Generally, y'all erudite readers can find me reviewing music, literature, earth shaking political events, and other Very Important Products. Today, that will include Very Important Soft Drinks, specifically the new C2 Coca Cola.
It's easy and good sport to mock the cola wars. For starters, the Coca Cola corporation selling its sugar water makes an extremely convenient stand in for mocking empty corporate consumerism, and all that good, righteous pinko stuff.
Plus, in recent years, they've added bunches of variations within their same products, so called "brand extensions." For example, you've got Coke, Diet Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, Diet Caffeine Free Coke. Then make it cherry or vanilla — and start running through the variations again. Jebus Jumpin Criminy.
Now there's the "low carb" C2 brand. It's billed as "low carb" meaning that it has half the calories of standard Coca Cola.
This does not particularly impress me. It's STILL a bunch of sugar that you don't need. If I were really interested in low carbs, I'd be drinking, oh I don't know, how about... WATER.
Of course, there's Diet Coke, but that stuff is just plain nasty. Besides which, I don't need the aspartame turning into formaldehyde in my gut. I'd rather drink city water.
Nonetheless, I'm giving C2 Coke a big thumbs up for one critical reason: this stuff tastes really good. It is NOT a nasty diet soda with artificial sweeteners. Apparently what they've done is simply make regular delicious stalwart Coca Cola - but cut the sugar in half.
Now, like any patriotic American, I've enjoyed Coke all my life. However, with age I have found myself with less taste for sugar. Not like I don't like pastries and such, but I don't need or WANT quite the utterly ridiculous amounts of sugar in the Standard American Diet (SAD, as it's called by pious health geeks).
Coke is good, but the stuff is AWFULLY sweet to start with. Cutting the sugar in half actually makes it TASTE BETTER.
Don't kid yourself that this is really a "diet" item - though it's an improvement relative to Coke Classic. Try a bottle of this stuff though, and see if it doesn't just plain TASTE better than other colas.
Article comments
1 - Mike Kole
Pepsi has already introduced the C2 counterpart: Pepsi Edge.
2 - Bryan
I couldn't agree more. I hate diet coke, but I have been drinking it just because of the 0% factors. Now that C2 is out, I don't drink much, maybe 1 can a day, but at least I know its not AS BAD as regular coke, plus I agree, it taste better. Its not as "stinging" on the tongue and not as sweet.
I really think they hit a home run, plus they have been marketing the hell out of it.
3 - Tom
I'm in the same boat. I perfer the taste of regular coke, but don't want so many calories. Getting any fatter would give Mac Diva too much ammo to launch at me.
C2 tastes very much like regular Coke, but without the nasty aspartame taste.
4 - pb
C2's sweetner, Sucralose, is arguably artifical.
5 - GJ
C2 Coke IS a nasty diet soda with artificial sweeteners - it contains aspartame - look at the ingredients. I picked up an 8 pack the other day, thrilled with the concept of an 'adult' drink that is less sweet. However, my first swig of the stuff tasted artificial - so I went to the ingredients and found aspartame - right after caffeine.
I consider thier packaging very misleading. I expect aspartame when the package says 'diet' - but C2's packaging gives you no indications of artificial sweeteners in the drink.
Aspartame is nasty - just look at http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/lawsuit/, where it states:
"Aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue and depression.
Aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one-third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic."
Maybe its back to water for all of us - sigh...
6 - Dr. Betty Martini
C2 Coke is black print on red so its hard to read the label, but C2 Coke has aspartame (a deadly neurotoxin that makes you crave carbohydrates so you gain weight (protest of NSDA, www.dorway.com), acesfame potassium which caused cancer and leukemia in original studies and sucralose or Splenda which has a chlorianted base like DDT. All these are mentioned in the medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com (H. J. Roberts, M.D.). There is a new movie out on aspartame, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World with a good deal of the world experts. Don't miss it. Order form on www.wnho.net or email cori@soundandfuryproductions.com
If you want to get fat aspartame is where its at! However, it also damages the cardiac conduction system and causes sudden death. We believe this is why the athletes are dropping dead, its not ephedra. Read the Ephedra Story on www.wnho.net click on aspartame. Dr. Betty Martini, Bettym19@mindspring.com
7 - Al Barger
So far I'm not buying any of this business about sucralose being bad.
I've followed a number of these anti-artificial sweetener links from several threads at Blogcritics, and other places. They collectively drop a bunch of bad sounding, accusatory words- but provide absolutely NO evidence. These links say MS, diabetes, heart attack- but have no corroboration.
I'm looking for even a scrap of scientific evidence. I'm looking for maybe even a cheesy study with overdosed rats. You know, 300 rats were fed the equivalent of sweetener for 5,000 cans of soda a day, and then had three times the rate of XXX disease than 300 control rats.
That wouldn't necessarily really prove anything about normal human use, but it would be enough to maybe make one suspicious.
Now certainly you'll come up with a FEW people who don't do well with ANYTHING. There are people who are allergic to nearly every damned thing.
Of course, that doesn't mean that NO ONE should be allowed to use the product. A lot of people are allergic to penicillin and aspirin.
I'm open to actual SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE showing significant danger to sucralose, but I'm not seeing it.
Also, considering that even according to the critics 80 or 90% of the stuff is not absorbed into the body at all, that alone would seem to minimize any possible medical danger.
8 - GJ
A quick Google for 'aspartame studies' provides the scientific evidence you need:
The very first result of the search states: "Dr. John Olney, one of the most renowned neuroscientists in the world...did the studies on aspartic acid, 40% of aspartame and found it caused lesions in the brains of mice. He attempted to stop the approval of aspartame but the pharmaceutical industry was too powerful." (see http://www.wnho.net/olneyletter.htm).
In fact, early tests by the drug company that created aspartame (Searle, - later bought by Monsanto in 1985) "showed it produced microscopic holes and tumors in the brains of experimental mice, epileptic seizures in monkeys, and was converted by animals into dangerous substances, including formaldehyde." (see http://www.stevia.net/aspartame.htm).
And - you yourself stated that you "don't need the aspartame turning into formaldehyde in my gut".
I have done no research on sucralose - I am sure that it follows the same track. However, there is more aspartame than sucralose in C2 Coke - so that is what stops me today.
That said - if you want to drink C2 Coke's aspartame and the other chemicals - I am not trying to stop you. All I want is truth in packaging, so I KNOW when these chemicals are in my food. C2 Coke touting '1/2 the sugar' in bold letters without mentioning chemical sweeteners is very misleading, and makes you wonder how much trust you can put into the Coca-Cola company.
9 - David
C2 COKE IS GREAT. ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND HAVE LOST WEIGHT AND FEEL A LOT BETTER DRINKING ABOUT 2 CANS OF IT A DAY. I USED TO NEVER FEEL SATISFIED DRINKING REGULAR COKE. I LOVED THE TASTE BUT IT NEVER QUENCHED MY THIRST. IT WAS LIKE CRACK!! THIS NEW COKE TASTES A LOT BETTER THAN DIET COKE WHICH I HATE. I RECENTLY BOUGHT SOME IN A 2 LITER BOTTLE AND IT TASTES EVEN BETTER. WHEN YOU DRINK IT ON ICE WITH A MEAL OR FOOD YOU CAN HARDLY TELL THE DIFFERENCE. MY ONLY CONCERN IS THE RUMORS THAT COKE IS GOING TO STOP MAKING IT BECAUSE OF POOR SALES. ANY INFO OUT THERE ON THIS?
10 - Temple Stark
David, are oy ulike the "Wendy's PR guy?"
Just joking. Pepsi Edhge is so named because it sets your teeth on edge - that is the sweetest drink alive.
However, I am come to the non-earthshattering conclusion that most people like Coke or Pepsi because of their taste buds. If they lack (or perhaps just if they're normal, I can't say) some sweet taste buds, then they can stand Pepsi.
I used not to care, but my girlfriend drinks Diet COke and that's what I drink. Easy.
C2 was OK, and yes, probably would be quite good on ice.
More importantly :-) - has anyone else noticed that Coke seems to be a LOT more fizzy lately?
11 - Antfreeze
And they've somehow developed a cap for the 2-liter that tightens itself so that it takes pliers to re-open it. This technology could probably alleviate our dependance on foreign oil if properly utilized.