Diet drinks - who else hates them?

[LawBeefaroni]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

[Sudy]

Sorry, I wasn't clear: many/most sodas contain caffeine.

I got you... I just thought you were suggesting I seek a caffeine source minus the sugar. I think the only caffeinated sodas I regularly drink are Mountain Dew and Barq's, but... those are the only sodas I regularly drink lol.

[Carpet_pissr]

Sorry, I wasn't clear: many/most sodas contain caffeine.

I got you... I just thought you were suggesting I seek a caffeine source minus the sugar. I think the only caffeinated sodas I regularly drink are Mountain Dew and Barq's, but... those are the only sodas I regularly drink lol.

Wellllll, I WAS...but I edited it out because it was sounding too preachy. I figured you would reach the logical conclusion of "lots of energy, minus sugar or sugar substitute? COFFEE!!!" on your own (or tea, even better!).

Says the guy who consumes way too much added sugar in his diet, just not of the carbonated drink variety.

[Holman]

For the past two decades I've drunk only water, coffee, milk, beer, wine, and the very occasional fruit juice. I've never been into soft drinks at all, but when I was younger I could always feel the weird chemical aftertaste of Diet This/That.

I've cut down my alcohol consumption recently, and somehow that has led me to stop putting sugar in my coffee. I think my whole palette is shifting away from sweetness. I've even started finding sweet desserts too cloying.

[Kraken]

For the past two decades I've drunk only water, coffee, milk, beer, wine, and the very occasional fruit juice.

Change fruit juice to unsweetened iced tea and water into seltzer, and that's my lineup.

Many months ago I bought a bottle of Diet Rite cola because I vaguely remembered liking it as a child. I finally got the whim to open it last week. It had gone flat. Had half a glass and poured the rest out. Then I remembered that it was Royal Crown that I used to like. Oh well, so much for adventures in cola.

[Holman]

Barq's Root Beer is the only soft drink I miss.

When I was 11 or 12, I and some fellow Boy Scouts attempted to satisfy the requirement for a "suburban hike" by mapping and following a route by compass rather than road maps. This was the early 1980s, so none of us had mobile phones or GPS. It was an Alabama summer.

We got lost and wandered all morning (mostly through other people's back yards), and although we felt we'd gone eight miles we later learned we'd gone only three. Eventually we reached an intersection with a convenience store and a phone booth. Someone called someone's parents who picked us up and bought us all Barq's Root Beer.

I'll never have another Barq's. It would almost certainly ruin the heaven of that memory.

[Isgrimnur]

I filled up my bottle for ice water to go to the gym. Imagine my surprise when I get there with a half-full bottle of war sugar free grape Koolaid.

I stick to Orange or Tropical Punch.

[Daehawk]

Its for the best. Barqs changed many years ago. Become commercial when I think Coca Cola bought it. Doesn't have that same bite it was known for. I got one a few weeks back. Meh. I think the last time they were really great was the late 80s or early 90s. They were different. Not anymore.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I filled up my bottle for ice water to go to the gym. Imagine my surprise when I get there with a half-full bottle of war sugar free grape Koolaid.

I stick to Orange or Tropical Punch.

War-sugar Kool-Aid sounds like the best kind of Kool-Aid.

[Isgrimnur]

*warm

And the secret ingredient in those is sucralose (Splenda).

[Zenn7]

I drink mostly diet drinks. Wife is diabetic, so I just get diet with her (helps for the stuff we both like).

I still drink some sugared stuff from time to time (trying out new flavors of Mountain Dew that don't have a diet version for example).

My favorite thing at the moment is Major Melon Mountain Dew Zero. Only drinking it during the week or when I have to go out of town on weekends (usually once a month), and sometimes on D&D game day (once a month for long game day, don't do it on short game day) though I've tried to move away from drinking during game day. Was 2-2 cans/day, but cut back to 1. Blood pressure's getting too high - 140's/high 80's-mid 90's. Trying to fight that, cutting out most of the salt I added to things (Mrs Dash now), and more no-salt added canned veggies, lower sodium packaged food options, etc. Got a long way to go on improving that. Don't suffer from caffeine withdrawal too much since I moved to taking a couple days off most every week.

Also drink the water-enhancers and some flavored waters.

Found a sugar free lemon-aid at Sam's club (regular and strawberry - $7.99 for 24 16oz bottles). So we've been drinking that a lot.

Don't care for Diet Coke, but then I'm not huge fan of regular Coke. Preference Pepsi, and really not a cola fan, preference Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist, Sprite, Lemonade, the occasional root beer.

We found Faygo has a flavor in a blue bottle - Arctic Sun that has a diet version, we love that, split 2 litters of that on weekends a lot (no caffeine, clear, citrus-y, more like Squirt than Sprite or Mountain Dew - wife doesn't like those, does like Squirt, I'm not a fan of Squirt). Unfortunately, we were getting them at Meijer and looks like they've stopped carrying it.

Only like coffee with sugar (so... might as well drink pop that I like more). Hate tea.

I usually drink at least 48 oz of water/day if I'm exercising (drink 20-24oz then). Often more. One glass of lite-OJ, 2-3 glasses of milk.

I'll end this chapter of the book of me now.

[Carpet_pissr]

For the past two decades I've drunk only water, coffee, milk, beer, wine, and the very occasional fruit juice.

Change fruit juice to unsweetened iced tea and water into seltzer, and that's my lineup.

Many months ago I bought a bottle of Diet Rite cola because I vaguely remembered liking it as a child. I finally got the whim to open it last week. It had gone flat. Had half a glass and poured the rest out.

For your homies? Also, pretty sure the carbonation shelf life of soda is a few years at most. 50-60? Unheard of. Not sure what you were expecting, sir!

[pr0ner]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

Definitely a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I much prefer the taste of Diet Coke.

Diet Mountain Dew is my weakness, though. That's liquid crack to me.

[El Guapo]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

Definitely a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I much prefer the taste of Diet Coke.

Diet Mountain Dew is my weakness, though. That's liquid crack to me.

Your taste and preferences in this area are incorrect.

[disarm]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

Definitely a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I much prefer the taste of Diet Coke.

Diet Mountain Dew is my weakness, though. That's liquid crack to me.

The interesting thing about Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar is that they both use the same artificial sweetener (aspartame), but they taste dramatically different. The difference is that Zero uses sodium citrate (and some other non-specific 'natural flavors'), while Diet uses citric acid. It's a subtle chemical difference that apparently makes a huge difference in taste

[dbt1949]

I've drank diet sodas so long that when I do drink one with sugar it's too sweet.

[Jeff V]

My kids were raised not drinking soda of any sort -- occasionally (like maybe once a year) they will try it and reaffirm they just don't like it.

I still have sugar-free versions of Dr. Pepper around the house. Lately it's Dr. Pepper Zero. Before it was caffeine free Diet Dr Pepper, which seems to have gone extinct. Or Diet Dr. Pepper. Or Faux Dr. Pepper (I'd get the Shasta version, until it raised its prices to match that of the real thing).

[pr0ner]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

Definitely a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I much prefer the taste of Diet Coke.

Diet Mountain Dew is my weakness, though. That's liquid crack to me.

Your taste and preferences in this area are incorrect.

For Diet Coke vs Coke Zero, or the gloriousness that is Diet Mountain Dew?

[El Guapo]

Timely thread. I had to buy a bunch of soda for the office. We haven't had in-person meeting a other than suite mates for a while but had some people fly in today.


I got water, Coke, spindrift, and coffee. I wasn't sure whether to get Diet Coke or Coke Zero (is there a difference?). I ended up getting both and I'm glad I did. Definitely two very strong camps.

Definitely a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. I much prefer the taste of Diet Coke.

Diet Mountain Dew is my weakness, though. That's liquid crack to me.

Your taste and preferences in this area are incorrect.

For Diet Coke vs Coke Zero, or the gloriousness that is Diet Mountain Dew?

All of it. Diet Coke is borderline poison while Coke Zero tastes like actual soda. Diet Mountain Dew isn't the worst thing in the world, but I'd still prefer crab juice.

[stimpy]

Sorry, I wasn't clear: many/most sodas contain caffeine.

I got you... I just thought you were suggesting I seek a caffeine source minus the sugar. I think the only caffeinated sodas I regularly drink are Mountain Dew and Barq's, but... those are the only sodas I regularly drink lol.

Isnt Barq's root beer?
Those are caffeine free, I thought?

[Sudy]

Isnt Barq's root beer?
Those are caffeine free, I thought?

Most popular root beers I'm familiar with are caffeine free, but not Barq's. Barq's is sometimes regarded as being a more cola-like root beer. It has a fairly interesting history according to Wikipedia. For a long time it wasn't marketed as root beer to avoid legal conflict with Hires. The diet version isn't caffeinated. Neither version is caffeinated in Freestyle machines due to shared ingredients. There's also a caffeine-free variety sold in Utah.

[Holman]

Our civilization is amazing. We care more about varieties of sugarwater than most cultures have cared about varieties of deity.

[Isgrimnur]

NC State

At issue is sucralose, a widely used artificial sweetener sold under the trade name Splenda®. Previous work by the same research team established that several fat-soluble compounds are produced in the gut after sucralose ingestion. One of these compounds is sucralose-6-acetate.

“Our new work establishes that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic,” says Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study and an adjunct professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We also found that trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate can be found in off-the-shelf sucralose, even before it is consumed and metabolized.
...
For the study, researchers conducted a series of in vitro experiments exposing human blood cells to sucralose-6-acetate and monitoring for markers of genotoxicity.

“In short, we found that sucralose-6-acetate is genotoxic, and that it effectively broke up DNA in cells that were exposed to the chemical,” Schiffman says.

The researchers also conducted in vitro tests that exposed human gut tissues to sucralose-6-acetate.

“Other studies have found that sucralose can adversely affect gut health, so we wanted to see what might be happening there,” Schiffman says. “When we exposed sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate to gut epithelial tissues – the tissue that lines your gut wall – we found that both chemicals cause ‘leaky gut.’ Basically, they make the wall of the gut more permeable. The chemicals damage the ‘tight junctions,’ or interfaces, where cells in the gut wall connect to each other.

[em2nought]

Honestly my real problem is juice. I'm addicted to citrus and Ocean Spray products.

Ocean Spray now offers Immuni+y which is only 60 calories per serving.


Sometimes I mix it 50/50 with generic diet mountain dew.

[Sudy]

Honestly my real problem is juice. I'm addicted to citrus and Ocean Spray products.

Ocean Spray now offers Immuni+y which is only 60 calories per serving.

Sometimes I mix it 50/50 with generic diet mountain dew.

Interesting, I don't think I've seen this in Canada yet. How do you find it tastes? Is it strong/sweet enough to stand on its own?

I've largely cut juice out of my diet in the past year. Still drink diet soda and diet sports drinks, but probably only about one a day. I drink more tea, and coffee when my stomach can handle it. Sometimes I pick up a bottle of something and binge, but mostly my sugared juice/pop intake is limited to fast food/dining out. Thankfully nowhere near my old habit of drinking a couple of litres a day.

[em2nought]

Interesting, I don't think I've seen this in Canada yet. How do you find it tastes? Is it strong/sweet enough to stand on its own?

Immuni+y could stand on it's own, but it not's near as sweet like cran-raspberry Ocean Spray. I mix it with the generic diet Mountain
Dew when I get tired of diet mountain dew on it's own. I should drink more PG Tips tea, which I love, but I also hate cleaning my glass top stove. I only buy Immuni+y when Publix has it on BOGO.

[dbt1949]

There's always MIO.

[Blackhawk]

There is always a glass of water.

Or just cutting out sugar until natural things actually taste sweet again, and sugar starts tasting like acid.

[Sudy]

Yeah I return to that point pretty quickly. I usually only crave sugar when I'm having a meal to counterbalance the saltiness. Or lack thereof. I drink a ton of water and always have two bottles on rotation from the freezer. Water kind of meets a different need.

[LawBeefaroni]

I mostly drink water. When I drink juice or soda I almost always mix it with 50% or more water. Just too sweet otherwise.

[Rumpy]

I've been drinking lots of sparkling water as of late. I can't remember the last time I've touched a soft drink diet or otherwise. There's a line of sparkling water that attempt to recreate soft drink flavors such as root beer, cream soda, cola, etc, and they're really good at recreating those flavors to the point I feel I'm not missing anything.

[Isgrimnur]

You going to tell us the name, or...?

[Rumpy]

Oh, I would, but they aren't available in the U.S as it's a Canadian brand But it's PC Brand. They have different packaging than their regular fruit-flavored sparkling waters.

[Isgrimnur]

I've been told that there are other Canadians aboot.

[Blackhawk]

Other than plain water, I do drink flavored, unsweetened water quite a bit - Bubly, La Croix, and so on. And as a sugar-limiter, they actually do taste sweet.

[Punisher]

For most of my life I was a HEAVY soda drinker. Mostly Pepsi if available otherwise Coke as a backup. One of my dining out pet peeves was if the server wouldn't bring refills in a timely manner.
Then, probably about 10 years ago I found out that I was diabetic (i wonder why...). I had to switch. Up until thatpoint I hated diet anything but found that I did like things with Splenda. I tried diet pepsi and after about a month fell in love with it. I got used to other diet things too.
In 2020 I ended up giving grape Propel water a try and gell in love with that. It became my go to drink over soda, but I still drank various diet sodas.
In 2022 I had a major medical crisis (see posts elsewhere for details if interested) I was told to lay off any dark drinks for the most part. I dont drink coffee so not a big deal since tea was ok and cut back my soda intake further. Now, I'm about 95% Propel water. The rest is diet sprite/sprite zero and occasionally diet pepsi or diet root beer. When dining out I either bring my own or have plain water because most places don't have diet sprite.
One diet drink I've been drinking since 2003 are Atkins Strawberry shakes. I love those although now they have Chai shakes and they are my new favorite.

[Pyperkub]

Coffee then water most days. 1x week I'll have a regular soda with lunch.

Movies I always get a soda, they go really well with movie popcorn.

Coffee was black mostly, until I got an espresso maker, now it's low-fat double lattes in the morning at home.

Diet soda was always a non starter for me, the taste and aftertaste are just *wrong* for me.



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[Lassr]

these days I have maybe 1 Coke Zero a day, usually lunch. Then at night it is water or unsweet tea. Unsweet tea took a long time to get used to. Growing up in the south, it was a little tea with your sugar... Sweet syrupy tea. I started adding splenda or artificial sweeteners but they just don't taste right.

I started drinking coffee about 5 years ago, it tastes really bitter to me even with creamers, but it helped me get used to enjoying unsweet tea.

I do have the small squirt bottles of flavoring that I carry around, when I remember, for back up in case the tea or water has a bad taste.

[Rumpy]

When dining out I either bring my own or have plain water because most places don't have diet sprite.

Out of curiosity, most places that serve food won't usually let anyone bring their own food or drinks, so how do you get around that?

[Punisher]

When dining out I either bring my own or have plain water because most places don't have diet sprite.

Out of curiosity, most places that serve food won't usually let anyone bring their own food or drinks, so how do you get around that?

I just do it. Only 1 place has asked about it and I explained that for medical reasons I am only supposed to drink diet sprite for soda. If they actually have diet sprite I order their's but except for fast food, I've never seen it.
I'm currently in a wheelchair as well so that may help.
If it wasn't a medical restriction I would drink their diet pepsi or coke.