How To Make Diet Coke Taste Like Regular Coke

OK, and so here's the deal: I wasn't gonna bring this upwards, didn't desire to stoke controversy, would have been happy to, as they say, let sleeping dogs lie.

But I've had it. I demand to finally say something. I tin can no longer sit silently by while this deception continues.

Then here it is: Diet soda is disgusting, it is a fiendishly clever marketing tool that has tricked you all out of BILLIONS of dollars, and if you say yous like the taste of diet soda — Nutrition Coke, in particular — you are either lying to me, lying to yourself, or both. I'll die on this hill, and y'all'll never convince me that anyone actually likes the sense of taste of it (contrary to Nutrition Coke's insidious marketing slogan from the twelvemonth the product launched, "Only for the gustation of it").

Diet soda has been around decades. The Coca-Cola visitor rolled out a drink called Tab in 1963. They were reportedly wary at that fourth dimension of putting out a sugarless beverage with the name Coca-Cola at the time for fear that it would hurt sales of its world-renown classic cola beverage. Pepsi, on the other paw, jumped right in with its Diet Pepsi the following year. It took Coca-Cola roughly 20 years to finally come out with the beverage that changed America, Diet Coke. (Tab yet exists, by the way, but only in select markets and in limited availability; information technology'due south got a real cult post-obit, which is odd, but OK.)

Sales of diet drinks skyrocketed after Diet Coke hit the scene. And the market remains very, very willing to attempt new products that promise great gustation with null calories.

And so here's the affair: I don't dispute that there are people who desire a beverage with fewer calories. I get that.

Every bit an overweight gentleman, I fully sympathize that the struggle to lose weight is real and it sucks. So I experience ya. If that's why you lot're choosing the diet soda, I tin't really argue with that. A calorie is a calorie, and they all add upward.

(Although, I should betoken out that there are plenty of studies out in that location showing that switching to nutrition soda has very footling impact on an private's efforts to lose weight, and may come with other side effects, such as increased chances of having a stroke. This is all a Google search away, folks.)

Drinking diet soda to cut calories is one matter. Drinking diet soda "just for the taste of information technology" is a LIE. It'southward putrid. Tastes like a coughing syrup experiment gone awry. Or metal. Or chemicals, which is basically what it is. Every ounce of fun and enjoyment has been taken out, and the people who took it away sold it to you anyway and told you it was just every bit good every bit before they ruined it. How are people OK with this?

Imagine going to Pagliai's and they tell y'all they've replaced their heavenly pizza sauce with a generic make from the grocery shop, and then told y'all, "But don't worry, the pizza is simply as good!" You'd starting time fumbling through the contacts on your iPhone for the number to Jake's or Dino's.

Total disclosure: I LOVE soda. My dad was a Pepsi guy so that'southward where my allegiance is. I retrieve back in the 1980s when Pepsi had that bottle cap game where, on their xvi-ounce bottles, each cap was stamped with a letter. If you could spell out "Pepsi Cola" you'd be a rich man/adult female. Loved that game, just it didn't matter. I'd accept bought those Pepsi bottles with or without that game. I maintain to this twenty-four hours that Pepsi in a glass canteen is among the greatest achievements of flesh. And so, so good. Why would anyone want to neuter something then perfect, so fizzy and wonderful? What practiced could come up from messing with perfection?

We also need to be honest with ourselves about what it is we're consuming. It's saccharide in a bottle whipped up with carbonation and a secret concoction of ingredients. Merely by and large it's sugar. And an occasional canteen of sugary deliciousness should exist enough for anyone. This is, even so, the land of excess and ridiculous amounts of personal gratification. Ain't nobody gonna tell united states we tin can't have equally much sugary soda equally we want, correct? 'Merica!

It's an established fact that sugary beverages — soda, in particular — have contributed to the obesity epidemic in this state. So it'southward completely understandable that, when a "solution" comes along, people will expect to information technology equally a savior.

Merely those wellness facts I mentioned earlier are stubborn things. And while a marketing team tin can play tricks part of your listen into thinking this diet soda thing is a good idea, your body generally doesn't buy into the ruse. The torso still wants the calories those artificial sweeteners promised but didn't deliver. Still hungry, many pursue more than calories, then what practiced did that diet soda actually practise?

And then in the finish it comes downward to this: The beverage companies knew you'd be concerned most calories and came up with a production that either A) fooled you, which would be a shame, or B) forced y'all to pretend to like something that tastes like crap and then you could experience amend about yourself. Those marketing guys are smart. They got (by and large) Americans to fork over billions on a worthless product because our psyches are and then weak.

The solution isn't diet soda. The solution is regular soda in reasonable amounts. In that location's nothing wrong with regular soda every bit long as you're not drinking information technology past the trough. Have an occasional Coke or Dr. Pepper. Exit the diet soda on the shop shelf. Make Coca-Cola profitable because their soda is delicious, non considering their marketing team is deviously proficient at tapping into our insecurities.

Robb Murray is the Features Editor for The Free Press. He can be reached at 344-6386 or rmurray@mankatofreepress.com. Follow Robb on Twitter @FreePressRobb

Source: https://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/lifestyles/from-the-archives-no-you-do-not-in-fact-like-diet-coke-trust-me/article_7fbf804e-f99a-11e8-b0db-37fe90835892.html