Blog / Random thoughts and musings.
Coke Zero
It’s been over a year since my [[wplink Surgery]] to fix the most problematic areas of Crohn’s disease in my small intestine. As I’ve mentioned before, the surgery was a huge success, and I’ve been feeling better than I have in 8 years or so. One consequence of fixing this long-standing problem is that my intestines now function much better — meaning I actually digest everything I ingest. While this is great, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, it also means I’ve suddenly started gaining lots of weight, after many years of being able to eat anything I want and staying at a constant weight. Some of the added weight isn’t a big deal, as I probably needed to get to a “healthy” weight. But, it hasn’t stopped there, and I’m up about 20 pounds from my previous steady-state (up about 40 pounds from my pre-surgery state).
Where am I going with all this? Well, you probably figured it out from the blog title, but hell has frozen over and I’ve started drinking diet soda! I still think Diet Coke is pretty gross, but I sampled some Coke Zero to try to offset some of the 3-ish cans of Coke per day I’ve been drinking most of my life. Coke Zero isn’t bad, and I’ve switched over to it almost 100% at home. Diet Coke came out around the same time as the ill-fated “New Coke”, and was based on the same recipe. Coke Zero is based on the Coca-Cola Classic forumula, and thus tastes much better. Of course, using it to wash down bags of Doritos still isn’t going to help too much, but I’ll work on that next.
James
November 12, 2007Not sure if you drink Sprite, but the Sprite Zero is actually pretty tasty as well.
Vnend
November 22, 2007I tried Coke Zero once when it first came out, and found it overly sweet and not tasting like Coke at all. I seem to recall that they changed its formula, but I haven’t tried since heard that. Is it ‘good’ or simply ‘acceptable’?
I can drink Pepsi One. With food it is fine, by itself is hit or miss; sometimes its slight aftertaste is enough to turn me off, sometimes not. My diet soda of choice is still Diet RC, but no one around here makes it any longer (the bottler in Charlottesville did for a while, but stopped. I have heard that Harrisburg makes it, but haven’t confirmed it.) Since I make it out to Indiana at least twice a year I simply stock up then.
But I have actually cut my soda consumption down enormously in the last year. I have started drinking a lot more tea (sweetened with Splenda) and otherwise ice water, and only drinking sodas after 6pm. I still stock up on cans of soda for trips, but otherwise I am probably down to 8-10 12 packs a year on the diet RC.
The bad news is that you can spend a lot on good tea. The good news is that you can keep a nice variety on hand and brew according to your taste. But it can also become a great money sink if you enjoy putting neat looking sets together.
loose:
Current favorite: Darjeeling Puttabong, from Teavana
Previous fav.: Formosan Oolong, Spotted Dog Traders (small vender)
bagged:
Current favorite: Darjeeling, Two Leaves and a Bud (but not in stock anywhere lately!)
Fall-back: English Breakfast, REvolution Tea
occasional:
Dragon-Eye Oolong, REvolution Tea (available at P.F. Chang’s by the pot)
Edward
January 6, 2008I found Coke Zero is drinkable, but still has a bit of an aftertaste. Both Vanilla Coke Zero and Diet Pepsi Jazz Caramel Cream are better, because the extra flavors hide the aftertaste. I like Vanilla Coke Zero better than Vanilla Coke, but that isn’t saying much. My favorite diet drink is Diet Dr Pepper, it is the best diet I have come across.