To wish there was a decent alternative to aspartame/ sweetener drinks

[Coffeeandajigsaw]

Or is there and I just don't know about it?

I just don't like drinking water, I know, I know, but it bores me and I never drink enough then become dehydrated.

So instead I alternate diet coke with sugar free squash, but I am quite worried about the aspartame risks, even if they are unproven. I know I could drink the normal sugared versions but there's a history of diabetes in my family so I try to avoid where possible.

So are there any other alternatives??

drop of lime juice in iced sparkling water is such a refreshing drink. so is cold lemon and ginger tea in it too. or vodka

Re not liking water, does it make a difference if it is tap or mineral water?

And whoever said easily 12 diet cokes in a day shock that kind of proves my point about more making you crave more...that's nearly 4 litres of coke and goodness knows how much caffeine, aren't you a jittery wreck confused? I would be!!

I'm not a jittery wreck. I am pretty thirsty as the day progresses, and I start drinking giant fuckloads of water.

I do spend a good amount of the day peeing.

crowler that doesnt sound normal maybe you should go to the doctors.

Beyond - that is a point. I don't like the taste of our tap water, though I've been happy to drink the tap water anywhere else I've lived. A filter doesn't improve the flavour or smell at all, so I feel guilty buying bottled water for when I don't want a hot drink.

It's not normal, but what would the doctor tell me? Probably to stop drinking so much diet coke.

Incidentally, every doctor I've ever talked to about diet coke summarily poo-poos the aspartame controversy. My husband is an aspartame skeptic and has tried every time we're together in the presence of a doctor to get some support and has never succeeded. I'm not saying it's great, it's not, but I don't think it causes brain tumors, etc.

the doctor could give you a kidney and liver function test as your 'throughput' is much higher than normal

Wrf to aspartame I was getting large red weals on my legs and as I follow a healthy diet I couldn't work out what was causing them the only thing i"d eaten recently was a so-called healthy sugar free herbal Ricola sweet so i checked the ingredients guess what? yeah aspartame in them ffs. Give me normal sugar any time thanks.

I have recently had a physical, everything normal - full blood work.

The reason I drink so much water is that diet coke is dehydrating.

ppeatfruit, I don't know how you could possibly attribute welts (I assume that's what you meant?) on your legs to aspartame.

crowler would a sparkly water just not meet the craving then? is it for the actual coke ingredients not the fizz?

Well i didn't have 'em before I was eating the sweets and they went away when I stopped eating 'em good enough evidence I'd reckon.

Crowler Do you know what aspartame is BTW? it's the faeces of gentically modified bacteria YUM YUM give me more!!

Ok I'm not sure I can buy that one ppeafruit but I'll definitely google that later.
Ecclescake I do rely heavily on sparkling water to reduce
Diet coke intake. I can imagine it is diet coke, actually.

I'm not good with links but it's not the best thing for us

Stevia is quite a decent sweetener, just avoid the Canderel branded ones as they go nasty and bitter.

How about coconut water, I love it! The other alternative would be cold herbal teas like rosehip tea, it's really nice, too.

BTW, my leaflet on being overweight in pregnancy says you should drink sweetenend fizzy drinks instead of milk. Stupid advice, if you ask me.

I'm going for fruit teas. I don't drink tea/ coffee, and am trying to reduce sugar, but hate sweetners. A pot of fruit tea has pretty much no calories, compared to 134 in a regular coke 400ml paper cup. Easy weightloss swap (and marginally cheaper when out).

I quite like hot water on its own. Very soothing for a headache.

Yeah crazy advice Beewitched Organic semi skimmed milk's got to be better than those shxx drinks unless you spend more in health food shops on them

Any high juice and Capri sun is aspartame free I believe

ppeafruit
Aspartame is entirely synthetic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Discovery_and_approval

Yes MrsMook I like green tea and mint tea together (i just dip the green tea bag in the cup 'cos i'm not great with caffeine). If you sometimes have nettle tea with the mint that's good for weight loss too!!

Has anyone else suggested gin?

I can't begin to tell you of its benefits.

So many good suggestions here
I don't know if risks of aspartame are overplayed. It's never given me any problems at all, but better safe than sorry I feel
I love the look of the Feel Good drinks, and they are on Ocado so have ordered some to try. Sounds
too good to be true though - is it?

Haven't managed to get any tea for iced tea yet, but I did try lemon in water (I always have chilled filtered water, makes it marginally nicer
IMHO) and it was disgusting!!

Can you try sparkling water?
I don't dislike still water but after about a pint it becomes pretty boring. Fizzy water is a lot more refreshing and you get used to it having no flavour - or put a slice of lemon or lime in.

I never used to like fizzy water, but it has really grown on me and helps me top up my fluids for the day.

aldi do a really nice flavoured tea called refreshing berry fruits which won an award - it's really fruity.
I don't know what it would be like chilled, but it's quite cheap so might be worth a go.