Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dietcoke

Is too much Diet Coke bad for you?

JPowers — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:50:48 -0800

I drink 8-10 diet cokes per day. Should I quit? Plenty of people tell me this is bad for me, but I can't find any evidence from reputable sources that prove this is true. Can you provide this evidence? I'm specfically looking for the exact ingredients that are bad (the caffeine, the artficial sweetener, etc.) and the negative effects.

What is the most popular soft drink?

roofus — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:38:05 -0800

What is the most popular carbonated soft drink in the US or UK? Google-fu has failed me. I think it's Diet Coke, but I can't seem to find a credible citation.

Will Diet Coke make me gain or lose weight in the short term?

web-goddess — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:39:43 -0800

Any jockeys or prizefighters in the house? I've read repeatedly that Diet Coke and other diet soft drinks have both sodium - which makes the body retain water - as well as caffeine - which acts as a mild diuretic. Which effect is greater? Will drinking a diet soda cause a net gain or loss in your weight a few hours later? First off, I'll admit that this is totally prompted by an upcoming Weight Watchers weigh-in. I'm not trying to game the system, but I would like to be sure I'm not going in there carrying any extra weight. It sure seems like when I have a Diet Coke (after drinking normal water), I end up going to the bathroom a lot more often. So in a hypothetical situation where you wanted to weigh-in as light as possible, would it be better to A) just drink water, B) drink water and a bit of caffeine, or C) drink nothing at all? I've done some Googling and while I can find references to both the "water retention" and "makes you pee more" effects, I can't find anything that suggests whether they cancel each other out.

I'd just like to stress that I know Diet Coke isn't healthy and if I were a truly good person (that was sarcasm), I wouldn't drink it at all. But dammit, I've lost nearly fifty pounds in the past year and I need to feel like I have one tiny vice left. I've just always wondered whether I should cut it out on Weight-In day or not. (I know that the net effect is likely to be miniscule, and I'm truly not the type to obsess about 100g... but I just wondered.)

And the award for the world's most paranoid dieter goes to...

skjønn — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:33:49 -0800

Are there any simple tests that can be done (besides tasting) to determine if a given sample is diet coke or regular coke? Without using taste or smell, is there a simple way to distinguish between coke and diet coke?

One possible way to distinguish: test strips that react differently to the sweeteners in each one? There are strips you can buy that will tell you if you have ketones in your urine, if a substance is an acid or a base, etc etc. Maybe something similar would work? Maybe the PH is significantly different and PH test strips could be used?