Reply #20: Check for sodas with Splenda as the sweetener... [View All]

Splenda is a "reverse sugar" - it's actually a sucralose engineered without the carbohydrates - tastes, cooks, and mixes just like C & H cane sugar, to my taste. Only a slight aftertaste. No major side affects that I can find when used normally - heck, when I mix it with yeast for breadmaking as I normally would mix sugar in, it reacts exactly like sugar (unlike other "sweeteners") and does not leave the slightest aftertaste.
I suppose you can run health risks if you down an entire 24 oz box a day...
Hanson's Diet Sodas (about 5 or 6 different flavors - including a great gingerale and peach!) and Diet Rite (cola, tangerine, raspberry, white grape, peach, strawberry kiwi) are currently the major soda types that use Splenda - unfortunately, if you also have a craving for caffeine, neither brands have caffeinated colas. Diet Rite Cola has a rather unique taste as it is - unlike the other diet sodas mentioned above, RC retained the formulation to keep it tasting like a diet cola, rather than try and change it to taste more like RC Cola.

Arizona brand teas use Splenda for their diet tea drinks. I especially like their diet green tea drink. V-8 "Splash" diet drinks also use Splenda instead of corn syrup, they're very good for those on reduced carb diets as "treat drinks".
Basically, drinks using Splenda as a sweetener will be like drinking regular sodas without the carbs.

I have yet to find a diet rootbeer that uses Splenda :( - ah well, perhaps Hanson's will eventually formulate the rest of their regular soda flavors so that we can have grapefruit, vanilla cola, and rootbeer, too!

A side - be careful about the more "food" like goods that claim to use sucralose as a sweetener - I've found some use both sucralose and aspartame (NutraSweet)- "sugar free" cookies and ice cream are notorious for using that particular mixture to offset the aftertaste of NutraSweet- and anyone with a sensitivity to NutraSweet will get a nasty reaction.

Happy drinking!

Haele