Fizzy drinks are now almost universally UNSATISFYING because of the SUGAR TAX

Over the last year I have noticed that fizzy drinks have begun to taste differently. With the exception of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Club Orange they no longer fully hit the spot in your brain that registers as "satisfaction". I first noticed this when I drank a bottle of 7-up and I thought there was something wrong with my taste-buds or my mind because it didn't taste nice AT ALL. It tasted kind of chemically and just unpleasant and I ended up throwing it out (something I would never typically do). Lucozade, fanta lemon, 7-up, lilt, dr, pepper, club rock-shandy ... all taste way worse than before.

I started to check the labels of different soft drinks and noticed that most of them now declare that they include sugar AND SWEETENERS as opposed to just sugar as used to be the case. It appears all the drinks manufacturers quietly changed their formulas by cutting the sugar content by 30% - 50% and added artificial sweeteners and/or stevia (a natural non-sugar sweetener) in an attempt to mitigate the loss of taste/satisfaction. They are doing this an attempt to avoid having to pay punitive sugar taxes which are based on the amount of sugar per 100ml.

I appreciate that for most people they wouldn't give a damn about this but for me, fizzy drinks were always something I really enjoyed. I don't drink that much of them (maybe 2 or 3 500 ml bottles per week) and I am in decent shape and health but I really wish that instead the manufacturers just increased the price and/or reduced the bottle size and left the formulas alone. Like I don't think many would complain if the largest bottle size for fizzy drinks went to 1.5 litres or even 1.25 litres - I believe this was the case in the 1980s and before. Now we have all had removed from us the freedom to drink the kind of sugary drinks we grew up with at even a low level of consumption.

The addition of artificial sweeteners and stevia totally ruins the taste in my opinion. There already exist diet versions of most of these drinks for those who want to drink them - surely from a point of view of catering to those wish to avoid consuming too many calories, this is enough? If anything, looking at the drinks on offer in supermarkets, there are MORE diet drinks on offer than non-diet.

It's not just drinks either - breakfast cereals like cheerios taste like cardboard compared to how they once did and the likes of coco pops are due to see their sugar content slashed soon. Even chocolate manufacturers are feeling pressure to cut sugar content (and this after formulas have already been destroyed with lower cocoa levels and candle-wax resembling fats). Can't we be allowed to decide for OURSELVES what level of sugar we'd like to consume without drinks manufacturers (who owe us nothing) being co-erced by the government into ruining their formulas so that the "decision" is made for us.

Has anybody else noticed this and does anyone else care?

andekwarhola

Carry around loads of sugar sachets and empty them into soft drinks for Optimum Satisfaction.

Permabear

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FizzleSticks

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Tails142

It started when McDonalds were forced to remove the super size option due to public outcry. Now we all suffer because some people have no self control, total nanny state nonsense.

4068ac1elhodqr

Sugar = bad. Artificial/Synthetic Sweeteners = bad (or worse)

How on earth have Homo sapiens managed to get by for the last load of hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of years?

Bearing in mind Ireland is on course to become 'the most Obese state in Europe, due to the need for immediate satisfaction', and if you show up at any A&E (unless you're dire-straits), you'll get enough spare time to do a few crosswords and sudokus to while away the time on a plastic chair.

H2o is all the fashion now, add a drop of fresh lemon/orange juice or splash of honey, if really needed and you're winning.

Jenna Squeaking Container

Jenna Squeaking Container wrote: »

Bearing in mind Ireland is on course to become 'the most Obese state in Europe, due to the need for immediate satisfaction', and if you show up at any A&E (unless you're dire-straits), you'll get enough spare time to do a few crosswords and sudokus to while away the time on a plastic chair.

While I agree the health service is a mess and it is partially because of obese people I don't believe we have an "obesity crisis" based on an observation of my peers in their 20s and definitely from people younger than that - I see much fewer obese people now than 10 or 15 years ago. I think people had already scaled back on their obesity-causing behaviour a few years ago and I don't believe these alterations to drinks were needed to steer people on their way. All anecdotal obviously but I'm convinced our population is much "healthier" on average now than they have been in a long time. They drink less alcohol and smoke less and eat less junk - how often do you see people walking around with drinks other than tea, coffee or water or eating choclate or crisps in public - its less common now in my experience than it was when I was younger. You have chains like Chopped selling healthy stuff where before people ate burgers and sandwiches. Everyone at the gym. People are way more self-aware and mindful about their diet and health than they once were.

4068ac1elhodqr

Deleted User wrote: »

While I agree the health service is a mess and it is partially because of obese people I don't believe we have an "obesity crisis" based on an observation of my peers in their 20s and definitely from people younger than that - I see much fewer obese people now than 10 or 15 years ago. I think people had already scaled back on their obesity-causing behaviour a few years ago and I don't believe these alterations to drinks were needed to steer people on their way. All anecdotal obviously but I'm convinced our population is much "healthier" on average now than they have been in a long time. They drink less alcohol and smoke less and eat less junk - how often do you see people walking around with drinks other than tea, coffee or water or eating choclate or crisps in public - its less common now in my experience than it was when I was younger. You have chains like Chopped selling healthy stuff where before people ate burgers and sandwiches. Everyone at the gym. People are way more self-aware and mindful about their diet and health than they once were.

Some recent studies (UCD) showed 1/5 of school yoofs are obese or overweight, if anything all projections are for an increase in obesity here and in most other developed countries.

You're right to an extent, the many healthy young folks are sure getting better with all their triathlons, skinny lattes, avocado toast, vision boards and Himalayan salt lamp ionisers...

But the cholesterol laden thick-fingered pizza eaters are getting larger, you just won't see them as much unless looking in at their sofa while they load the tea mug with soup spoons of white sugar.

Vladimir Poontang

Good. Hopefully it helps reduce the amount of fat bastards waddling around the place.

Blazer

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I get the Benassi version in mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZcSCT34H84

mr_edge_to_you

Jesus I love a can of Coke Zero.

razorblunt

Irn Bru are changing their recipe, it’s fully expected the Scottish dependence bid will fall on this rock.

Victor

FizzleSticks wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No it wasn't.

pitifulgod

Deleted User wrote: »

Over the last year I have noticed that fizzy drinks have begun to taste differently. With the exception of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Club Orange they no longer fully hit the spot in your brain that registers as "satisfaction". I first noticed this when I drank a bottle of 7-up and I thought there was something wrong with my taste-buds or my mind because it didn't taste nice AT ALL. It tasted kind of chemically and just unpleasant and I ended up throwing it out (something I would never typically do). Lucozade, fanta lemon, 7-up, lilt, dr, pepper, club rock-shandy ... all taste way worse than before.

I started to check the labels of different soft drinks and noticed that most of them now declare that they include sugar AND SWEETENERS as opposed to just sugar as used to be the case. It appears all the drinks manufacturers quietly changed their formulas by cutting the sugar content by 30% - 50% and added artificial sweeteners and/or stevia (a natural non-sugar sweetener) in an attempt to mitigate the loss of taste/satisfaction. They are doing this an attempt to avoid having to pay punitive sugar taxes which are based on the amount of sugar per 100ml.

I appreciate that for most people they wouldn't give a damn about this but for me, fizzy drinks were always something I really enjoyed. I don't drink that much of them (maybe 2 or 3 500 ml bottles per week) and I am in decent shape and health but I really wish that instead the manufacturers just increased the price and/or reduced the bottle size and left the formulas alone. Like I don't think many would complain if the largest bottle size for fizzy drinks went to 1.5 litres or even 1.25 litres - I believe this was the case in the 1980s and before. Now we have all had removed from us the freedom to drink the kind of sugary drinks we grew up with at even a low level of consumption.

The addition of artificial sweeteners and stevia totally ruins the taste in my opinion. There already exist diet versions of most of these drinks for those who want to drink them - surely from a point of view of catering to those wish to avoid consuming too many calories, this is enough? If anything, looking at the drinks on offer in supermarkets, there are MORE diet drinks on offer than non-diet.

It's not just drinks either - breakfast cereals like cheerios taste like cardboard compared to how they once did and the likes of coco pops are due to see their sugar content slashed soon. Even chocolate manufacturers are feeling pressure to cut sugar content (and this after formulas have already been destroyed with lower cocoa levels and candle-wax resembling fats). Can't we be allowed to decide for OURSELVES what level of sugar we'd like to consume without drinks manufacturers (who owe us nothing) being co-erced by the government into ruining their formulas so that the "decision" is made for us.

Has anybody else noticed this and does anyone else care?

Might simply be that utility is dropping because of the amount of fizzy drinks you drink. Drink less of them and you might find that you enjoy them more. Breakfast cereals have generally always tasted like cardboard too btw...

For the record, I haven't had a fizzy drink in years, there's plenty of healthy alternatives and it's far more enjoyable to have the odd unhealthy thing rather than to have it regularly.

Outlaw Pete

Yeah, Club Orange / Rock Sandy have artificial sweeteners in 'em and less Sugar now too.

Shenshen

*sigh* Adding sweeteners is actually the one thing that will make me stop drinking fizzy drinks altogether. No matter which one they add, there's always that aftertaste of just having thrown up to them. I know Sprite had started adding sweetener a good while back.
I don't drink a lot of them, a can every other week maybe, but I did enjoy them as a treat.

I wish companies would just use less sugar - have stuff less sweet. I'd be perfectly happy with that. No need to add those vile sweeteners to everything.

_Roz_

I love Pepsi Max Cherry. I prefer it to all forms of Coke. Don't care whats in it, it's the nicest thing going at the moment.

Ash.J.Williams

Deleted User wrote: »

Over the last year I have noticed that fizzy drinks have begun to taste differently. With the exception of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Club Orange they no longer fully hit the spot in your brain that registers as "satisfaction". I first noticed this when I drank a bottle of 7-up and I thought there was something wrong with my taste-buds or my mind because it didn't taste nice AT ALL. It tasted kind of chemically and just unpleasant and I ended up throwing it out (something I would never typically do). Lucozade, fanta lemon, 7-up, lilt, dr, pepper, club rock-shandy ... all taste way worse than before.

I started to check the labels of different soft drinks and noticed that most of them now declare that they include sugar AND SWEETENERS as opposed to just sugar as used to be the case. It appears all the drinks manufacturers quietly changed their formulas by cutting the sugar content by 30% - 50% and added artificial sweeteners and/or stevia (a natural non-sugar sweetener) in an attempt to mitigate the loss of taste/satisfaction. They are doing this an attempt to avoid having to pay punitive sugar taxes which are based on the amount of sugar per 100ml.

I appreciate that for most people they wouldn't give a damn about this but for me, fizzy drinks were always something I really enjoyed. I don't drink that much of them (maybe 2 or 3 500 ml bottles per week) and I am in decent shape and health but I really wish that instead the manufacturers just increased the price and/or reduced the bottle size and left the formulas alone. Like I don't think many would complain if the largest bottle size for fizzy drinks went to 1.5 litres or even 1.25 litres - I believe this was the case in the 1980s and before. Now we have all had removed from us the freedom to drink the kind of sugary drinks we grew up with at even a low level of consumption.

The addition of artificial sweeteners and stevia totally ruins the taste in my opinion. There already exist diet versions of most of these drinks for those who want to drink them - surely from a point of view of catering to those wish to avoid consuming too many calories, this is enough? If anything, looking at the drinks on offer in supermarkets, there are MORE diet drinks on offer than non-diet.

It's not just drinks either - breakfast cereals like cheerios taste like cardboard compared to how they once did and the likes of coco pops are due to see their sugar content slashed soon. Even chocolate manufacturers are feeling pressure to cut sugar content (and this after formulas have already been destroyed with lower cocoa levels and candle-wax resembling fats). Can't we be allowed to decide for OURSELVES what level of sugar we'd like to consume without drinks manufacturers (who owe us nothing) being co-erced by the government into ruining their formulas so that the "decision" is made for us.

Has anybody else noticed this and does anyone else care?

Yes it's true, lucozade isn't the same drink at all... I think raspberry ripple ice cream is reduced too.. Had one last night and it's not the same at all.

sbsquarepants

Stick it to the man - Buy a big bag of sucra and spoon it into the can - that'll show em.
In fact fúck him right up his nanny state ass - just rail lines of icing sugar. That will get those satisfaction neurons firing:D

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Unpossible

First they came for the sugar beet and I said nothing, then they came for the fizzy drinks...

_Roz_

As an overweight person, I hate all this kind of regulation. And not because I want to snort sugar like coke. But genuinely, because I feel if people want to eat themselves to death with things like supersize meals (I don't), let them to it. Who are they hurting? "The taxpayers who have to fund their medical care". Don't fund their bleeding medical care, and put the sugar back in sweet food. I sure as hell don't cost anyone anything with my additional weight. I don't want to say it's fully my choice to be fat, as it's a god awful habit bred by years of depression, but it is ON ME to sort my depression or whatever causes my habit and fix it. So long as I'm not harming or costing anyone anything, let me have my sugar.

elefant

2 or 3 half-litres of fizzy drinks a week is a lot. That's not a low level of consumption.

_Roz_

I drink about 2.5 litres. I'm terrible. No calories though! Just terrible, terrible sweeteners.

wakka12

elefant wrote: »

2 or 3 half-litres of fizzy drinks a week is a lot. That's not a low level of consumption.

It depends on the rest of his diet. Its more than I drink, it sounds pretty average though. Lots of people I know drink one every day with lunch so I wouldn't say 2 a week is that much