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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

#171
post #4

Awesome! As someone who used to drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper (DDP) I could easily tell how close a given can (or bottle) was to its "use by" date. This makes for a great party trick [1] but otherwise has limited utility. It also made for some socially awkward situations where, when visiting friends, they would want to have drinks on hand that their guests like and would go out of their way to get some DDP for me, n…

This was long why I preferred to purchase Tab for home diet Soda, it was largely sweetened with Saccharine, and has an virtually limitless shelf life.

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

#172
post #138
post #127

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but whenever I drink Coca-Cola Zero, I get a bit dizzy. It doesn't happen with other soda like Pepsi Zero. I've read somewhere that aspartame is much stronger than sugar. For the life of me, I can't find any references I stumbled upon when I searched about it, but has any of you had the same symptoms?

No idea, but theorizing “out loud”. Your body could be producing a bunch of insulin in response to the sweet, which lowers your blood sugar level to below normal levels since there’s no actual sugar for it to move around. Low blood sugar ( I’ve seen some people say that they have an insulin response to artificial sweeteners but I don’t know if there’s any medical literature to confirm/quantify it.

aspartam is not affecting the blood sugar though.

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

#173
post #19

> If you unzip aspartame into the two amino acids and remove that methyl to become methanol, you have a tasteless mixture of pretty harmless compounds. I'm somewhat surprised nobody has commented on this yet, so let me point it out: methanol is not harmless! It causes blindness or death. (I don't say diet soda is harmful, only that methanol is.)

There's probably a surprising amount of methanol and ethanol in a gallon jug of apple cider by the time you get to the bottom of it. The better types, at least.

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

#174
post #129

I can't stand diet soda's they always taste off. I a lot these artificial sweeteners gross/disgusting.

You might be used to really sugary drinks, i was an obese child and once my nutritionist took away regular coke and juices from me i couldn't drink a sugary drink without feeling disgusted at how sweet it was and artificial sweeteners tasted a lot better.

There are actually genetic reasons that some percentage of the population tastes both common artificial sweeteners as bitter

https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/38/5/379/360864?logi...

It's related to why some people taste Cilantro as soap too.

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

#175
post #4

Awesome! As someone who used to drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper (DDP) I could easily tell how close a given can (or bottle) was to its "use by" date. This makes for a great party trick [1] but otherwise has limited utility. It also made for some socially awkward situations where, when visiting friends, they would want to have drinks on hand that their guests like and would go out of their way to get some DDP for me, n…

Sorry, but do you mean that you drink sweetened water?

Tea is more than just sweetened water

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

#176
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…

I've seen the same in France. Coca Cola sold in heavily discounted stores used to taste quite a bit worse than regular « Made in France » Coca Cola. I suspected it was made on the cheap somewhere and imported, like a lot of products there. I don't think I could find it anymore, as those stores have mostly disappeared (and those that still exist like Lidl and Aldi had to go up-market and significantly improve their quality and image). As it happens it's a retail model that's much less popular here than in Germany.

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but do you mean that you drink sweetened water?

Tea is more than just sweetened water

I think they're referencing this, which does sound like sweetened water

>I switched to water (or tea if I want caffeine) with diet sweetener in packets

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

#179

Stop drinking coke! It's not well for you. Especially when you get older. The problem lies within the phosphoric acid added in plenty amounts. It's not exactly only coca cola's problem, but it adds up. Phosphorus is been added everywhere - from Sausages (e.g. the one in hot dogs. Or, The one's intended to be grilled like the GERMAN SAUSAGE) to muffins. I think, it's called sometimes backing soda - the powder you add…

It's very acidic and bad for your teeth at least.

> backing soda - the powder you add to make cakes or croissants fluffy

Baking. And there is none of this in croissants, it's mostly regular butter and flour. Baking soda is usually just sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). No phosphorous at all. Unless you are talking about something else, but please source your claims before making them here.

Being vague and not able to source just show you are not a subject-matter expert, and likely repeating rumors. There might be some truth to it, but you make bold claims, and I can at least pick a few wrong ones, which does not bode well for the rest. You make also some weird connections.

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

#180
post #4

Awesome! As someone who used to drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper (DDP) I could easily tell how close a given can (or bottle) was to its "use by" date. This makes for a great party trick [1] but otherwise has limited utility. It also made for some socially awkward situations where, when visiting friends, they would want to have drinks on hand that their guests like and would go out of their way to get some DDP for me, n…

Try https://sodastream.com . The soda can be sweetened with syrups they sell, or sweeten with anything you like, like Mangrove Honey which is salty and rich in itself. Add Scotch for a new drink called a "Southern Bee Sting". Squirt of lemon optional.

Honestly, I made my own using this[0] setup and I've never been happier. I had Sodastream before and the cost of refills and inconvenience of restocking them meant that I didn't actually use it that much. I bought some fruit extracts on Amazon, put a few mL in a 2L of water, and have delicious seltzer water without vendor lock-in. Now we need to refill our 10lb tank every few months, unless there's some leak/gasket problem (which has happened once or twice when the cats play near it).

You can make it more automated if you'd like with some sort of automatic agitation to dissolve the CO2, but it hasn't been too big of a bother for me to manually shake it yet.

[0] https://www.seriouseats.com/pros-cons-diy-carbonation-rig

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