To wonder if any government ministers have interests in aspartame production...

[scaryclown]

I just tried to buy a bottle of soft drink, you know, water, sugar, flavouring, colour.. And it was nearly impossible to buy any of them without there being loads of aspartame, something k, saccharin, etc..!
In the end I chose 7-up..but even R Whites normal is the same, tango fizzy, vimto, irn Bru, coke... I had no choice at all!

I am ve-ry suspicious...

Anyone know?

Grrr repost for typos-

Well that's not the points the OP made- her point was that it was very difficult to find a soft drink without aspartame. Which it's not.

Do you check ingredients in things? I just happen to have Ocado open wink and it says not hard at all.

Mind you I wouldn't consider stevia artificial either

Forget the OP for a second, did someone just claim Jamie Oliver was loved on MN?

I like sweet things - A LOT - but find most canned drinks rather too sweet. If they want to reduce sugar they could just put less in, instead of replacing it with chemical nastiness. (Aspartame gives DSis a headache, it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste, and when I was pregnant I couldn't stand the stuff.) I generally drink tea and coffee without sugar - even find whole milk too sweet in tea - so it seems it's more a case of educating the tastebuds than tricking them. And of course there's always good old filtered tap water...

Or even non filtered, drinkable water which comes out of every mains tap in Britain. Aren't we privileged?

Full fat drinks with sweetener:
Tango all flavours
Lilt
r white lemonade
Dr pepper
Fanta all flavours
Barrs all flavours
Vimto
Green cola (never heard of that!)

Really only coke and pepsi without.
I stopped buying squash for DH as most of the sugar ones have sweeteners too. (The organic ones don't but go off v quickly as he doesn't drink frequently).

Another technique to cull the population.

Stevia makes me ill. Nausea and vomiting. Took me a while to work it out.
I would much rather have an unsweetened product and add the sweetener of my choice if I wish.

Samsara123, are you serious? Please tell me you're not serious....

Yeah much easier to pick up a coke than to try and find half of those ha

EdmundCleverClogs I know it's a terrible thing to comprehend.

Samsara123 ok sure. Are you an anti-vaxxer as well?

Well looks like someone made money from aspartame - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-sbb_805581.html

"I love how much MN loves sugar here. Like it's the most natural and healthy thing there is. Like we don't have ever increasing amounts of diabetes and obesity related conditions. Like governments haven't been in thrall to the sugar industry over the years.
That comment about proudly spooning sugar over dessert made me properly laugh."

How about just avoiding sweet drinks in the first place?

I don't tend to drink cold drinks as my drink of choice is tea, but I like Fevertree tonic water in my gin. Are you OK with that?

The whole "our iced coffees contain syrup" thing makes me FURIOUS! Every year for the last 10, I have been drinking my black Americano over ice from May to October. This year all the coffee shops have decided it has to have syrup in it by default. My Costa manager is cross too but is under strict instructions not to offer customers the choice but wait for them to opt out. The company claims that "cold coffee tastes more bitter so we're counteracting that by adding sweetener, its to maintain your good impression of our product". I say Bollox! And have said as much to the staff.

I think PP has it right - it seems to be a common misconception that Brits like everything really sweet. If we individually don't vote with our feet then this is only going to get worse.

And as someone else pointed out, San Pelegríno is yummy and sweetener free, but IS OWNED BY NESTLE!!

user
You been reading dodgy scaremongering books that misrepresent the research they quote , havent you.
Sugar doesnt cause diabetes, eating too much and gaining weight causes diabetes.
At the moment i like a tiny bit of cordial in sparkling water, but i would just like to not have choice becoming more and mor limited because most drinks now contain AS and taste horrible.

bruffin - that's fair enough to make that point. But sugary things do contain more calories than non sugary versions - which increases chances of being overweight (which does link to diabetes). So there is an indirect link there - and one which I'm happy to see the government clamping down on to be honest.

Lonicera - of course I'm ok with people drinking non sweetened drinks. I'm not sure why you'd think I wasn't?

And soft drinks etc have a stark choice at present - either compromise on the taste (as people will notice a drop in taste and stop buying unsweetened products) or find something else to add instead.

Obesity is a complex issue - there is no one easy fix. This however is a reasonable thing (in my opinion) to make the companies who make sweet products think more about what they're adding.

@haba
I buy these for DH
Waitrose 50% squash not the sugar free - they don't have sweeteners,
and some of the own brand Hi- Juice are the same -off the top of my head Morrisons ( or last time I bought some a couple of months ago) .
Its just insidious too - just check out tinned baked beans ....

Sigh.. Inappropriate flu vaccine stockpiling was actively pushed by a Conservative who put political pressure in the labour government with scare stories. Stockpiling was pointless as it was for an early strain. Said Conservative had interests and links to company producing them... Who had over produced then, I remember vividly the question time episode.

Nice to see that you drop all the arguments made by a person you don't like irrespective of the quality of the different arguments though.. Says a lot.

Real aspartamine and insulin/blood sugar.. I told you I was a genius...

It's worse than sugar but the company does sue for libel if you disparage aspt. so be careful. Their studies show it is very safe.

Now I just drink water and not surprisingly I am hardly ever ill. My sons only drink water too and it's very cheap.

Oldie - can you find the independent studies showing those "worse than sugar" claims then? I don't have any vested interest in this (honest) but I hate people making a claim like this without any evidence behind it.

Conspiracy theorists

It all makes sense when the scales fall from your eyes and you realise that profit is absolutely the only priority. Nobody gives a flying fuck about people's health and wellbeing. It's all about corporations making the most money possible.

When you realise, it's simultaneously depressing and enlightening.

I wish they'd just put less sugar in things rather than artificial sweeteners.

Aspartame in particular is vile and shows up in a surprising amount of drinks.

I'll put another vote in for Innocent Bubbles. No sweeteners and it also has considerably less sugar than Coke or San Pellegrino. If I want a fizzy drink it's what I usually go for unless there's Belvoir Elderflower Presse available.

Yeah have you noticed the low sugar/salt of big brands cost more and have less in the packet/jar, madness.

In your face R Whites... www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4620/really-easy-lemonade-