To wish they would stop putting sweeteners in fizzy drinks!

[CarrieLouise25]

Ok, so it's not a big deal. But sometimes I really fancy a fizzy drink. But they all seem to have sweeteners in.

I understand everyone needs choices. There should be a sugar option and a sweetener option IMO which is what it used to be. But it seems all the normal sugar options have sweeteners in too.

I react really badly to chemical sweeteners. Severe migraines and vomiting. Even if I didn't though I don't like the taste.

I miss Lilt. Fanta. Tango. Cream Soda. Shandy.

At the cinema the choice was diet pepsi, pepsi max, diet tango and sprite zero. Not one sugar choice.

I get the demand for sweeteners but leave the sugar versions alone!!!

Sadly Sainsbury's own brand lemonade now has sweeteners in, after being one of the only ones left that didn't. PP mentions 7up, but I thought that had sweeteners in, must check.

I hardly ever drink fizzy pop, less than one can per month, and hate the taste of sweeteners, so will only buy it if it doesn't have any sweeteners in, which is getting harder and harder to do.

Fanta abroad (Malta and Spain at least) doesn't have sweeteners in, but the UK version does - why???

Do Rubicon have AS in? (And they are a British firm free of the taint of coke or Pepsi)
What boils my piss is the supposed need to put AS in addition to sugar. Either or, but not together.

The thing is, even fizzy drinks with sweetener are bad for your teeth.

The acid in sprite/fanta/coke and the bubbles also erode your enamel

Baby
Agreed fizzy drinks even sugar free are not good for teeth. Sugar has additional health impacts though which shouldn't be ignored. That said I'd prefer people had a choice to make.

I read somewhere that sweeteners don't satiate you like sugar does because there's hardly any calories.

So you drink/ eat something sweet, your body expects a calorie burst, it doesn't get it, so you aren't satisfied and crave more.

Don't remember where I read it though so don't know how true it is.

I would rather my DCs had a little bit of real sugar in moderation rather than loads of artificial stuff

Engineer artificial sweeteners have the same or worse impact than sugar
www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-sugar-free-but-at-what-cost-201207165030
Sugar has been painted evil by a few dodgy books, i prefer a less sweet product than artificial sweeteners . They have even started putting it in Cider.
As i said above belvoir to a lower sugar version, less sweet but still refreshing and pleasant.
I was in California last month, they do a lot of iced teas with no sweeteners at all. You can always add extra sugar but you cant take it away. It would be better to wean people off sweeteness slowly than add it artificially.

The iced twa i mention has no natutal or artificial sweeteners

So glad I'm not alone in this! I get a migraine from certain sweeteners - I haven't worked out which ones yet. Cannot touch any diet drinks (I can smell the difference) or coke zero, but weirdly I am OK with Pepsi max.
If they start adding sweeteners to the non-diet versions I am screwed.

Yanbu. Dd has psoriasis and her skin always reacts badly to anything with artificial sweeteners. People look at me like when I tell them but I see the irritated, sometimes bleeding plaques and the scratching. It's so annoying because they are hidden in so much now - bought some simple tesco pasta sauce and they were in that ffs.

Tesco high juice is OK for now. But the choice is so much more limited and it wouldn't surprise me if drinks with sugar disappeared altogether. I like water better anyway so don't mind but I think there should be choice and it shouldn't be hidden in products and lauded as the healthy option.

Bruffin
That link contained no evidence as far as I could see. The only suggestion is that it could encourage poor food behavior. Sugar is having a detrimental effect on our society. In principal I agree that getting everyone more used to an unsweetened life would be best though.

engineer, you have to look at the links ie

Diet Soda Intake and Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
you havent provided any evidence about sugar. From what i can gather most of the anti sugar stuff comes from a dodgy book, that misrepresents some studies ie that sugar is addictive as cocaine etc

Sainsbury's own brand diet lemonade used to have aspartame in, now it has sucralose and tastes awful.

I like aspartame-based drinks. I don't believe they are bad for me (if they give you headaches then I'll agree they are bad for you, but there's no need to generalise).

I do agree that drinks that are sweetened with sugar (e.g. regular Fanta) don't need to also have other sweeteners. Stick to just one thing so that people can easily make their own choices.

Hi Buffin
I'll have a read but skimming it appears that most side effects are from inappropriate use. True I haven't posted any links. The problem with sugar is the amount of it in modern foods. The issues with excess sugar are well known such as increased child tooth extraction, obesity and diabetes. Of course most of these issues could be managed by appropriate use but a lot of people out there fail to look after their diet or that of their children actively. Again I'm not sure I believe that we should impose taxes and limits to enforce better health.

Eating too much of anything causes obesity and diabetes, too much fruit/fruit juice can cause tooth decay.
The problems you are talking about are only behavioural ie eating too much, nothing more than that.

I'm sure full fat irn bru is only sweetened with 5 lovely tablespoons of sugar per can.

Pret's soft drinks are sweetened with fruit juice I think. They're not overly sweet and the lemonade is pretty close to San Pellegrino. That and their Ginger Beer are good.
I had to switch from full sugar drinks as sugar gives me awful migraines. Diet Coke is the actual pits, and Sprite Zero etc are dreadful, the awful lingering aftertaste of sweetener just mean that I stick to Coke Zero (still sweeteners but more like the real thing) or sparkling water.
Also Fever Tree do a lighter ginger beer that is sweetened with fruit sugar I think. It doesn't have that awful over-sweet taste.

Try innocent bubbles, no sweetners or added sugar and I think the tropical one tastes like lilt. Personally not keen on the tropical one but love the lemon one.

Could be wrong but I seem to remember when fat was lauded as evil, food companies reduced fat in their products but often increased sugar for the taste. Now sugar is the new evil and they got it wrong about certain fats sweeteners are replacing this. Reminds me of swallowing the spider to catch the fly. I wonder what will come out about sweeteners and how artifical our food will become in the future?

I've given up even buying pasta sauces as they either contain a stack of sugar or sweeteners.

I think there should be sweetener versions and sugar versions. Not these hybrids!

I cannot eat sugar due to diabetes so it's the sweetener version or water (don't like water)

It annoys me that so many drinks have only got a sugar version

I get that sweetener is cheaper but most people either want a sugar free or a sugary drink

It's only going to get worse. There's a massive Sugar Tax coming that is making manufacturers review their ranges further.

I agree that there should be sugar only versions and sweetener only versions.

People like me who have hardly any soft drinks are being disadvantaged to protect people who guzzle masses of the stuff from themselves, but I suppose that's the nature of multinationalism. If everyone behaved like I did, the likes of Coke, Pepsi, Schwepps and all the other soft drinks manufacturers simply wouldn't exist.

I don't understand people who say they 'don't like water'. It doesn't taste of anything so there is nothing to dislike .

I've been known to bin drinks after only one sip and pour bottles of squash down the sink because I can't bear the taste of sweetners.

On the up side, it forces me to make healthier choices as we now very rarely but soft drinks.

I will just say though, if anybody messes with Belvoir elderflower cordial, there will be a reckoning.

Haha! Yes, we have the elderflower cordial too. I did say to DH years ago, soon all the drinks will just have sweeteners, and it is definitely starting to come true.

For me personally, we avoid all sweeteners, but I'd never want to take away that choice for anyone else. That's why I think we should have both sugar and sweetener versions, and allow the choice to be ours.

Sugar tax isn't going to cure obesity. The issues are much much deeper than that.

But a lot of things are marketed as 'healthy' when they're not. As Psyhke pointed out, reduced fat just means increased sugar/salt as fat is flavour.

We buy 7up. It's the only lemonade that doesn't have sweeteners and goes lovely with pimms

Also, I remember that the sugar tax announcement came out the same time as the budget. So I felt whilst we were all talking about that, we missed being screwed over in the budget again

Reason I say that is because before they were saying they wouldn't introduce the tax.

Also Jamie looked quite surprised and also very chuffed he'd managed it. I don't think he did manage it though.

Cameron: How are we going to distract people from looking too closely at the budget this time?
Bum nose: Get the media to focus on another story at the same time?
Cameron: Mmmm. Who was that twat in yesterday banging on about sugary drinks tax? The one we said no to?
Bum nose: Someone Oliver. Call him up. Say we'll do it.
Cameron: Excellent. Nothing distracts better than a new tax. Plus we get the funds. It's a win win.

probably got this completely wrong and have been watching way too much house of cards

Just had a very quick check of drinks in morrisons. Ff Coke, 7 up, morrisons best, San pell, roses lime cordial, fentimans fizzy drinks, morrisons high juice cordials, cranberry cordial.
I've said this before, but back in the days of my youth, pop was an expensive treat. You didn't get litre bottles. The pop man might come round and 6 bottles would have to last until mum and dad could afford some more. You could have a glass (not a pint) if you were good. The other times you wanted a drink it was milk or water or squash(very well diluted). It was everything in moderation, parents instilled this in their kids. IT was unthinkable that you would have a whole bar of chocolate to yourself. But-there was no fucking awful sweeteners, just sugar and no obesity epidemic (I know, more active lives, more manual labour). Perhaps a rethink of people's eating habits rather than having cheap sweeteners foisted on us.