Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes,
We wanted to find out all the differences between Red Bull
in the UK and the US.
This is Food Wars.
In the UK,
Red Bull comes in three portion sizes:
A 250-milliliter can,
a 355-milliliter can,
and a 473-milliliter can.
In the US,
our Red Bull cans come in four sizes,
8.4 fluid ounces, or 250 milliliters,
12 fluid ounces, or 355 milliliters,
16 fluid ounces, or 473 milliliters.
And the biggest one,
20 fluid ounces — yo! — or 591 milliliters.
That means our US largest size
is 30% bigger than the UK's.
Harry: Let's see if we're actually getting
our 473 milliliters' worth.
Actually, looks slightly more than 473.
Maybe we're getting even more for our money.
The largest single item by volume in the UK
is a 24-pack of our 355-milliliter cans.
That totals 8,520 milliliters,
which is around 288 fluid ounces.
While we do have a larger can on offer,
that only comes as part of a 12-pack,
meaning that the total is only 5,664 milliliters,
which is less than the 24-pack of this one.
In the US, our largest Red Bull item is a 24-pack
of 12-fluid-ounce cans.
I was unable to get my hands on it,
but it is the same liquid amount as the UK's largest.
Our closest second is a 12-pack of 24-fluid-ounce cans.
Here are all the Red Bull products you'll find in the UK,
some of which you won't find in the US.
Here are all the Red Bull items in the US
you won't find in the UK.
So technically we have eight Red Bull products in the UK.
We have the normal one,
we have the sugar-free one,
we have the zero one,
red, green, yellow, orange, and white.
Some of these are seasonal
and will rotate in and out,
so it's a little bit tricky to keep track of
exactly what's on offer,
but this is what we could get today.
In addition to this,
we have a couple of sugar-free exclusives,
which technically adds to the total.
From what I can tell,
these three flavors are exclusive to the US,
and you can't find them in the UK.
First, we have the blue edition,
which is blueberry flavored,
and we got the peach flavored,
which I believe is flavored peach,
and the winter edition,
which is what flavor?
Fig apple? Hmm.
Now both countries have the coconut flavor,
but from what I can tell online,
we also have the coconut sugar-free flavor.
I actually couldn't even find sugar-free versions
of the red one or the orange one.
I did find a sugar-free yellow one, though.
You can tell it's sugar-free
because it's got this blue sugar-free band there,
blue sugar-free label there,
and also the tab is blue.
That's quite fun.
While it's not technically a UK exclusive,
I did find this one while I was hunting for Red Bull,
I think it's imported from Thailand,
and it's a cold-brew-coffee-flavored Red Bull,
which sounds pretty intense.
Because there aren't too many exclusives
between the US and the UK,
I'm going to do a lightning round
of every flavor I can get my hands on here in the US.
Couldn't find any of the sugar-free options,
but I know they are available,
at least online,
and also I got Red Bull Zero
and sugar-free Red Bull.
So let's do a quick lightning round of each flavor.
Ready?
The issue here is that I don't drink energy drinks.
I don't like the taste of Red Bull.
They make me feel weird.
I drink tea if I need a bit of a caffeine hit, and that's it.
But apparently I have to taste-test all of these,
so wish me luck.
I am not happy about this.
Regular Red Bull flavors, but sugar-free.
I don't think I've ever had a sugar-free one.
Maybe I should.
because I did drink an alarming amount of Red Bull
when I was younger,
and maybe a sugar-free option would've been a good idea.
You know.
A little side-by-side action.
Regular,
sugar-free.
I might still be getting the sugar-free ones.
It's, like, really close.
Good job on that, Red Bull.
Basically the only time I drink Red Bull
is when it's in a Jagerbomb.
It's also makes me think of those,
which is not the vibe for an 11 a.m. video shoot.
Cheers, I guess.
So this is the normal Red Bull.
Yeah.
The best thing I can say about this is that
the taste kind of, like, disappears fairly fast.
So I'll
leave that in the middle to begin with
while I do the rankings.
This is the sugar-free version
in the giant can.
The aftertaste isn't quite as nice
with the sugar-free version.
Slightly worse than the regular one.
Sugar-free has some sugar in it, I guess.
It says zero grams of sugar and sugar-free,
but for some reason, they got another one
that's zero sugar.
OK.
Doesn't have much of a taste either, to be honest.
You get that, kind of like that energy drink
jolt you get when you take a sip of an energy drink.
The Red Bull Zero oddly doesn't have that.
OK, the coconut edition, coconut berry Red Bull.
I've never seen a human being drink any of these.
Never in my life have I seen anyone purchase one of these
or drink them.
Up until me making this video,
I did not know these existed,
and I don't know why they exist still.
Let's find out. All right, coconut and berry Red Bull.
The product nobody asked for.
This coconut berry Red Bull is absolutely terrible.
That is what it's like to drink, uh,
sunscreen?
Red one. Watermelon.
I actually don't hate that.
That's not bad.
My issue is I don't understand why they settled on
that as the taste of like, unsweetened, unflavored Red Bull.
Because it's not good.
At least in my opinion, watermelon has helped that out.
The green edition, the dragon fruit.
As you are aware, dragons are green,
so clearly the can is green dragon fruit.
Everyone make that connection?
Oh, my God.
It's somehow worse than this one.
It's somehow worse.
This is what I think pee tastes like.
Does that make sense?
It smells like pee.
The energy that Red Bull gives you
is being counteracted by the absolute depression
these flavors are giving me right now.
I'm, like, having this weird thing of all this energy,
and it's being converted into sadness because of these two.
Next up is the green one,
which is flavored with cactus fruit.
I don't know what cactus fruit is meant to taste like.
If I saw a green can,
I would assume maybe green apple or lime.
It's fine.
I don't think it's quite as good as the watermelon.
Ah, watermelon Red Bull.
Ugh, I don't want to do this anymore.
We're making a comeback.
Watermelon's not bad.
Oh yeah, baby.
The Red Bull meter is going up.
Sugar-free tropical fruits.
I generally quite like tropical fruits-flavored things,
because I have a palate of a child.
I spoke too soon.
That's really gross.
No. Bad. Worst one so far.
Worse than the sugar-free normal one.
All right, blue edition blueberry.
Yeah, not bad. Tart.
Wow, tart.
Thirty-eight grams of sugar in this.
You would not think. You would not believe that
from the way this tastes.
I guess I'm not complaining.
It's just, do you want your energy drink to be tart?
Regular tropical fruits.
One thing I'm already noticing
is that the sugar-free versions
have much less of a strong smell
compared to the versions with sugar.
It's better than the sugar-free version.
Still not great.
Try that one more time.
The regular tropical version is actually better
than unflavored Red Bull.
Whereas the sugar-free one,
something's gone wrong there,
cause that is actually worse than the classic Red Bull.
All right. Peach edition.
Peach nectarine.
Yeah, here we go.
Mmm, yeah, wow.
Ooh, that's good.
That's really good.
Also tart. Thirty-eight grams of sugar.
The summer edition apricot strawberry.
I mean, that sounds lovely.
This maybe sounds like the most appealing
of any of them so far.
So I've got high hopes.
Smells pretty good.
I get notes of strawberry.
Oooh. Oooh, OK.
See, this is concerning,
because I didn't actually want to like any of these.
This is a problem, guys.
I can't become a Red Bull guy.
I'm not ready for a Red Bull era.
I'm too loyal to Mercedes.
This is pretty good.
I definitely, like,
I get apricot and strawberry from that.
It's not overpowering.
It's just like a sort of nice spark of very —
yeah, that's the best one I've tried so far.
Winter edition.
Fig apple.
Fig apple, winter.
I'm not making the connection.
Um.
Not good. It tastes like if
a sour apple Jolly Rancher was a drink.
Does that make sense?
No, not refreshing at all.
The coconut and berry edition,
I'm not getting much, if any, of the berry flavor from this.
Coconut's definitely the the star of the show,
but it's not bad coming from someone who, say,
doesn't usually like coconut as a flavoring.
I think it's actually, it's better than the tropical,
as far as I'm concerned.
And last on the flavor train
we got the yellow edition tropical.
Ooh, tropical.
Oh, it doesn't smell very good.
Just please be at least OK.
Oh I can.
Yeah. OK.
Yeah, it's all right. OK.
And then last, but by no means least,
we have this random imported coffee one that I found.
My only concern, or I guess comment, on this one is that
I'm not sure who the target audience is.
Because I feel like if you like coffee,
you'll just drink coffee if you want a caffeine hit.
I'm not sure why, if you liked coffee,
you would want to flavor your Red Bull with coffee,
because you're already getting the caffeine.
But here you're just getting, like, loads of sugar
and additives as well.
It tastes like someone has taken a coffee
and poured Coca-Cola in it.
Which might be to your liking.
Joe: Hits the spot. The "I want to jack my caffeine lover
through the roof" spot.
I, actually, where would that go?
Is that better than regular Red Bull?
I actually don't think it is.
But is it the worst one I've had today?
No. No, it's not.
That's there.
That's there, and we're done.
My vision is starting to blur.
Ooh, this might have been a bad idea.
Oh no, no, it's kicking in.
I like Red Bull.
Sugar-free is exactly the same thing.
This one had less of an aftertaste,
which actually, I didn't really like.
Coconut and dragon fruit.
Suntan lotion and pee.
Watermelon, I liked.
Blue, a little too tart.
Peach, I enjoyed.
Fig apple, trash.
And tropical, not bad.
My main takeaways from that, firstly, I need to lie down.
If we can make that happen, that would be great.
Secondly, I think the sugar-free versions are overwhelmingly
worse-tasting than the sugar versions are.
I also think for me, like I say,
I don't love the taste of just normal Red Bull,
so I think I've ended up liking the ones
which are flavored with things which aren't Red Bull.
So that makes sense.
What about the price?
Well, in the UK, a 250-milliliter can
will cost you 1.50 pounds at a Tesco supermarket.
That works out to roughly 60 pence per 100 milliliters,
which is around 74 cents.
In the US,
The cost of this 250-milliliter Red Bull can
at Walmart is $2.18,
which breaks it down to 80 cents per 100 milliliters.
So it looks like the UK
is actually getting a slightly better deal
on its Red Bull than the US is.
That's actually kind of a Food Wars first,
so it doesn't happen often.
In the UK, our standard Red Bull
contains the following ingredients:
water, sucrose, glucose, acidifier citric acid,
taurine, sodium carbonates
and magnesium carbonate, caffeine, niacin, pantothenic acid,
vitamin B6, vitamin B12 flavorings, colors,
caramel and riboflavin, and carbon dioxide.
Our Red Bull in the US contains pretty much
the same stuff.
Carbonated water, sucrose, glucose, citric acid, taurine,
sodium bicarbonate, magnesium carbonate, caffeine.
Niacinamide.
Calcium pantothenate.
Pyridoxine HCI.
Vitamin B12, natural and artificial flavors.
All right.
The vitamins have different names, but it's all the same.
You may notice the ingredient taurine on that list.
Now, taurine has been the subject of
inaccurate rumors on the internet for years.
Taurine has an association with bulls,
drawing its name from the Latin word for bull, taurus.
Some people run with this
and falsely claim that it's code for bull semen.
The name actually comes from the fact that
taurine was first isolated from ox bile.
OK, the good news is that there's no ox spit in Red Bull,
as food producers have used a synthetic version of taurine
that isn't derived from animals.
It also means that Red Bull is suitable for vegans.
One study found that exposing human teeth to energy drinks
for 15 minutes, four times a day,
resulted in a significant
and irreversible loss of tooth enamel.
The study also noted that
energy drinks were twice as harmful as regular soft drinks
to tooth enamel.
As the study in rats found,
chronic intake of Red Bull may cause a decline
in kidney function.
However, these results have not been replicated
in human studies.
But any excuse to see my boys, the dancing rats.
Red Bull in the UK contains 110 calories
per 250-milliliter can.
One of these cans also contains 27 grams of sugar.
According to their website,
this is actually a similar amount of sugar
to what you might find in say, apple juice.
Both sugar-free Red Bull and Red Bull Zero
contain 10 calories per this 8.4-fluid-ounce can.
Sugar-free replace their sugar with
acesulfame potassium and aspartame.
Red Bull Zero replaced sugar with
acesulfame potassium K and sucralose.
Acesulfame potassium, or Ace K,
which is Red Bull's zero-calorie sweetener,
has had its share of controversy over the years.
Although, to be fair,
a lot of the studies this came from were done in the 1970s.
This has led to the validity being called into question
in recent years.
According to Healthline.com,
in 1996, the Center for Science in the Public Interest
urged the FDA to do more testing on Ace K
before allowing its inclusion in soft drinks.
The CSPI go on to say that there are
health concerns associated with a Ace K,
including cancer, hormone disruption,
and risks to pregnant people.
There's also a study that determined
the chronic use of Ace K in male mice
was linked to possible changes in brain function
over a period of 40 weeks.
Yeah, I believe that it's been 40 minutes,
and my brain is just.
One of the perceived benefits of drinking Red Bull
is that it's supposed to give people a boost
through its caffeine content.
A 250-milliliter can contains 80 milligrams of caffeine.
But is that a lot?
Compared to other soft drinks?
Yeah.
A 12-ounce can of Coke contains 34 milligrams of caffeine.
That's less than half the amount of caffeine
and almost double the amount of fluid as this Red Bull.
A 12-ounce can of Mountain Dew
contains slightly more, with 55 milligrams.
If we compare Red Bull to another popular energy drink,
Monster, you'll find that they actually have the same
caffeine content per 100 milliliters,
which is 32 milligrams.
Although Monster cans tend to be bigger,
so you are getting more caffeine in total.
The caffeine amount, however,
can be a bit underwhelming when compared to regular coffee.
An eight-ounce, 237-milligram
brewed coffee contains on average 95 milligrams of caffeine,
and a double shot of espresso contains 125 milligrams.
One issue comes from the fact that
some people will consider Red Bull to be more like a soda,
and therefore might drink higher quantities of it.
So is it possible to overdose on Red Bull?
Yeah, although highly unlikely.
Caffeine-related deaths have been found in individuals
that intake somewhere between 3 and 5 grams —
not milligrams, grams — of caffeine in one day.
That would be 40 of these.
I feel like your bladder would explode first.
Although apparently, that wasn't enough caffeine
for some people.
In 2014, Red Bull was sued in a class-action lawsuit
around false advertising.
Remember the ad campaign "Red Bull gives you wings"?
Well, it doesn't.
False advertising.
Back then, Red Bull did say in its marketing
that this drink could improve concentration
and reaction speeds,
a claim that lacked any scientific support.
Furthermore, the suit said that Red Bull
persistently and pervasively market their product
as a superior source of energy, worthy of a premium price
over a cup of coffee or other sources of caffeine.
Red Bull did agree to a $13 million settlement,
which granted anyone who purchased a Red Bull
dating back the January 1, 2002,
was entitled to $10 or $15 worth of Red Bull.
It looks and sounds exactly like pee.
Ugh. Good morning.