>>"What in the world does "mid-calorie" actually mean?"

It means there's some sugar, some artificial sweetener. It's a compromise for people who want to cut back on the sugar, but don't like the diet stuff.

Back in the mid-90s, Diet Coke and Pepsi here in Canada changed sweeteners from aspartame to a mixture of aspartame and acesulfame-K. It was a great moment in diet pop. It tastes *much* better (IMHO) than the American stuff. But before that, when the diet stuff was pretty nasty, I drank Pepsi Max. I guess it never took off in the US, but they still have it here. It was really good.