People getting sick from Coke Zero

I made the mistake of chugging 1.5Ls of Coke Zero when it first came out (I was a dumb teenager at the time). The original formula was much gassier than what it is now, and I went through the bottle over the course of maybe half an hour. After I was done I started vomiting and had to be bedbound for days recovering from what feels like food poisoning.

I think it probably would also have happened if I drank the normal stuff but the gassiness of Zero certainly accelerated things.

Some of us are genetically unable to process saccharin, aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. If I have any of those, I can taste it for hours and hours afterwards as it circulates and recirculates within the body. I assume it gradually gets excreted by my kidneys.

At high dosages there is some nausea.

I once bought a bottle of soft drink that had no indicators like 'Diet' or 'Sugar Free' on the label. I drank all of it, about 700 mL. An hour or so later, I had the distinctive 'sweetener taste' in my mouth along with some nausea. Because I avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague, I was temporarily puzzled by this. I thought back over my day, and worked out that I had had that bottle of soft drink. I dug the bottle out of the bin and examined the label for the ingredients list. There I discovered that most of the sugar in the soft drink had been silently replaced by artificial sweetener, most likely as a cost reduction.

It isn’t aspertame as that’s been heavily used in all sorts of sugar free things for decades. However, it’s heat sensitive and might also be as acid sensitive, going skunky tasting over time. Asulfame-k (sp) has replaced it a while back. Can’t abide splenda and it helped me break a diet Pepsi habit from really ancient times.

Canad allows cyclamate which is reasonable tasting, and I’m one of those who find stevia bitter rather than sweet. Who knows what’s in cokes secret ingredients and whether the water used to make the canned product was tainted. Take one from the pack to have it analyzed if you get sick.

Could somebody post the artificial sweeteners used? I thought it was intended to compete with Pepsi Max which has a thicker taste than diet pepsi.