Growing up in the late eighties and early nineties, diet soda was The Thing. As pre-teens and then teenagers, we drank it like it was water, swapping cans of Diet Orange Crush and Diet Muggs Root Beer in an attempt to quench our sugar cravings and keep the weight off. In college, I drank it for the caffeine, when I couldn't stand another cup of mediocre cafeteria coffee. After college, my soda habit slowly died off as I switched to water, tea and coffee (I've yet to kick that caffeine habit). I'd occasionally have a diet soda, but as the news reports about the dangers of artificial sweeteners flooded media outlets, I tried to stay away.
Virgil's the maker of micro-brewed root beer, cream soda and other classic soda combinations, has recently released a line of small batch Diet Real Cola that uses stevia as the sweetener in place of more common ones like Splenda or NutraSweet. Stevia is an herb that is native to Mexico and South and Central America. There has been some controversy over the safety of stevia, but unlike other sugar substitutes, it has never been found to cause cancer in test animals.
When I opened that first bottle of Virgil's Diet Real Cola, the first thing I noticed is that is doesn't have the metallic scent that comes with just about every other cola on the market. Instead, it smells sweet and a little spicy. As I tasted my initial sip, I noticed that it wasn't as aggressively sweet as traditional sodas. As I kept drinking, my taste buds adjusted and I started to really enjoy the flavor and fizziness of the soda. As I finished the bottle, I was already looking forward to the next.
For those of you who are attached to your Diet Coke, this soda is probably going to taste strange and unwelcome to you. However, I think that this flavor will really speak to the people who want to indulge in a bit of soda on occasion but who don't want all the sugar and caffeine. For you folks, I highly recommend it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-09-2008 @ 1:24PM
Bryan said...
This is great news, a few diabetic friend of mine love Stevia, and I think it should be used more often in the US.
Unfortunately, I don't think Stevia is approved by the FDA as a safe food additive and unless the soda is sold as a 'dietary supplement' I'm pretty sure it may be pulled from shelves.
http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia4506.html
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10-09-2008 @ 1:57PM
marquisem said...
I'm sure this is good stuff, but if you don't want sugar and caffeine, why are you drinking sodas in the first place?
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10-09-2008 @ 2:02PM
Richard Ahlquist said...
Actually Bryan that ban recently changed once Coke and Pepsi showed an interest in using stevia. It is now ok to sell it as a sweetener.
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10-09-2008 @ 2:35PM
Alex said...
booooo! The current crop of artificial sweeteners haven't been shown to cause cancer. Be responsible (and don't foster fear and ignorance)
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10-09-2008 @ 11:14PM
Bernie B said...
Alex works for NutraSweet (just kidding Alex)
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10-10-2008 @ 4:08PM
DanGarion said...
Stevia was only banned because companies couldn't make money producing it like they can with artificial sweeteners.
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10-12-2008 @ 2:13PM
midwestern nature girl said...
Alex, since studies exist, but you are obviously ignorant and haven't read them, is it really wise to say don't foster ignorance and fear? There are numberous studies showing the toxicity of Saccharin, nutrasweet, aspartame, and other artificial substances. Aspartame, is a known nervous system disruptor, linked to ADD,ADHD, autism, Parkinson's disease, fibromyalgia, food allergies, and many more diseases, including cancer. Stevia on the other hand is not chemically derived, and its past ban as a sweetener was due to the FDA, politics, and the need to quelch any competition for the harmful artifical sweeteners. Any side effects experienced in using it can be attributed to our genetic makeup. It is a natural substance from a "foreign" part of the world. It is not something that human beings have used throughout history in ALL parts of the world, so there will be potential "allergic" responses in some people depending on their genetic makeup and what their ancestral diet did or did not include. The closest example I can think of is the Eat Right For Your Bloodtype Diet, that specifies that certain blood types are better suited to certain foods, and certain blood types should avoid certain foods because they cause adverse effects for those people. There is also research that diabetes and high cholesterol treatments designed to help caucasion americans does NOT work as well for native american indians. Their ancestral genetic code says that certain foods are "foreign", such as wheat, and instead of reacting positively to them they have a negative response. I would attribute any negative effects, if even experienced, to this phenomena.
Does it not scare you that more artificial sweeteners such as Splenda had approval rushed through by the FDA, simply because there was a giant hole in the buyer's economy due to people becoming more educated about saccharin and aspartame? Splenda was pushed through for approval as a sweetener, with safety studies being faked by the USDA, and without enough quantity of quality studies, for the sole purpose of filling in the gap that was causing manufacturers huge loss of financial profit. Maybe if you spent your internet time more productively and looked up research studies and fact based evidence, you might allready know that.
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