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Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

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Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#101

Post by i_cannot_hack »

sgt wrote: post #46

Never saw the point of diet sodas. I'd much rather drink normal coke with proper sugar in it. It's unhealthy, yes - so drink slightly less.

Well, if you wanted to match the glycemic load of a diet soda you would have to drink 100% less, i.e. not at all, not 'slightly less'. Drinking less sugary soda is not a comparable alternative to drinking diet soda, even if you prefer it. So saying diet sodas are pointless on that basis seems a bit non-sequitur. Also consider that 10% of the US population has type 2 diabetes, and almost 40% are prediabetic.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#102

Post by keiferski »

have_faith wrote: post #100
keiferski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have much direct experience with British English but do people really say the soda tastes on to mean the soda tastes fine ?

No we don't say that. We would only say that it tastes off . We really only use the opposite with regards to events, this event is on, Daniell's birthday surprise is on, etc.

Right, the usage is the same in the US. If an event is proceeding ahead as planned, it’s on.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#103

Post by CraigRood »

narag wrote: post #12

I noticed a similar thing with regular Coca Cola years ago. Some PET 2 l bottles went stale and tasted terribly, like mold. Other people thought that it wasn't so bad, but did detect the bad taste after being told about it. I suspected it was an effect of sunlight on sugar, but had no way to know for sure. Nobody would admit that the bottles were transported or stored in inadequate conditions either. Then I quit regu…

I don't think its related to OP, but maybe to your experience. I have a friend that pointed out to me that Regular Coca Cola in both cans and bottles taste different between the product labeled as "Made in GB" to those that are not labeled as such, even with full UK labeling and identical ingredients. Once you pick up on it, you can tell straight away. I suspect UK cans without "Made in GB" are produced elsewhere in Europe, and has a slightly different recipe.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#104

Post by lordnacho »

sgt wrote: post #46

Never saw the point of diet sodas. I'd much rather drink normal coke with proper sugar in it. It's unhealthy, yes - so drink slightly less.

> so drink slightly less

But this is the whole difficulty about it. It's very hard to stick to a diet when there is so much temptation in the world. If you can have your aspartame cake and eat it, why wouldn't you?

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#105

Post by i_cannot_hack »

ck2 wrote: post #29

Diet soda and artificial sweeteners is a gateway crutch. Took years to stop drinking soda and decade of diet but finally kicked it. Worth the effort and recommended. Everyone is quick to hand wave "doesn't cause cancer" blah blah but what they hop and skip over is it definitely changes gut microbe for the worse.

> definitely changes gut microbe for the worse.

Certainly not 'definitely' true.

"To our knowledge, there are no data on the potential influences of aspartame on the human gut microbiome. It is hard to understand how aspartame influences the gut microbiota because this NNS is rapidly hydrolyzed in the small intestine. In fact, even with the ingestion of very high doses of aspartame (>200 mg/kg), no aspartame is found in the blood because of its rapid breakdown. Upon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol and their components, which are readily absorbed so that they do not reach the large bowel."

Effects of Sweeteners on the Gut Microbiota: A Review of Experimental Studies and Clinical Trials: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363527/

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#106

Post by ajuc »

chroma wrote: post #49
colordrops wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is damage from methanol not cumulative? My understanding is that it rubberizes nerve and brain tissue.

Methanol is toxic because it is eventually metabolized into formic acid (the same venom used by ants) which interferes with cell metabolism.[1] If the amount of formic acid is high enough, cells can't maintain homeostatis and die. Certain cells with higher metabolic demands (such as nerve cells) die first. If the dosage is below that threshold, you're fine. The FDA considers 0.5mg/kg/day of methanol to be unlikely to…

That actually made me reconsider drinking diet soda, the numbers are on the same order of magnitude I thought it would be much further apart.

Is it possible that the aspartame hydrolizes in our guts after we drank it? "Disgusting drink check" wouldn't help then.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#107

Post by OJFord »

keiferski wrote: post #96

Off topic, but the headline made me realize that something “tasting off” is sort of an unpaired expression. We don’t say that normal drinks “taste on.” An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_word

I'm not suggesting a pairing, but I think expecting that it might be 'on' is perhaps a bit, er, off.

To me (BrE), 'gone off' is like 'has developed off-flavours', which is like off-course & on-course but also off-side & near-side.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#109

Post by furiens »

have_faith wrote: post #100
keiferski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have much direct experience with British English but do people really say the soda tastes on to mean the soda tastes fine ?

No we don't say that. We would only say that it tastes off . We really only use the opposite with regards to events, this event is on, Daniell's birthday surprise is on, etc.

As well as an event, a drink on tap can be ‘on’ or ‘off’, to refer to its availability.

Re: Why does my diet soda taste off? Aspartame hydrolysis

#110

Post by tomjakubowski »

keiferski wrote: post #96

Off topic, but the headline made me realize that something “tasting off” is sort of an unpaired expression. We don’t say that normal drinks “taste on.” An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_word

Off doesn't only pair with on. You may be at work, or off work, but not on work.

Another case where off is unpaired: "off-kilter".

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