
PepsiCo to Drop Aspartame from Diet Pepsi - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pepsico-to-replace-aspartame-with-sucralose-in-diet-pepsi-in-u-s-1429885941?mod=trending_now_4
======
OrdaGarb
I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years ago I imported a
kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory in Shanghai. It was claimed to
be 10,000-12,000 times sweeter than sugar. It's a white powder and came in a
metal can with a crimped lid and typically plain chemical labeling. Supposedly
it is FDA-approved and a distant derivative of aspartame.

US customs held it for two weeks before sending it on to Colorado with no
explanation. When received, the box was covered in "inspected" tape and they
had put the canister in a clear plastic bag. The crimped lid looked like a
rottweiler chewed it open and white powder was all over the inside of the bag.
I unwisely opened this in my kitchen with no respirator as advised by the MSDS
which I read after the fact (I am not a smart man).

Despite careful handling of the bag, it is so fine in composition that a small
cloud of powder erupted in front of me and a hazy layer of the stuff settled
over the kitchen. Eyes burning and some mild choking from inhaling the cloud,
I instantly marveled at how unbelievably sweet the air tasted, and it was
delicious. For several hours I could still taste it on my lips. The poor
customs inspector will have had a lasting memory of that container I'm pretty
sure.

Even after a thorough wipe-down, to this day I encounter items in my kitchen
with visually imperceptible amounts of residue. After touching it and getting
even microscopic quantities of the stuff on a utensil or cup, bowl, plate,
whatever, it adds an intense element of sweetness to the food being prepared,
sometimes to our delight. I still have more than 900g even after giving away
multiple baggies to friends and family (with proper safety precautions).

We have been hooked on it since that first encounter. I keep a 100mL bottle of
solution in the fridge which is used to fill smaller dropper bottles. I've
prepared that 100mL bottle three times over five years, and that works out to
about 12g of personal (somewhat heavy) usage for two people in that time.
Probably nowhere near the LD50.

I carry a tiny 30mL dropper bottle of the solution for sweetening the nasty
office coffee and anything else as appropriate. Four drops to a normal cup of
coffee. We sweeten home-carbonated beverages, oatmeal, baked goods (it is heat
stable), use it in marinades, and countless other applications.

I don't know if it's safe. The actual quantity used is so incredibly tiny that
it seems irrelevant. I'd sweeten my coffee with polonium-210 if it could be
done in Neotame-like quantities. Between this, a salt shaker loaded with MSG
and a Darwin fish on my car, I'm doomed anyway.

~~~
dlss
Just wanted to say this comment made me wish there was a way to nominate
comments for a "best of HN" section :)

Also: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-Calorie-Pure-Newtame-
powder-10-tim...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/0-Calorie-Pure-Newtame-
powder-10-times-as-sweet-as-Sucralose-1-oz-/151431438440) ships from San Diego
if anyone is looking to replicate OP.

------
nacs
Non-paywall link:

[http://bit.ly/1DxLxwr](http://bit.ly/1DxLxwr)

Unshortened-URL version:

    
    
        https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQ-AsoAzAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fpepsico-to-replace-aspartame-with-sucralose-in-diet-pepsi-in-u-s-1429885941&ei=T1s8VYm0H8GpgwTyi4SoCA&usg=AFQjCNHZrziPYCuq9EVY7qBwvxo9yd_Qwg&bvm=bv.91665533,d.eXY
    

Same news from US News & World Report:

[http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/04/24/diet...](http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/04/24/diet-
pepsi-dropping-aspartame-on-customer-concerns)

------
ComputerGuru
I'm exceptionally happy to hear this. My entire life, I hated Diet anything
and never realized there were actually multiple zero-calorie sweetener options
- I thought they were all different brand names of aspartame!

Then I discovered sucralose/splenda just last year, and was surprised that
aside from a distinctive taste that can be identified and being twice as sweet
as sugar, it's actually alright. Aspartame to me has this really bitter, tangy
taste that I'm not able to ignore. The first swill of a cold aspartame-
flavored drink on a hot day is fine for ~0.5 seconds until the flavor kicks
in, and then I can't take another sip. Splenda/sucralose works just fine for
me in my morning coffee, and if you mix granulated splenda with refined sugar
in a 1:1 or 3:1 ratio, you can use it in baked sweets without it imparting too
much of its distinctive flavor. (Personally, I find it's a decent low-calorie
option for baking apple pies).

I'm also glad to hear they're switching to sucralose because - maybe this is
silly - it makes me assume they have reason to believe it's safer.

(Diet Dr Pepper and Diet Canada Dry taste OK, FYI. Not identical, but close
enough to the real thing.)

~~~
nwatson
I happen to like the bitter aftertaste of Diet Coke. I prefer it over regular
Coke, and I don't think I'm alone. To each their own.

~~~
cpeterso
There's a meme that Diet Coke "tastes like robot sweat". (I don't know the
source, but the earliest online reference I found was an anime forum from
2003.) btw, I prefer Diet Coke, too. :)

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stevebot
I'd much rather spend my money on Dry Soda. I buy alot of their Cucumber
flavor myself and the stuff is delicious. It doesn't leave you feeling gross
and has much less sugar, plus natural flavor extracts and uses cane sugar.

[http://www.drysoda.com/](http://www.drysoda.com/)

More expensive, but worth it.

Edit: also, I like the Stevia soda, but no-calorie sweeteners always leave an
acrid taste in my mouth, and upset my stomach so I prefer Dry Soda or just
plain seltzer water.

~~~
Hobotron1
I gave up soda/beer and have become a La Croix junkie as of the last couple
months.

[http://www.lacroixwater.com/](http://www.lacroixwater.com/)

~~~
joshcanhelp
Love this stuff, great replacement for beer when you're cutting back. Coconut
is my favorite.

------
Animats
Finally! The trouble with aspartame is that it breaks down under heat, or even
just over time. Since the cola manufacturers stopped bottling locally and
shipping through their own supply chain, cases of cola are more likely to
spoil. Sucralose is heat-stable, so it can be used in hot drinks and in
baking, and won't break down every time some delivery person leaves a case of
soda sitting in the sun.

Until recently, production of sucralose was confined to one vendor, Tate and
Lyle, and they had limited production capacity. The last patent expired in
2009, so now others can make it. But it's a difficult production process, and
the competitors have had trouble ramping up capacity. Also, a few years ago,
Tate and Lyle moved production from the US to Singapore, then moved it back to
their plant in Alabama, still the largest sucralose plant in the world. The
process is energy-intensive enough that high energy costs in Singapore were a
serious problem.

The competitor in India gave up, but the competitor in China, JK Sucralose,
seems to be doing well. Tate and Lyle says that supply now exceeds demand,
complains about competition, and just raised sucralose prices 20%.[1] It's
about $80 - $100/kg for food-grade sucralose. Diet Coke with Splenda has about
80mg of sucralose per 16oz bottle, so the cost is about one cent per serving.

[1] [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Business/Tate-Lyle-raises-
sucra...](http://www.foodnavigator.com/Business/Tate-Lyle-raises-sucralose-
prices-20)

------
bitwize
Of course they're yanking it because of "consumer concerns", i.e., Dr. Joe
Mercola managed to convince people by the thousands that aspartame will make
your testicles shrink and give you cancer and your kids autism. Unless you
have phenylketonurea (in which case you can't eat much of anything anyway),
aspartame is no more harmful than any other artificial sweetener.

Tastes fucking narsty though, so I'll be glad it's gone. But as it turns out,
just about anything sweet that isn't fruit is bad for you in the long run, so
we should be treating _all_ carbonated sodas the way we treat cigarettes.

------
embro
As the article state clearly, this is to address consumers concerns and not
facts based on science. Aspartame has been accused of so many things yet so
few credible scientific paper has really blamed it for anything major.

~~~
wodenokoto
Well, it only takes one credible paper that blames it on something major to
warrant serious concerns ...

~~~
embro
Agreed but there is no such thing in this case that surpass pure sugar.

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lobster_johnson
In Scandinavia, Diet Coke was actually made with sucralose for a couple of
years, around 2006-2007. It had a "now with sucralose!" logo and it tasted a
lot better than the aspartame version, and was in fact what made me able to
switch from sucrose-based Coke to Diet. I was disappointed when they (for
unknown reasons) switched back to aspartame.

------
henpa
In Brazil, Coke Zero uses sodium cyclamate, which I hear is illegal in the US.
I avoid it at all costs.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Cyclamate is approved in at least 55 countries [1], including all of the EU,
which approved in 1996 after studies could not determine any health risks. As
far as I know, the study that prompted the U.S. to ban cyclamate has since
been debunked [2].

[1]
[http://www.cyclamate.org/pdf/Cyclamate_worldwidestatus.pdf](http://www.cyclamate.org/pdf/Cyclamate_worldwidestatus.pdf)

[2] [https://brooklynbrainery.com/blog/cyclamate-an-artificial-
sw...](https://brooklynbrainery.com/blog/cyclamate-an-artificial-sweetener-
for-the-rest-of-the-world)

------
mrfusion
Aren't there much better sweeteners these days? I tried erythritol a while ago
and it tasted just like sugar to me. Why aren't we using that in more
products?

~~~
joosters
Aren't they used already, e.g. Diet Coke vs Coke Zero? I thought the
difference between the two was in the sweeteners used. (No idea which, if any,
are 'better')

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
Coke Zero uses aspartame.

To me aspartame tastes bitter and metallic, not sweet. Diet soda is
undrinkable.

~~~
vedant
The main breakdown products of aspartame are aspartic acid and phenylalanine.
You may have been born with a genetic mutation that makes it possible for you
to taste phenylalanine, which tastes bad.

~~~
vpeters25
As a completely anecdotal fact with zero scientific value, I think i am among
the people that can taste aspartame.

It also gives me headaches, to the point the rare occasions I drink soda, I
rather have HFCS than aspartame.

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heimatau
I'm not a fan of Pepsi but they seem to continuously make choices based on the
market. Each step is a step to greater market-share.

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imd23
In Uruguay we have CocaCola with Stevia. Are we the only ones ? I think they
are testing it. As a Diet Pepsi fan, I really liked it.

~~~
vanadium
Coca-Cola Life is being sold in the U.S. here and there. Seems like a
widespread test more than a full-scale roll-out at the moment. But yeah, it's
here.

~~~
threeseed
It's also being rolled out across Australia.

~~~
deevus
Yeah I tried CocaCola Life and it's nice, but it's still a lot of sugar since
it's not a complete replacement.

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achalkley
So they're swapping it out for Splenda. Coke already has a Diet Coke with
Splenda.

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jcoffland
What about not drinking soda pop or loading your food up with sweeteners?
Might not be popular but I actually like to taste stuff.

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dkraft
fucking paywall

