Yeah, so that’s the one that has the sugar and an artificial sweeter together, right? I’ve seen that in drinks before, but I wouldn’t have expected that in a Coke product not marked diet. Anyhow, I had the zero Coke & coffee version with vanilla. That was … an odd drink. It tasted exactly as one would expect: like somebody poured coffee into your vanilla Coke. I had hoped it might have been somewhat subtle but, no, it just tasted like two different drinks that don’t belong together, together. I can’t say it was absolutely awful, it was more head-scratching than anything else, and now that my curiosity has been sated, I will not need to return to it.
I voted that I can’t tell the difference, but that’s not true. I can tell the difference, but I don’t mind it.
The only time I use artificial sweetner is when I’m in a restaurant and order iced tea. Real sugar takes to long to dissolve and I only need 1/2packet of pink stuff. I am a die hard chocolate candy eater. I find that chocolate after dinner turns off my appetite. If I don’t eat chocalate I end up eating anything and everything trying to turn off my appetite even though I am full. Artificially sweetened desserts sodas don’t satisfy me. I need full on Milky Way Dark candy bar, Mounds bar or triple chocolate brownie ice cream. I tried artificially sweetened ice cream, candy it does not satisfy me. I gain weight if I don’t eat choclate. I can’t satisfy my hunger til I eat chocolate.
At home when I’m preparing food, if I want it sweet I use a little sugar. Emphasis on little. But I do drink diet soda because I guess it lowers my odds (compared to sugar soda) of becoming obese and/or diabetic. But I couldn’t imagine making, say, cinnamon toast with anything other than a little sugar and a lot of cinnamon.
I had saccharine in tea a long time ago; it was fine, but now I’m perfectly happy to drink unsweetened tea. (Why do people have to go out of their way to tell me how disgusting this is?)
I’ve tried varying amounts of Stevia in drinks; it always tastes like bitter chemicals to me. Anything containing a sugar alcohol is a no-go for me; my system can barely handle the amount found in a piece of gum.
I made some Italian coffee. It was bitter and delicious, with a subtle yet rich flavour profile. I also tried it with a little bit of glucose added. It tasted like ass, and not in a good way. There was this extra taste overlaid that just did not belong.
It continues to surprise me that people find stevia to be sweet at all. It has the same bitter at saccharin (Sweet n low) to me, but is even less sweet.
Aspartame (Equal) and sucralose (Splenda packets) both taste better, though aspartame reacts poorly with carbonation. Both however have a little less “bite” that sugar, which I assume is because they are slightly bitter. And aspartame has an aftertaste. Sugar alcohols tend to taste fine with none of these drawbacks, but I react easily to them gastrointestinally.
And dextrose is just glucose, so I don’t count it as a non-sugar sweetener at all.
I would guess it’s similar to the reason I “had” to mention I’m surprised anyone finds stevia to be sweet. Bitter and revulsion seem to be very well linked in our brains.
The stronger ice teas I’m used to definitely don’t work well without something sweet to balance it out. But I’ve also had hot teas that aren’t very bitter at all. And then there’s that really weak ice tea they often give you at restaurants to make it go further. I could see not finding them all that bitter—but I find I need the lemon and sugar to give them some actual flavor.
For me, Splenda and sucralose are so hard to tell apart from sugar that I can only tell the difference if I sample each one followed by sugar. And the aspartame in Dr. Pepper and 7-Up tastes fine to me. I disliked saccharine intensely.
Sucralose and aspartame taste ‘hollow’ to me, like… you get the sweetness, but it’s the uncanny valley of sweetness. Still, I’ve gotten used to it in most applications, especially beverages, in an attempt to cut way back on the sugar in my diet.
Perfect analogy. But as I’ve gotten get used to them, the “hollowness” starts to feel like “lightness”, and sugar or HFCS in a beverage tastes “full”.
I do love stevia, NOT by itself, but on my cereal. What’s worked for me with beverages is fizzy water (usually a citrus Lacroix) with a small dose of Diet Sprite. A little sweetness without enough to taste the Sucralose.
Now, with my weekly donut I go for real sugar… (can you see why I have to stay away from sugary drinks?)
Where I live, store-bought sugar is raw unrefined cane sugar, which is used in producing my weekly Coke. Otherwise, I eat almost zero food that is processed. I started refusing artificial sweeteners maybe 40 years ago.
Thank you for typing all of that for me!
Seriously, if your post hadn’t already been there what I wrote wouldn’t have been much different.
I don’t mind them, but I don’t generally use them. I do like diet Dr. Pepper occasionally and used to drink a lot of diet ginger ale. Nowadays, I stick with seltzer if I want a carbonated beverage.