# Artificial sweeteners, yes or no? A poll for the masses **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 28, 2021, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995 "2021-04-28T22:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/21 "2021-04-29T04:18:54Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > I can’t drink regular coke unless it’s diluted with rum Mmmmm… those two do go well together. In trying to cut back on sugar (and avoid HFCS), I’ve been mixing Coke with Coke Zero… and then a splash (or two) of Plantation Rum so I don’t notice the Zero. Add a squeezed and cut-up lime for a Cuba Libre Ligero… If I was serious about losing weight, I’d skip the alcohol, but during the past year I’ve noticed that the rum is non-negotiable. … > [@eschrodinger](#): > > I find it fascinating how people’s tastes vary so much on this. This is surprising. Never have I seen such a wide range of tastes… well, not since I decided to wake up an 8 am class by writing “Pizza With Pineapple Is No Longer Pizza” on the board. Voices were raised, X-Acto blades were drawn… ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/22 "2021-04-29T04:29:51Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Never have I seen such a wide range of tastes… well, not since I decided to wake up an 8 am class by writing “Pizza With Pineapple Is No Longer Pizza” on the board. Voices were raised, X-Acto blades were drawn… 🏆 ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/23 "2021-04-29T04:43:06Z")
I rarely sweeten stuff, but Splenda/sucralose is the only non-sugar sweetener that doesn’t taste bad to me. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/24 "2021-04-29T05:03:10Z")
I didn’t mind cyclamates. The rest just taste awful. The worst are the ones with an after taste, have to find something else to drink to ever get rid of it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/25 "2021-04-29T07:07:56Z")
I once was taking a class with a bunch of people from a lot of different companies. At lunch one day, table of 8, we found that one was from a company that made sweeteners. “No one can taste them” she said. The rest of us, all seven, said “oh yes we can.” Back 60 years or so ago my parents used saccharin, which seemed fine to me. I can’t stand any of the others. None are in our house. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/26 "2021-04-29T11:44:57Z")
Never. Not at all. My Wife drinks diet coke and I don’t know how she does it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/27 "2021-04-29T11:59:42Z")
> [@digs](#): > > This is surprising. Never have I seen such a wide range of tastes… well, not since I decided to wake up an 8 am class by writing “Pizza With Pineapple Is No Longer Pizza” on the board. Voices were raised, X-Acto blades were drawn… It may philosophically be surprising, but empirically it should be fairly obvious. Why else would there be a choice at many establishments of artificial sweetener? You have your yellow, your pink, and your blue packets, typically, and most artificial sweetener folks have their preferences. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/28 "2021-04-29T13:11:51Z")
Stevia to me has a pronounced aftertaste of licorice. Which in itself I don’t mind, because unlike many, I like the flavor of licorice. But it throws off the flavor of things that shouldn’t taste like licorice, like adding stevia to my morning coffee. When I was on keto I would occasionally crave a carb substitute, so a couple times I baked keto brownies using granulated erythritol, a sugar alcohol, in place of sugar. The result was actually pretty good-- baked goods using erythritol are the most naturally sweet, good-tasting thing I’ve ever had that was low cab / keto. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/29 "2021-04-29T14:04:09Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Sugared drinks just taste too cloying and sticky to me. I like the flavor of “zero” drinks – usually a mix of aspartame or spenda with ace K. Agreed. I can taste the difference because HFCS in Coke just tastes grossly sweet to me. I’ll continue to stock up on my Coke Zero 😃 . I use Splenda almost exclusively in my coffee and tea and I quite like it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/30 "2021-04-29T14:10:10Z")
The weird thing is, while I admit the sucralose + Ace K mimics sugar the best (to me), and that I like the flavor the best, I most often drink the regular diet drinks with only aspartame (Nutrasweet) in them. I don’t know why. And when it comes to those packets, I like the pink (saccharine) one. My assume it’s because I’m just used to Nutrasweet in diet drinks, as that’s what I grew up with, so there’s some kind of conditioning to that extra dry and slightly sharp aftertaste that I enjoy that particular sweetener. Sucralose only has an odd, almost greasy aftertaste to me. It’s hard to describe, but I don’t like it on its own. Mixed with Ace K it’s fine. And why saccharine for coffee? Once again, I think it’s association. I really don’t sweeten my coffee, but when I did, many moons ago, sugar and saccharin were the most common sweetener choices. Nutrasweet must have been in the mix, as this would have been early 90s, but I just remember Sweet & Low being the canonical packeted artificial sweetener. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/31 "2021-04-29T14:27:25Z")
Sweet-n-Low (saccharine) is the only one I use at home. I like it in iced tea. What really bothers me are the products proclaiming “no sugar added” on the label that use sucralose/AceK which to me tastes foul. I _like_ cranberry juice cocktail, relish, etc with zero sweetener. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/32 "2021-04-29T14:33:48Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I just remember Sweet & Low being the canonical packeted artificial sweetener. The iconic pink package has many memories for me. Musician John Eddie had a song (album?) called _Sweet And Low Life_ years ago. He did a Sweet And Low Life tour. My daughter was in gradeschool at the time and loved the color pink. I bought a pink tshirt from John with a sweet&low packet pictured. It read Sweet & Low Life. It was my daughter’s first “risque” item and she treasured it, but would only wear it around her friends. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/33 "2021-04-29T14:37:31Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I’ve been using artificial sweetener for decades. Now, on the rare occasions that I have actual sugar, it tastes disgustingly sweet. Same here. Not for decades but for a decade. I used to be utterly repulsed by artificial sweeteners, especially in diet pop. Once I went low-carb for a while, there was no going back to regular sweeteners. I was lucky enough to come up in the time of Splenda/sucralose, which to me tastes exactly like sugar and has no bitter after-taste like Equal or SweetNLow. These Zero Sugar drinks are pretty great. In fact sometimes they taste too much like regular pop and I find them to be too sweet. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/34 "2021-04-29T14:59:57Z")
I’m a no bacon or pie voter. I virtually never consume artificial sweeteners, not out of some holier-than-thou mentality but because their primary usage seems to be sweetening beverages, and I cannot stand sweet drinks or even carbonation. I drink black coffee, dry wine, water, and virtually nothing else. I’ve tasted a few different non-sugar sweeteners and find them different from sugar, but not significantly worse - keeping in mind that this means they ALL taste bad to me, in beverages. I do like small quantities of sweet foods occasionally, but for that I’ll make homemade cake/cookies/pie/ice cream with real sugar/honey/molasses/maple sugar. The one exception is stevia - when I was doing low-carb eating pretty seriously I used that in a recipe or two and while the taste is not the same as sugar, I like it well enough to use it. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/35 "2021-04-29T15:06:38Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Splenda (sucralose) is great, and I use it all the time; I honestly cannot detect a difference between sugar and Splenda in my coffee. I can tolerate aspartame if sucralose isn’t available. Saccharin is awful, and it’s purely a last resort for me . Reactions to artificial sweeteners are highly variable among people, needless to say. For me personally: for sweetening drinks, I’ve gotten the best results out of a _combination_ of saccharine and sucralose. Doesn’t taste exactly like sugar, but it get me about 90% of the way there. Saccharine alone is less than ideal (though I grew up with it in the home). A combination of saccharine and table sugar is very good IMHO: that gets you the requisite sweetness while dampening the saccharine aftertaste. Saccharine + sucralose, IMHO, is a very slight step down from saccharine + sugar: plenty sweet enough and the saccharine aftertaste is quashed. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/36 "2021-04-29T15:12:14Z")
> [@solost](#): > > When I was on keto I would occasionally crave a carb substitute, so a couple times I baked keto brownies using granulated **erythritol** , a sugar alcohol, in place of sugar. The result was actually pretty good-- baked goods using erythritol are the most naturally sweet, good-tasting thing I’ve ever had that was low cab / keto. I second your experience with erythritol in baked goods. There are also many no-sugar chocolate products that use erythritol – IMHO, they’re a step down from regular chocolate, but still enjoyable enough. I’ve tried erythritol to sweeten coffee and tea. It will sweeten drinks, but it doesn’t taste as pleasant as the saccharine + sucralose combo. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/37 "2021-04-29T17:05:19Z")
I like diet coke (which I think has aspartame) but that’s pretty much it. It’s a holdover from childhood when we were allowed to drink whatever we wanted with the exception of alcohol. I don’t consume a ton of added sugar, so when I do have it, I like it to be full-on, real-deal sugar. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/38 "2021-04-29T17:44:11Z")
Given the push poll overtones in the OP, it’s not surprising that a good option was left out. I would’ve voted for one stating that artificial sweeteners are fine despite not tasting quite like sugar; one gets used to them and enjoys food and drink sweetened with them just as much as alternatives that contain sugar. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/39 "2021-04-29T19:07:25Z")
That’s where I am. I voted “Pretty bad, but…”, but really I’m in between that and “Meh…” I didn’t like them at first, but I started drinking Coke Zero, etc., because I wanted to reduce my sugar intake. Now I’ve gotten used to the taste and don’t mind it, but I definitely can tell the difference when I have a regular Coke on rare occasions. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2021, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995/40 "2021-04-30T12:13:20Z")
Well, I knew I couldn’t possibly cover all the various reactions out there, thus the last option - ie: educated me. Not doing a double blind study here, just ranting a bit and looking for some common ground. Thanks to all who’ve weighed in! This rant poll was prompted by my trying on a whim a can of [Coke with coffee](https://us.coca-cola.com/products/coke-with-coffee) flavor. I skipped past the one marked sugar-free (shudder) and looked at the apparently regulars one. It had sugar in the early ingredients, and so I thought I was good to go. Didn’t read to the bottom of the label, and I should know better by now. Yuck. Damned shame too. Before the aftertaste hit I immediately thought how good that drink would be with a dollop of vanilla ice cream in it! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-sweeteners-yes-or-no-a-poll-for-the-masses/940995.md?page=3)