Diet Coke Plus Vitamins Does Not Equal A Healthier Soda, And I Don’t Care
Published by Alex March 8th, 2007 in Food. Share This
Seriously, I couldn’t give a damn if they put steroids in my Diet Coke; just don’t put any sugar in it and we won’t have problems.
I used to drink a lot of Coke, my whole family are Coke fiends. It all started with my mom. She’s got a few rules, but chief among them is that NOBODY takes the last Coke. You don’t do it. That one’s for Mom. Set the house on fire, but do not drink the last Coke. She can have gone three weeks without one, no problem. But there is the comfort that she can wake up in the middle of the night with the confidence that, should she want one, it’s there, waiting for her.
Scott Rosenfield came over one sophomore year afternoon and he went downstairs to grab a drink. He came back into my room, we’re chatting, and then I see what he’s drinking. “Oh my god,” I exclaimed, “You’re drinking the Coke!” Noting my unmistakable panic, he said, eyes widened, “What do you mean the Coke? What do you mean THE Coke?!!” I explained the family rule, noting that, even if your throat is on fire and there’s nothing else available but toilet water…you don’t drink the last Coke.
The gravity of the situation was intense, and the mood, buoyed by levity, was still dire. Made all the more so, in fact, by the crunch of my mom’s tires in the driveway.
Many fast four letter words later, we were on our feet and running down the stairs, planning a fast trip to town in the hope that she wouldn’t notice our dearth of Coke in the meantime. So we met her downstairs, Mom was in the kitchen, and Scott made small talk while I hunted down my shoes. I’m in the living room when I hear it.
Like the fantasical scream of the banshee! As terrifying as the howl of the Furies of old! So was the wail coming from the kitchen. My mother had discovered that her Coke, the last coke in the house, was gone, and she was bellowing in mock rage, “WHOOOOO DRAAANK THE LAAASSSSST COOOOOOKE?!?!!”. Shoes in hand, I dash into the kitchen, grab my stammering friend and say over my hunched shoulder, “we’llberightbackwithmoreCokeveryverysoondon’tworry!”
Sortie accomplished, we arrived home to see my mom waiting in the doorway, an ice cold Coke in her hand and a smug grin plastered on her face. The bitch had hidden one somewhere! And she was laughing at us.
So what’s this got to do with the Diet Coke Plus product that they’re introducing this Spring? Nothing, really. I just like telling that story.
Years ago I acclimated to Diet Coke and I haven’t been able to switch back, nor would I want to; regular Coke’s now way too sweet to me, and the volume at which I consume cola is obscene; I’d be fat as hell by now if I still drank full sugared sodas. Of course, Aspartame’s no damned good for you either, and I can’t find Tab with any real convenience. (I’ll totally substitute Saccharine for Aspartame any day of the week, and Tab remains the best diet soda ever.)
So. Diet Coke with Splenda is kinda ecch. Coke Zero is great. Diet Coke is better, and Tab is the uncontested best, and comes in the coolest can. Now comes Diet Coke Plus, with all kinds of vitamins. I’m curious to see if there will be any noticeable difference. Don’t tell me that it’s ‘healthy’, though, there’s still plenty of crap in it that no amount of vitamin C, D, or Q will fix. And don’t bullshit me that it’s a “sparkling beverage” either. It’s a soft drink. It’s a soda. It’s a Coke. And don’t take the last one out of my fridge or someone’s gonna get it.
So read the New York Times article about this poop already.
17 Responses to “Diet Coke Plus Vitamins Does Not Equal A Healthier Soda, And I Don’t Care”
- 1 Pingback on Mar 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I actually don’t mind Splenda, and regularly drank Diet Rite (still do, sometimes). What makes it ecch for you?
Yeah, if you didn’t like the Splenda Diet Coke, DC+ is going to be hit or miss. I can’t really tell the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, but there’s more of a taste difference with DC+. Not a big difference, but it’s there.
I had the chance to try some out awhile ago: http://blog.arlomidgett.com/2007/02/15/diet-coke-plus/
My local grocery store, publix, just started selling fridge packs of tab about a month ago and its probably the best thing ever.
Wow. This is insulting on so many levels. I don’t even know where to begin…
The product, not you alex :)
Water eff tee dubya.
Coke Zero is the bee’s balls. But you guys are being fucking fruits about the vitamins thing, like adding vitamins to a collection of indigestible molecules somehow makes those molecules worse for you.
I just want to know if mixing this with my Makers Mark will allow me to say that I’m drinking healthy. Anyone?
Best. Soda Story. Evah.
dude - switch to perrier or san pelligrino or something. thats how I weaned myself from the colas.
Not enough caffiene in sparkling water, Tonx. But of course, we all know you’ve got that area covered in other departments.
get off the synthetic sweetener dude, there’s a whole range of excellent natural sodas that DON’T give you cancer. Why exactly would an insomniac need caffeine anyway? Oh, and don’t call my mom a bitch. :-)
Alex - do I need to send you a care package?
The older I get the more I know how lucky I was to have grown up in the idyllic 1950s. We had two after-school hangouts. In the winter we went to the Sugar Bowl to drop a dime in the jukebox, have a cheeseburger and a paper plate full of real french fries, and a Coke in a glass with a couple of square ice cubes. In the summer it was the Tasty Freeze (like a DQ today) where we’d have the same menu but the tunes came from “Cousin Brucie” on the car radio. Life really was less complicated back then, I guess.
Until recently I always thought it was a relative thing and that maybe my generation just had better inborn coping skills being sandwiched between WWII and Vietnam. But now I’m wondering where things went so astray.
Last week in my part of the country a couple of 12 year old boys were put in jail cells with convicted felons (!) for 3 days for spanking girls on the butt at school. Back in the 50’s the favorite pasttime of 12 year old boys was snapping the back of a girl’s bra. Usually the girl would yell “knock it off!” and that’d be the end of it. I guess if it got to be a real problem, a trip to the dreaded principal’s office would clear up the situation. A phone call home was for the most dire things. In the case of the butt-spanking, it was automatically a police matter with the parents being notified after the boys were booked for sexual molestation.
As a parent and grandparent I’m appalled by this and wonder why parents and educators have so abdicted their responsibilities to teach common sense and basic decency to kids. Is it because life has become so complicated or is it why life has become so complicated?
Wait…I just got a thought, could it be Diet Coke???
Does Sean Connery do a magnificent cover of Little Red Corvette?
I just heard that Coke is going to discontinue TAB!!!