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I’m not giving up my Coke Zero. It’s an indulgence that I can live with long term. Unlike alcohol, donuts, pizza, and all the other shit that I enjoy but have t

I’m not giving up my Coke Zero. It’s an indulgence that I can live with long term. Unlike alcohol, donuts, pizza, and all the other shit that I enjoy but have to severely restrict.

gukov 3y ago
It's probably the caffeine in Coke that keeps you going back. By the way: the newly reformulated Pepsi Zero has a lot more of it.
- odiroot 3y ago
  There's Coke Zero Gold or Zero Zero (depending on the country). No sugar, no caffeine. I'm still addicted to the taste.
  - gukov 3y ago
    Yep, I do know about those, we have them here in Canada. Something tells they're much, much less popular than their caffeinated counterparts.
omnicognate 3y ago
Nobody's going to make you give up your Coke Zero. The sweetener epidemic has, however, deprived me of things I enjoy. Coke, fortunately, remains available in "Classic" form, but here in the UK many drinks are no longer available without sweeteners: Vimto, Irn Bru, Tango, Lilt, Ribena, Robinson's Barley Water, Schweppes Tonic Water - all are now full of aspartame and saccharin in their non-"diet" variants. As a person with a healthy weight and the self-discipline to maintain it long term, with no diabetes or risk of it, who is not and never has been addicted to sugary drinks but who enjoys them (greatly) as an infrequent, calorie-counted treat, the loss of these childhood tastes is saddening, especially since there is very little evidence of any actual public health benefit. If I were magically transported back to the 1980s the first thing I'd do is buy a bottle of Corona Cherryade.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  To me what is saddening is that those were your childhood tastes. That stuff should never have been allowed to be sold to kids. Coloured sugar water should not be what someone remembers as a childhood treat. Then again, I understand. I'm a long-term exile to the UK from a Mediterranean country. Fruit and veg in the UK are absolutely tasteless and therefore pointless as anything but a sort of medicine. You guys are really unlucky. Well at least you got... turnips.
  - omnicognate 3y ago
    What a bizarre little drive-by. You make several assumptions about my life, tastes and eating habits that couldn't be further from the truth, but I don't have to defend myself. I'm sorry to hear you've moved to the UK but aren't earning enough to afford decent fruit and veg.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
      Wait, what assumption did I make? You said that Ribena, Irn Bru and friends are "childhood tastes". I made no other assumption. The rest of my comment is my experience of living in the UK. And there's nobody more sorry of this than me but the food in the UK is shite. There's this story I like to tell where I was buying bread from the Waitrose and it tasted like carton, like it had a distinct taste of wet box. So I figured they just don't know how to make bread because they're British and bread is not their thing. So I bought some flour and made my own bread... and it tasted exactly the same. Because it was the flour that tasted like carton. That was wholemeal flour, Waitrose own brand, and Waitrose is supposed to be "posh" or "poncy" or whatever. "Supposed" as in the British call it that because it has decent produce, imagine that. And if it was just the bread! Everything I've ever eaten Made in Britain tastes bland, odorless, tasteless, like the perfect murder poison. Then I take the ferry and cross to France and finally bread tastes of bread, again, cheese tastes of cheese, coffee tastes of coffee and not of boiled rotten socks. The fruit and veg is still not stellar, mind, but at least I can finally enjoy food. And if I take the train and go back home, every stop on the way I can taste the coffee getting better the farther away I move from those wretched, miserable rain-drenched isles. But, you know, the turnips are fine.

I’m not giving up my Coke Zero. It’s an indulgence that I can live with long term. Unlike alcohol, donuts, pizza, and all the other shit that I enjoy but have to severely restrict.

gukov 3y ago

It's probably the caffeine in Coke that keeps you going back. By the way: the newly reformulated Pepsi Zero has a lot more of it.

odiroot 3y ago
There's Coke Zero Gold or Zero Zero (depending on the country). No sugar, no caffeine. I'm still addicted to the taste.
- gukov 3y ago
  Yep, I do know about those, we have them here in Canada. Something tells they're much, much less popular than their caffeinated counterparts.

omnicognate 3y ago

Nobody's going to make you give up your Coke Zero. The sweetener epidemic has, however, deprived me of things I enjoy. Coke, fortunately, remains available in "Classic" form, but here in the UK many drinks are no longer available without sweeteners: Vimto, Irn Bru, Tango, Lilt, Ribena, Robinson's Barley Water, Schweppes Tonic Water - all are now full of aspartame and saccharin in their non-"diet" variants. As a person with a healthy weight and the self-discipline to maintain it long term, with no diabetes or risk of it, who is not and never has been addicted to sugary drinks but who enjoys them (greatly) as an infrequent, calorie-counted treat, the loss of these childhood tastes is saddening, especially since there is very little evidence of any actual public health benefit. If I were magically transported back to the 1980s the first thing I'd do is buy a bottle of Corona Cherryade.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
To me what is saddening is that those were your childhood tastes. That stuff should never have been allowed to be sold to kids. Coloured sugar water should not be what someone remembers as a childhood treat. Then again, I understand. I'm a long-term exile to the UK from a Mediterranean country. Fruit and veg in the UK are absolutely tasteless and therefore pointless as anything but a sort of medicine. You guys are really unlucky. Well at least you got... turnips.
- omnicognate 3y ago
  What a bizarre little drive-by. You make several assumptions about my life, tastes and eating habits that couldn't be further from the truth, but I don't have to defend myself. I'm sorry to hear you've moved to the UK but aren't earning enough to afford decent fruit and veg.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    Wait, what assumption did I make? You said that Ribena, Irn Bru and friends are "childhood tastes". I made no other assumption. The rest of my comment is my experience of living in the UK. And there's nobody more sorry of this than me but the food in the UK is shite. There's this story I like to tell where I was buying bread from the Waitrose and it tasted like carton, like it had a distinct taste of wet box. So I figured they just don't know how to make bread because they're British and bread is not their thing. So I bought some flour and made my own bread... and it tasted exactly the same. Because it was the flour that tasted like carton. That was wholemeal flour, Waitrose own brand, and Waitrose is supposed to be "posh" or "poncy" or whatever. "Supposed" as in the British call it that because it has decent produce, imagine that. And if it was just the bread! Everything I've ever eaten Made in Britain tastes bland, odorless, tasteless, like the perfect murder poison. Then I take the ferry and cross to France and finally bread tastes of bread, again, cheese tastes of cheese, coffee tastes of coffee and not of boiled rotten socks. The fruit and veg is still not stellar, mind, but at least I can finally enjoy food. And if I take the train and go back home, every stop on the way I can taste the coffee getting better the farther away I move from those wretched, miserable rain-drenched isles. But, you know, the turnips are fine.