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Comment by quonn | Hacker News Reader

I have moved to Coke Zero, which tastes just fine (although it somewhat depends on the country where you buy it). I don't think there is much wrong with that, so I don't quite understand why Coca-Cola doesn't promote it more instead of denying that sugar may be a problem.

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They promote them to the people who like them, but lots of us just do not like the taste of any diet soda. Coke zero and others are better than traditional diet coke to me, but I've never got beyond the initial bad taste--I'd much rather drink water than them.

I've heard that you eventually get used to them or even prefer them, but I've never gotten to that point.

I don't like diet coke either, but think that Zero is completely different. Make sure you drink it when it's cold. My impression is that it also depends on the type of artificial sweetener used, which depends on local taste and regulation. I think it tastes good in Europe and most parts of Asia.

I drink primarily Zero, I switched to it at the same time I ditched sugar in favour of artificial sweeteners (I tried to drink tea without any sweetening but gave up after few weeks, I just can't stand it). It's wonderful where I live (Poland), and I grew to like it even more than plain Cola. I've also seen numerous attempts to promote Zero over the original flavour; one time they even gave away cans of Zero disguised as ordinary Coke to make a point (you had to remove the can from a cardboard overlay it was in to discover it's Zero). I don't know how successful were those campaigns though.

I understand that you like it, but I do not.

It's funny because I think Zero (and original) taste absolutely disgusting and make me feel sick within minutes of drinking them. But I do have a severe weakness for diet coke (aspartame). I've mostly eradicated diet coke over the last year and now I just drink water or black coffee. Water wasn't so hard a transition really, but developing a taste for black coffee took a few months of dedication.

That's the other extreme. I usually mix normal coke (too much sugar) and diet coke (not enough sugar) to get a more balanced experience.

There used to be Pepsi Edge that was half sugar and half splenda (probably high fructose corn syrup) but it was discontinued for some reason one year after introduction in 2005... there is now Pepsi Next but I think that it is 70% high fructose corn syrup

Even sugar-free sodas are still acidic enough to be extremely bad for your teeth in the long run.

Because they replace sugar with aspartam, and it's at least as bad as sugar (at the very least in the public opinion / medias).

> and it's at least as bad as sugar (at the very least in the public opinion / medias).

Shrugs, public opinion and media's opinion is just that opinion not fact so is (to me..yay my opinion) irrelevant.

Nothing is safe in huge amounts but I'll take aspartame over sugar as the risk of diabetes is known.

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/goodfood/pages/the-truth-about-as...

I agree with you about the general opinion. However I do believe it is relevant to your first question which was why Coca Cola does not promote on it more, I don't think you want to advertise on doing something people dislike or think it's bad (be it true or not it does not matter at all).

On the other hand I think most people know drinking Cola is not good for your health.

There is no evidence that consuming a small amount of aspartame (less than 30 cans of diet soda a day) is harmful to you.

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