest item
752% larger than the UK's.
It's also worth pointing out the difference in price
between Mountain Dew in the two countries.
Sugary sodas in the UK get hit with a sugar tax,
which raises their price
in an effort to stop people from drinking them.
If you buy a 500-milliliter Mountain Dew
from a Sainsbury's in the UK, for example,
it will cost you 1 pound 25 pence,
which was around $1.69
at the time of recording this.
Nice.
The closest thing at that price point in the US
is this 2-liter.
According to Target, this is listed as $1.98.
You must be joking.
This isn't even $2?
Look at this.
That is alarmingly cheap.
For every milliliter in the UK bottle,
you're paying 0.338 cents.
Every milliliter of this 2-liter
costs 0.0995 cents.
That's 70% cheaper than the UK price.
Hang on.
Don't you feel like when you go to a bodega or something,
this is, like, a dollar?
So not only is Mountain Dew super cheap,
but then when you get it at a sandwich shop
or something, you're getting gouged!
Oof!
Here are all the Mountain Dew products in the UK
that you won't find in the US.
Here are all the Mountain Dew products
you can find in the US you will not find in the UK.
[groans]
Show this video to the paramedics.
We can actually only get
three Mountain Dew products in the UK,
one of which I couldn't even find today.
I guess you could sort of call
our standard Mountain Dew in the UK an exclusive,
because here it's marketed as Mountain Dew Citrus Blast,
while in the US, it's just Mountain Dew.
This also comes in a diet version,
which is the thing that I couldn't find today.
The only other thing we can get in the UK is this,
which is a SodaStream Mountain Dew syrup.
For those of you who don't know,
SodaStream is a device which lets you
carbonate your own drinks at home.
PepsiCo owns both Mountain Dew and SodaStream,
so I guess it made sense for them to just
mash their products together.
Now, I love sparkling water,
so I actually own my own SodaStream,
and we can use it to make our own Mountain Dew.
Take one of your little SodaStream water bottles,
fill it with water, screw it into the machine.
Once it's nice and secure, press the magic button.
SodaStream, if you want to sponsor me,
you know where to find me.
And bang. You have fizzy water.
Ta-da.
Nice splash of the syrup.
That is a strange color on that.
I don't think that's what I was expecting it to look like.
So, I think our homemade stuff actually
might look slightly more appealing.
You could kind of pass this off as more of a fruity soda
rather than Mountain Dew from the bottle,
which is a bit more translucent,
just a bit more pallid and weak,
and not really sure what's going on there.
That's actually not bad.
That's actually not bad. It's quite a mild flavor.
It's not actually aggressively sweet.
Also not too bubbly. I guess you have a bit more
control over the bubble level with the SodaStream.
Despite the difference in the color,
they actually taste really similar.
That's actually a pretty accurate recreation.
[exhales]
Jesus Christ.
That's one of the sweetest things
I've ever tasted in my entire life.
God.
It's like they've crammed more sugar
than there is space into that. Ugh.
I am guaranteeing, Yuelei,
I'm going to throw up in the middle of this.
In the US, we have something you can't get in the UK,
and it's Mountain Dew zero sugar.
Apparently even diet Mountain Dew
still has some sugar in it.
I'm not surprised at all.
Let's see what we got.
Regular.
Zero sugar.
Wow, that's, like, really close.
I don't mean to do the
Mountain Dew zero sugar commercial here,
but it tastes exactly like regular Mountain Dew.
Mountain Dew Frost Bite.
I have no clue what this is.
Oh, that's terrible. I don't even know what that is.
This is an Avella classic.
I'm not playing. I love Mountain Dew Code Red.
It tastes like — what's that drink that you give kids
when they want alcohol?
Shirley Temple?
Right? What is that?
That's just Sprite and cherry grenadine, right?
That's exactly what this tastes like.
Oh, man.
It's back, baby. Mountain Dew Snap'd.
It's the gingerbread Mountain Dew.
I mean, it still even has Christmas shit on it, so.
It smells just like gingerbread cookies.
It's good. It's really good.
Mountain Dew Voltage.
"Dew charged with raspberry, citrus flavor, and ginseng."
It says "charged," guys.
Look at this. This is like Windex!
Oh, no.
Yeah, it has, like, a melted-popsicle flavor.
It's a really strong flavor.
It's Mountain Dew Spark.
"Dew with a blast of raspberry lemonade." OK.
I've already hit a wall.
Oh, God.
It's like if you tasked a child
to make Kool-Aid.
It's, I can't believe how strong this stuff is.
Mountain Dew Major Melon.
Watermelon Mountain Dew.
Look what's on here. Look at what they put on here.
Do you see this?
Like, look at the nightmare that's on here.
Oh, it smells exactly like a Jolly Rancher.
I like Jolly Ranchers, but in liquid form?
No. Oh, this is really bad.
It's the most artificial-tasting thing we've had so far.
To save me from getting too bored in this section,
Joe was kind enough to send me
some Mountain Dew from America
as well as some Mountain Dew Code Red.
Let's do a little side by side
of British and American Mountain Dews.
Getting a rare taste of yellow 5 in the UK.
Chin, chin.
Whoa.
What was that?
You know in the film "Limitless" when he takes that pill
and it just completely rewires his brain?
I think that's what yellow 5 now does to British people.
I've had, like, two sips of this,
and I feel like I could fight God.
Now that I've tried the American version,
the British version kind of just tastes like sadness.
There's basically no flavor to it other than sugar,
whereas at least I think with this,
you get obviously a lot of sugar,
but then there's a bit more citrus as well.
This has even more illegal food colorings in it.
We have red 40 and blue 1,
which, again, hard to come by in the UK.
OK, OK.
I think I actually might just prefer
classic American Mountain Dew.
This one felt like a religious experience,
whereas this one just felt OK.
So I'll stick to the classic Dew for now.
If that wasn't enough, we also have a range of
Kickstart Mountain Dews.
These are cans of Dew mixed with fruit juice and caffeine.
Imagine that. Caffeine.
Black cherry.
Now that it said juice in there,
I really taste the juice here.
Ooh, and electrolytes. It's like Gatorade.
Fruit punch. Love fruit punch.
Oh, no. That's very bad.
Full disclosure, pineapple orange mango,
I had to get a case of these
just to get the one for the video, so,
been working on these all week.
This one's pretty good.
Oh, man. Caffeine meter is just exploding.
Orange citrus.
Yeah, it's not bad.
Grape.
[burps]
That's the grapiest-tasting grape thing, yeah.
The flavors aren't as harsh,
'cause they cut it with juice.
So, yeah, I kind of like the Kickstarts.
Is that everything? 'Cause I'm getting
a bit bored over here.
I might just go and make a cup of tea.
Sorry, Harry, we have even more options.
We have Mountain Dew Amp energy drink.
More caffeine, I'm assuming.
This is the original. You can also get it in Cherry Blast.
[Windows shutdown sound]
Oh, man, that's really weird.
Whoa.
[inhales]
[exhales]
[kettle boiling]
Ha ha, if that wasn't enough,
we also have Mountain Dew Energy.
Why?
What was this?
Oh, Jesus.
They even broke — oh, my God, look,
they even broke it down on here.
Two cups of coffee.
5% juice, no added sugar, zinc.
Zinc?
What's zinc got to do with anything?
For all I know the can's made of zinc.
Oh, here it goes.
"Zinc helps support immune function."
I mean, I feel like I'm gonna drink this
and, like, try and run through a brick wall.
What's that doing for my health?
"Citicoline and caffeine in combination
have been shown to help improve attention."
Get —
get out of my face with this on here!
[groans]
[echoing] Show this video to the paramedics.
[groans]
Let's do this. Orange Breeze.
Orange Breeze, right?
A nice breeze of orange?
Moments before you
tackle a stranger, bite into their neck for sustenance?
Oh, that's really bad.
I don't think so.
They shouldn't even have it here.
They should just have like a Capri Sun,
like, two holes here,
and you just bite into it, like "Teen Wolf,"
and drink it that way.
Is that possible to do that?
Pomegranate Blue Burst.
This is driving me out of my mind.
I've never had a pomegranate that tastes like that,
and if I did, I would spit it out.
Oh, Strawberry Melon Spark.
Ugh.
No. Melon drinks are bad.
Peach Mango Dawn.
The dawn — a new dawn is here.
Oh, my vision is starting to blur.
Tropical Sunrise.
They've somehow bottled energy.
Ah!
Like licking a 9-volt!
The last exclusive Mountain Dew product
we're gonna cover
before I go totally blind
is Mountain Dew Game Fuel.
It's the first beverage, quote, "designed just for gamers."
For real?
Hey, sitting for 12 hours at a time
doing literally nothing
staring at a flashing screen?
Drink this. Your muscles won't atrophy as fast?
I'm not quite sure what's in here
to make it better for gaming,
but the flavors they have is Cherry Burst,
Berry Blast, original,
Tropical Strike, and Orange Storm.
Let's take out the flavors
and go through those words one more time.
Burst!
Blast.
Strike.
Storm.
Stupid.
You know, it's not as strong as the energy drinks.
The Charged Berry Blast.
Charged Berry Blast.
Ooh.
Ah, man.
Feel like I'm pulling the tab out of a grenade.
You know, I'm surprised. These aren't as harsh
as the energy drinks.
I'm feeling myself getting ready to game, Yuelei!
Getting ready to do some gaming!
Eh? I'm about to whoop some Candy Crush ass!
This one is the Charged Tropical Strike.
This one's not that bad.
Full disclosure, I thought these were going to
hands down be the worst.
I still don't like them, but.
Ooh! Charged Cherry Burst.
Bursting with cherry.
Here's the issue. Are they going to make me a better gamer?
There's only one way to find out.
I'm going to play an extreme game.
That's right.
Let's do today's Wordle.
I'm going to take a sip and then put in a five-letter word.
An extreme five-letter word.
Skate.
Board.
Mm.
Yuelei: How about blast?
There you go!
This Game Fuel's not helping.
Taste. Oh, wait, not E though.
OK, blank, A S T, blank.
Let's do casts.
OK. Maybe nasty?
N A S T Y?
All right, Wordle, here we go!
Is nasty it?
Oh-ho-ho!
That's right.
So what have we learned?
Uh, me?
Nothing.
Carry on, don't let me interrupt.
If that wasn't enough, Mountain Dew
recently partnered with the Boston Beer Company
to create hard Mountain Dew,
a boozy spiked-seltzer version of Mountain Dew.
And it comes in four flavors,
original Mountain Dew,
Baja Blast, oh, God,
black cherry, and watermelon.
And you're asking, "Joe, where is it?
I wanna see you get drunk!"
Well, I'm in California,
and it currently is only available in the United States
in Tennessee, Iowa, and Florida.
Of course it's in Florida.
Joe, I think we're gonna need the lab coats for this one.
Let's do it.
There's a fun FAQ on the UK Mountain Dew website
explaining why the American version of the product
isn't sold here, citing EU regulations.
There are some pretty major differences between the two,
some of which are potentially harmful.
The US sweetens its Mountain Dew
with high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar.
Well, it's not necessarily any worse for you.
It provides an even sweeter taste
with a slightly more chemical flavor.
The US also flavors its Dew with orange juice,
which isn't specifically listed in the UK ingredients.
One thing to look out for in the US is sodium benzoate.
This is a sodium salt
which food producers use as a preservative.
On its own, it's harmless,
but when it's mixed with certain acids,
like erythorbic or ascorbic acid,
it can form benzene.
Benzene is a known carcinogen linked to causing cancer
in factory workers who've been exposed to it.
The good news is US Mountain Dew also contains
calcium disodium EDTA,
aka calcium disodium ...
Automated voice: Ethylenediaminetetraacetate.
This can't be spelled right. Terraacetate?
Look, there's two A's next to each other in that word!
With the exception of aardvark,
I've never seen two A's next to each other.
And that's how that word starts!
This is a flavor enhancer, but it actually helps
mitigate the formation of benzene.
Fantastic. They added poison chemicals into it,
then they just added more chemicals
to stop it from being so poisonous.
Studies have shown that it chelates the metallic ions
that catalyze hydroxyl radical formation.
It's a complicated way of saying that
it removes the fuel from the fire.
Mm.
Talk about teeth for a second,
because Mountain Dew is pretty bad for your teeth.
When a man sued PepsiCo in 2009,
he alleged that he found a mouse
in his can of Mountain Dew.
But experts called in by PepsiCo said
that couldn't have been true
because Mountain Dew would have dissolved the mouse
into a jellylike substance.
Oh, my God.
If it is strong enough to dissolve an entire mouse,
you can imagine the effect Mountain Dew has
on the enamel of your teeth.
But why is this happening?
It comes down to two things.
Sugar and acid.
Tooth enamel will start to erode
if your mouth's pH level drops below 5.5.
Mountain Dew has a pH of around 3.3, which is acidic,
but actually on the better end of the spectrum
as far as sodas are concerned.
Sugar itself has a neutral pH,
so why does it aid tooth decay?
Our mouths play host to a range of bacteria.
They're usually harmless and can even be helpful
by fighting things like gingivitis.
However, they also love sugar,
and when they eat it, they produce acid.
Bacteria like Streptococcus mutans
will metabolize sugar into lactic acid,
which will then erode your teeth.
The more sugar in a soda, the more food these bacteria have
and the more acid they'll produce,
so sugar isn't causing it per se,
but it is aiding tooth decay.
Acids commonly used in soda
include citric acid and phosphoric acid.
Firstly, these acids will lower the pH of your soda
and contribute to regular erosion.
But they're also examples of polybasic acids.
These bind to the calcium in our teeth
and cause us to lose enamel through dissolution.
It's kind of like how you can use acid
to dissolve rust on a metallic object.
All in all, while Mountain Dew might not have
one of the lowest pHs when compared to other sodas,
its sugar content combined with its other ingredients
means that it is one of the worst for your teeth.
A 2004 study place it as the second-worst offender
for the dissolution of tooth enamel,
second only to Sprite.
Really? Sprite's worse? Hm.
And the bad news is the sugar-free versions of sodas
don't seem to be any less harmful.
The replacement sweeteners have the same effect
on the bacteria in your teeth.
If you're worried about your teeth,
it's better to drink a soda quickly
than it is to continuously sip it
and prolong the exposure.
Or, you know, you could just stop drinking soda.
Interestingly, the UK version
actually has 1 more gram of sugar
when compared to the American version.
But our Mountain Dew is slightly more calorific
and has double the sodium of the UK version.
The bottles contain 132% and 130%
of your daily sugar allowance, respectively.
Let's find out what that looks like.
Wait, this is for how big of a thing?
No, way. Yeah!
Oh, my God.
That's 50. We're not done yet.
That's an appalling amount of sugar.
I'm still gonna drink it.
Another thing worth pointing out
is the caffeine content of your Mountain Dew.
In the UK, many supermarkets will actually
list Mountain Dew as Mountain Dew Energy.
This is because we have stricter rules in the UK
about what does and doesn't count as an energy drink.
In the UK, sugar is a major factor
in deciding whether or not something is an energy drink,
as opposed to just caffeine.
Mountain Dew doesn't actually
disclose its caffeine content in the UK.
All I could find was this Twitter reply from 2018
where they said it used to be an energy drink,
but then they reformulated it
and now it has a similar amount of caffeine to Pepsi.
They claim that this is less than half
the caffeine content of a cup of coffee.
Regular Mountain Dew contains 72 milligrams of caffeine
per 16 ounces.
There's around 92 milligrams of caffeine
in the same amount of Kickstart,
almost one and a half espressos' worth of caffeine.
Moving up, Mountain Dew Amp, original and cherry,
contain 142 and 160 milligrams of caffeine
per 16 ounces,
more than a double espresso.
The worst offender is Mountain Dew Energy.
One of these cans contains 180 milligrams of caffeine
per 16 ounces, which is basically a triple espresso.
For reference, the FDA recommends that
the average healthy adult shouldn't consume
more than 400 milligrams of caffeine per day.
That's just over two of those Mountain Dew energies.
It's around the 1,200-milligram mark
where you're actually putting yourself in danger.
According to the FDA,
ingesting 1,200 milligrams of caffeine,
and you may experience seizures
or put yourself at risk of cardiac arrhythmia.
So please do not drink more than six of these at one time.
The "good" news is that the lethal dose of caffeine
is around 5 grams,
so to actually overdose on Mountain Dew,
you'd need to chug 28 of the Mountain Dew Energies
in pretty quick succession.
What a way to go.
Charlie: You're loving that one, aren't you?
I can't stop drinking it. I'm slightly concerned.