I stopped soda decades ago. I don’t know if this hits the spot for the OP but I use white grape juice. If you save herbal tea and mix it 1 to 1 it makes a great iced tea. You can also just put it in ice with water and a twist and it’s perfect. You can top off a glass with a tonic water for the carbonated feel, although it might not satisfy a real soda fan that way.
Walmart sells something called “Clear American.” It’s seltzer water in various fruit flavors, and I’d swear it has sugar in it. It’s really, really good. I never thought I’d give up Coke, but I did after I tasted this stuff.
I also used to like Coke Zero pretty well, and it’s definitely much better than Diet Coke, but I don’t find it indistinguishable from Coke with sugar. I pretty much have given up Coke, though. I get it only in restaurants when there’s no other choice.
I like Splenda, and I make coffee with Splenda and a mixture of 2% milk and “fat-free half-&-half,” as a creamer. It has about 40 calories in 16 ounces from the milk, but if I use high protein milk, it also has about 5g protein.
If you go to the section in the store where the Crystal Light is, you will find store brand versions of it that taste the same to me, and are cheaper. You can also find drinks in this section that have caffeine. You can make them with seltzer water if you want something fizzy. They sell the Kool-Aid there too, and you can make Kool-Aid with whatever sweetener you want: Stevia, Splenda-- you can even make it with one of those, and short it just a little, then add, say, two tablespoons of sugar. If you don’t like even those sweeteners, you might like them with just a little sugar mixed in, and you’ll be getting a very small amount per each 8 oz. serving. You can make Kool-Aid with just plain water, or with seltzer. Heck, I suppose you could even make it with vodka. Kool-Aid has a small amount of vitamin C. Some of the off-brands of Crystal Light-equivalents also have vitamin C.
Speaking specifically of lemonade, you can buy bottled lemon juice, and make it that way, but Country Time makes a sugar free version of their mix, that I personally think is superior to other lemonade-flavored mixes.
BTW, I’m a vegetarian, so I use agar-agar, and these flavorings, and make fake vegetarian “Jello” for my son.
Good luck. I gave up sugar last November, and this time, instead of cutting way back, I really cut it all the way out. I’ve been more successful than all the times I tried to drastically cut back.
Part of the reason, though, is that Splenda has been invented and gone generic. Other times when I was younger and tried to cut back on sugar (like when I was first diagnosed as hypoglycemic) there was no good substitute. I hate aspartame and saccharine, but I really like Splenda (aka sucralose).
I hope you get good news from the doctor.
I’ve gotten pretty fond of Diet Mountain Dew. I find that when I drink it with lunch (as opposed to just drinking it by itself), it tastes “less different” than other diet sodas. Not the same as regular, of course, but closer.
I’ll also second Coke Zero Sugar, particularly very cold with lots of ice, is pretty close to regular Coke. (And I really HATE Diet Coke - you couldn’t pay me to drink it).
The Sugar Free Hawaiian Punch Fruit Juicy Red Singles are really good imo.
https://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Hawaiian-Punch-Singles-Packets/dp/B001CVW5I6
I like flavored seltzer with sugar-free drink mix in it. It tastes better than soda.
You have just got to go cold turkey. Once you have you’ll be able to drink anything without sugar. I am T1 diabetic and have been looking at sugar content in food and drink my whole life. It is in everything. It’s an ongoing fight. After you have ditched the sugary drinks you won’t believe how much better you’ll feel. I have never really found a diet soda I liked. I am a water and unsweet tea drinker. Plus, look at the money you save.
Diet Dr Pepper. Diet Canada Dry Ginger ale.
But I agree with those who suggest alternatives to sodas. It’s good to lower sugar content but sodium isn’t your friend either. If you can train your palate with ice cold water with a bit of flavoring then you can back off on the sugar substitutes over time. The goal is not to starve yourself from a beloved cola but to grow away from it.
I’m in the same boat and it’s a slow process. I’m trying the same thing with beer. I’m drinking NA beer mixed with tomato juice. I’ve grown to like the combination a great deal.
I like Polar Seltzer, there must be a hundred flavors - but no sugar or sweetener at all. (The flavors are rather faint, the Peppermint they bring out at Christmas tastes like they just stirred seltzer water with a candy cane.) You can mix it, plain or a citrus flavor, with a little fruit juice, very refreshing. Maybe you should taper off the soda, instead of going cold turkey, though. It will be a shock to your system, you are hooked on sugar.
I don’t know how people can drink and drink and drink gallons of soda (or anything else, really) all day long. I don’t drink soda much myself and prefer ice water or unsweetened iced tea - sometimes for a treat, a sweetened one.
White grape juice has more calories per ounce than Coke. Why would you even mention it in a sugar-free thread?
On your recommendation, today I tried Coke Zero Sugar. It definitely has some of the aftertaste that I dislike, but it’s far superior to Diet Coke for sure. Thanks!
I also give Pepsi Zero Sugar highly positive review. It’s my favorite soda.
You gotta try Kroger brand Cola Oh! Stuff is great! I’ve given up Coke and pretty much everything else for it.
Good stuff, zero calories, no fat or sodium. All good!
I use it diluted by a fair amount. So I go for the half herbal tea half white grape over coke. I hope it’s the healtheir thing to do cause I like it better.
Grape juice uses fructose, Coke uses high-fructose corn syrup. Some people think HFCS is evil but they have no scientific backing for that I can believe. Sugar is sugar. It’s all four calories per gram.
I was going to suggest Stevia until I read all of your OP. It’s what I would run with if diabetes ever rears it’s ugly head around me.
But for now the only thing I can recommend are the flavored waters. I had found a brand with no sweeteners that was really good back when I was post wisdom teeth extraction on a no sugar diet. Unfortunately I don’t remember the brand and I’ve been looking for it on occasion because I could stand to have less sugar in my diet now.
I like the Arnold Palmers. I tried the zero-calorie version today and it tastes almost exactly the same.
Interesting suggestions so far. I’m gonna have to try the Coke Zero and some of the flavored seltzers.
I did the switch off sweetened soda decades ago. My first move was to swap out the gallon or so of Mountain Dew I drank every day with zero calorie Fresca. I dropped 30 pounds in about three months with out really trying. I melted a decade of belly flab away that easily just by not intaking so much sugar (of course I was in my 30’s at the time so losing weight was a lot easier). Fresca does have a pretty bitter aftertaste though.
These days, I’m addicted to Sparkling Ice carbonated fruit juices. Watermelon/strawberry is my favorite. I load up on them whenever I’m at the supermarket. They’re really tasty, fruity sweet, but I don’t detect any shitty aftertaste. I’m not sure what they use for a sweetener (beside fruit).
I’m also a big fan of Arizona Ice Tea’s Zero Green Tea with Ginseng. I go through a jug of that stuff about every two or three days.
I tried the Sparkling Ice lemonade today. It wasn’t bad, but it did have a bit of aftertaste that I didn’t care for. I may just have to get accustomed to it.
I’ve found that I enjoy sugar-free Rockstar energy drinks just about as much as the original, and those are what I tend to get my daily dose of caffeine from if I’m not drinking Coke, so that’s a good find for me as well.
Rockstar’s sweetener is a mix of Ace-K and Sucralose, so you might want to check for drinks that have that combination. I’ve been drinking diet for so many years now that I actually prefer diet drinks to sugared drinks, but the various artificial sweeteners do vary in taste. I’m not a fan of sucralose on its own (to me, it leaves an oily aftertaste on the very back of my tongue, for lack of better description), but when cut with ace-k, it actually tastes closest to sugar to my tastes. Somehow, ace-k cuts that aftertaste, at least for me. That said, my favorite personally is aspartame. It leaves a nice and dry aftertaste, which I like, but I can see why many wouldn’t.
No if they could only make zero calorie beer, I’d have a beach body. That’s about the only junk calories I take in.
Try Spindrift, or a cheaper alternative like Arrowhead Sparkling. They don’t have any sugar aside from some fruit pulp (they’re like 0-9 calories per can depending on flavor). I find them much less offensive and punch you in the face bitter than some of the classics in that realm like LaCroix, which I can’t stand.
Just be aware that any carbonated drink is acidic and will be hard on your tooth enamel, as my dentist likes to warn me about.