I thought I had finally found a healthy drink I liked with no artificial sweetness and they had to go and fuck it up
I thought stevia wasn’t an artificial sweetener. It’s just a leaf.
Stevie leaf extract is a petroleum base sweetener. It was used as an artificial sweetener , but then they found that it could be naturally occurring in small quantities and rebranded. It works like natural flavors where it can still come from petroleum so long as its naturally occurring with some source. I find it extremely bitter and soapy, just like almost every other artificial sweetener.
sounds more like aspartame, aspartame is entirely artificial, stevia comes form the stevia plant.
Could you give a source? I can’t find ANY mention of stevia being “petroleum based”.
Afaik Stevia is entirely produced from the shrub.
That’s the trouble with words like ‘artificial’ and ‘natural’. They mean nothing. It would be better to call them refined additives, because I expect the “stevia” would be in a refined, extracted form when added - whether substantially changed from the form present in the plant or not, this could be considered artificial, if we insist on using this word.
the oop said it came from petro, which isnt true. the substance which used to extract stevia isnt organic though, probably using an organic solvent, but they purify it to some extent. but alot of stevia brands only used the pure stevia from the plant.
This is what bothers me the most from marketing. Uranium, arsenic and petroleum are 100% natural too
Sugar is refined.
Careful, this drink contains chemicals!
Thanks California calm down please
/s
I hate this brand, we now pay 6$ for water from a stupid can instead of having water bottles at festivals for 1-2$, the dude who owns it is friends with insomniacs owner, ruined the water supply at every festival. Redbull is typically cheaper than water now at 4$.
No ppl dont think you’re drinking alcohol like they claim its for, that has never been a valid reaon to grab it, we all know its water, someone asking you for some water should be the first clue ppl dont think its alcohol.
Cans are actually recyclable. That’s the benefit. The rest is marketing.
Red Bull doesn’t give you wings either.
The reason venues live the cans is that that can’t be recapped after opening, so they are harder to refill so you keep buying more instead of reupping in the bathroom.
They throw away caps either way, but like 50% of ppl are nice and let you keep them
Also to keep people from throwing full bottles of capped water at people and hurting them
I think a full can of water would hurt more
Either of them closed are miserable to get hit by, they become a rigid body and absolutely smash. When the tops are open, they’ll expend most of their energy squrting the water out the opening, unless you’re REALLY good at throwing them opening first.
The scary part about cans is you can peel the aluminum back and turn them into impromptu shivs or slicers.
Where the fuck were you getting $2 water at festivals? I remember paying $5 for anything to drink back when the Mayhem Festival was still a thing.
Insomniac like the video game company? Are they problematic? Or am I misunderstanding?
The company behind massive music festivals like EDC.
Ah, thank you. That makes more sense.
The company that has a monopoly on music festivals now, post covid especially.
Ah, thank you. That makes more sense.
They keep raising prices, keep overselling down to the night of, damn near get crowd crushed every other festival, I kinda stopped going to the more mainstream ones because of it
Forget your water backpack or theres a fat line? Liquid Death is there to empty your wallet, or you can die to dehydration.
How were you convinced sweet tea was a healthy drink to begin with? https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-is-stevia Stevia to reduce the amount of agave nectar used is making it healthier if anything. Can you actually taste it if it’s used sparingly in addition to real sugar?
Stevia leaves a disgusting after taste and is an immediate deal breaker for me in any drink.
I agree if it’s the sole sweetener in a sweet thing. But if it’s combined with real sugar in a only lightly sweet thing I find it unnoticeable. I recommend giving it a shot.
I can tell every time. Nasty stuff. Reminds me of sachirine. I get that stevia is natural, but it’s taste is real obvious. If they want to use less sugar… Just use less sugar.
Like that coke ad where there’s a fake candid camera where in a theater they pretended to swap all coke drinks with coke zero, nobody noticed and everyone is laughing
WTF I would have noticed at the first sip and immediately go to complain to the clerk “you gave me the wrong overpriced drink”
For me the flavor of any sweetener gives me a terrible aftertaste, I much prefer plain water
Same. A small amount of time I can find it just passable at best. When it’s added to yogurt? Probably the worst thing I’ve tasted sold on shelves.
Fair enough if you’re in that camp
To be fair, I’ve heard it’s a migraine trigger for some people, but I suppose everything is a migraine trigger for someone.
Ow, my migraine.
The only benefit this company offers with their beverages is the non-alcoholic-but-not-NA-beer tall-boy. My recovering alcoholic friend brings these to parties if he knows people will be drinking and just hold one and I’ve watched him go sober through so many situations where he’d probably have had a drink before. Not that these are the only options for that, though, obviously.
Sips from a can of tonic
Am i doin it rite
I think that’s up to you. Does it work for you? Then yes! 😃
How about drinking water from the tap? Much cheaper, not wasting cans, and healthy. If you live in a community with bad tap water, write a letter to your local water board, and buy a filtration tank you can put in your fridge.
If you must really have flavor, buy some of the powdered dehydrated lime or orange powder packets.
Ahhh this line of logic. Yes, people can forego luxury items and save money while being healthier. You could never eat red meat, or drink soda, or have ice cream, sure, that would be much healthier and cheaper.
I presume you’re not from the US.
Many municipalities across the US do not have drinkable water, and many more do not offer public access to water fountains. Thus, bottled water is a huge market in the US as free facilities are not always available.
I’m Canadian and I legitimately cannot recall the last time I bought bottled or canned water. I bring my two 18.9L jugs to the store to fill them with filtered water for $5 and that’s the extent of my “bottled water” consumption. Elsewhere, I carry a metal water bottle I can get refilled anywhere for free.
Yes, the US is a mirage of a first-world country.
I don’t know where you got that idea, but public tap water is federally regulated in the US (at least for now). Bottled water is popular because of marketing, not because tap water is unsafe.
hows flint doing again?
How Flint is doing is irrelevant to what I said, the same as me picking on a polluted city in Canada doesn’t change the fact that Canada generally has safe drinking water.
The comment I responded to made it sound like US tap water is mostly not safe to drink. That’s demonstrably untrue. I’m not defending the horrors of industrial capitalism or condoning environmental destruction, I’m merely pointing out that the US does in fact have standards, regulation, and enforcement for drinking water quality. This does not mean it’s perfect, but it does mean that in general you can drink the water out of the tap, like I do every day.
I hate that we live in a world where only extreme viewpoints are allowed. Either the USA is the greatest country in the world or it’s a complete shithole, anything else is just shouted down. I still make the stupid mistake of caring about what’s real rather than what makes a good soundbite on social media.
“Drinking water quality in the United States is generally safe. In 2016, over 90 percent of the nation’s community water systems were in compliance with all published U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) standards. Over 286 million Americans get their tap water from a community water system. Eight percent of the community water systems—large municipal water systems—provide water to 82 percent of the US population.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_United_States
That’s tea
I’m sorry, you didn’t actually think this beverage was healthy to begin with, right? Lol
For starters, agave is one of the highest fructose-containing sweeteners out there. Our bodies can’t use fructose directly, so most fructose metabolism occurs in the liver where it’s converted to glucose. Overconsumption of it may promote metabolic syndrome even more than glucose.
The only two sweeteners I use are date sugar (whole powderized dates), and rarely molasses. Unsweetened teas might be an acquired taste for some, but after getting used to it, they generally add plenty of sweetness on their own.
Stevia isn’t artificial lol
But it tastes artificial and fucks with lots of tummies.
Yeah Stevia tastes like poison to me, super bitter.
Basically all artificial sweeteners taste like either bitter or nothing at all to me. So I’m really angry when I buy a product I’ve been buying for years and it suddenly tastes like a Nintendo Switch cartridge.
>:(
Like the sweet plasticky taste of dasani.
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suddenly tastes like a Nintendo Switch cartridge.
Fuck. I know this smell. You just triggered NES and Super Nintendo memories in me. Never played Switch but I’m assuming they’re about the same.
The switch cartridges have a bitterant added to them since they’re small enough to be a choking hazard. It’s not the smell of the construction material they’re talking about.
Ah, so not the scent-memories that were triggered in me then. Different Nintendo scents, makes sense.
I love the smell of electronics! What I’m referencing is indeed the bitter compound they put on Switch cartridges, it tastes really bad and you taste it for a really long time, a stern warning to would-be choking children.
I think anything you’re not used to has the potential to fuck with your tummy
You’re thinking of xylitol which gets mixed with commercial stevia crystals to cut the sweetness
I have yet to find a low calorie sweetener that doesn’t bother my digestive system. My wife, who lives on diet Pepsi, doesn’t believe me.
have you tried honey? Even just a drop or two will really add a lot of sweetness
I have the exact same issue! Haven’t met anyone else with the same problem yet. Really sucks that more and more non-diet drinks are containing some amount of artificial sweetener.
Liquorice (there’s also an actual root, not just the confectionery) is very sweet and tummy-friendly, actually recognised as a herbal remedy over here for (mild) gastritis because antiinflammatory and antispasmodic (alongside helping with coughs and having some antibacterial properties) but too much will fuck with your blood pressure, avoid it if you have any issues there. A bit will probably be fine but a habit generally isn’t “a bit”.
There’s some medicinal teas over here which pretty much only contain it to taste better (otherwise makes no sense in combination with e.g. valerian). The stuff is actually sweet and pleasant, not a neutral but woody sweetness, not to be confused with North European liquorice confectionery where the predominant flavour is Salammoniac. Which are also very good… hey I grew up with the stuff, don’t look at me like that. Anyhow if you want a naturally sweet herbal tea adding a couple of shavings of the stuff should do the trick.
Have we applied the same scrutiny to HFCS or refined Sugar itself? Or does sugar get a pass because it was the first plant processed for its sweetness?
Why do all the 0 calorie sweeteners have to taste like a dead hobo’s arse?
They don’t
The products containing them definitely taste weirder though.
Pepsi Max is about the only one that I think tastes decent. Fanta zero? Weird. Coca Cola Zero? Weird. Sprite Zero? Does nothing for me. Sugar free red bull? Ew.
Monster’s white Ultra flavour, whatever it’s called, is semi-ok. Watermelon Ultra is OK. But neither is as good as say, Aussie Lemonade, which has sugar in it.
Of course, I’m Estonian, so the baseline here is regular sugar, not HFCS. I love Fanta, but American Fanta was disgusting.
Taste is subjective. I stopped drinking sugar soda several years ago because i’m pre-diabetic and don’t want diabetes. Sugar soda tastes weird to me now because I only drink diet soda.
You’re certainly better off for it, congratulations!
I unfortunately still get the sugar cravings. Not often, usually it’s when I’m tired. But they exist. If I buy a cold 0.5L bottle of my favorite non-caffeinated sugary soft drink, that’s damn near 50 grams of extra sugar in me, but man does it refresh me on a walk.
There was a time when I did OMAD, which really stabilizes your blood sugar. At that time, I did not experience such cravings. I miss being near immune to sugar cravings lol
It really is a spectrum, you’re right - some products definitely taste worse than others.
Pepsi Max tends to taste better because it uses a combination of Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K) and aspartame (ie. Equal), whereas Coke/Fanta tends to just use aspartame.
I personally find erythritol to be the most neutral flavour-wise, and without that laxative effect in the event of over-consumption.
Stevia definitely has a herbal after-taste that not everyone finds pleasant, but it can/does have its place at times.
Maltitol on the other hand, is the tool of the devil - and I would only wish it upon my worst enemies.
Have you tried dead hobo’s arse?
Can’t say I have, how about you?
Haven’t had the pleasure
On the plus side, stevia isn’t artificial.
What is “artificial?”
It is all marketing BS
Generally, artificial sweeteners are chemically synthesized while natural sweeteners are grown and refined.
I used to grow the stevia plant in my garden.
Does that matter at all?
In reality it is all arbitrary. By that definition table salt is artificial and poison nightshade is natural.
Hey, you asked… I just answered.
Salt is also a poison
but “table salt” contains iodine, and that requires a refining brine which is an industrial process. Its natural but also not. When it comes down to it, lots of this is splitting hairs
Can you differentiate synthesis and refinement for me?
I would say synthesis in this example is the creation of a molecular compound from differing source materials while refinement is the isolation and concentration of an existing compound.
That’s precisely why I use it in my coffee and have for many years. However there’s a big difference from one brand to another I’ve found. Sweet Leaf stevia drops are the only kind I’ll use now.
Yeah , it’s from an actual plant.
If I drink a lot pineapple juice, would it be considered artificial sweetness?
only for your cum
Might not be artificial, but it doesn’t look natural in sweetener form:
The process of extracting stevia -
Dried stevia leaves are subjected to purified water first. Then followed by a precipitation process with ferric chloride and calcium hydroxide to remove non-soluble plant materials & other impurities and follow filtration.
Then the leaf extract goes through an adsorption resin, which is used to trap the steviol glycosides of the leaf extract.
Afterward, wash the resin with ethanol to release steviol glycosides and decolorize the resulting solution with activated carbon to remove the colors in leaves, and then concentrated by evaporation.
Again, go through the process of decolorization, filtration and spray-drying. The spray-dried product is then combined with similarly processed additional extracts, dissolved in ethanol and/or methanol, crystallized and filtered. Finally, after further processes of crystallization, filtered and spray-dried to obtain pure stevioside.
Taken from here: https://foodadditives.net/natural-sweeteners/stevioside/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-1949
Dried stevia leaves are subjected to purified water first. Then followed by a precipitation process with ferric chloride and calcium hydroxide to remove non-soluble plant materials & other impurities and follow filtration.
So they’re washed with soap and water? Must we use the scariest language possible here?
You don’t know how sugar is made, do you?
Or agave syrup apparently
They don’t get simple chemistry is required to refine and purify stuff either apparently lol
More info here:
Stevia is DISGUSTING and by far the worst non-sugar sweetener. Aspartame is good in my opinion.
It’s interesting to read people’s reactions to stevia. I don’t seem to have the same reactions/aftertaste others point out.
I much prefer stevia over other sweeteners. I wonder if there is some sort of cilantro type thing going on.
Edit: Turns out stevia can taste different to other people!
Imo stevia is one of the best of the no calorie sweeteners, but since that entire category is absolutely abhorrent that’s sort of like being called the fastest snail.
I think we have to allow that when you’re raised on sugar like we all were, substitutes are never going to live up.
However lots of people throughout history didn’t have refined sugar. The ancient Egyptians for example. What would they have thought of stevia?
I once went on a strict no-carb diet for a few months and a stevia tea at the end of the day was a very enjoyable treat that I looked forward to. Now, having gone back to a normal diet, it doesn’t taste as good.
So I think habituation is a big part of it.
I mean of course, yes, but since I can’t change my environment or context all I can do is speak on my own perspective informed my own context and experiences.
Like I’m not sure what your point is here, just that this obviously subjective topic is subjective? Yes, of course it is. And yes of course my response was likewise subjective, but given the inherent nature of the topic the idea of addending “in my opinion” to the end feels extremely unnecessary.
So again, I don’t disagree with you, but this feels entirely non-sequitur to me.
I’m saying it’s even more than just subjective from one person to the next. I described how I changed my environment and context and how that had an effect. Your opinion can change.
I think you’re upsetting yourself trying to figure out if I’m agreeing or disagreeing with you but It’s a discussion. People chip in different bits.
Not upset, just confused. No ire anywhere, I assure you. Cheers.
I’ve had a fresh stevia leaf before, totally amazingly delicious. However i can’t stand it as a sweetener in drinks.
Because it’s subjective
And none of us can ever really know what anything actually tastes like to anyone else.
And I think we have enough information to say definitively that not everyone experiences every taste exactly the same way.
Stevia does have a bit of an aftertaste, but it’s fine for me in, say, coffee.
IIRC, the major limiting issue with aspartame is that it’s not heat-stable to the degree that sugar is, so there are a bunch of products that are made with sugar that you can’t make with aspartame, problem for baking.
kagis
Yeah:
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/aspartame-and-other-sweeteners-food
Aspartame is not heat stable and loses its sweetness when heated, so it typically isn’t used in baked goods.
There is no one alternative sweetener that has all of sugar’s properties, just without the calories, which is what people really want.
Stevia has the aftertaste. Aspartame isn’t heat stable. A lot of the sugar alcohols – like xylitol, which is really common in sugar-free candy – are laxatives, so if you eat that whole bag of candy, you are going to have horrendous diarrhea. You gotta use a patchwork of alternative sweeteners to replace sugar, based on the properties of a particular sugar use.
Bag of candy? Try a handful of sorbitol gummies and you will poop.
I prefer stevia to just regular sugar. I go out of my way when buying soda to get ones with stevia because they just taste better.
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You do realize manufactures have to wear gas masks when pouring in that junk right?
OH MY GOD!!! MASKS!?! It must be rat poison!
People working with powders should be wearing masks.
Why wouldn’t you just use sugar
If you are going to mistreat your body then go big or go home.
Added sugar is considerably worse for you than any zero calorie sweetener. Don’t give me that IT’S CHEMICALS bullshit either. Aspartame is one of the most tested food additive world wide and it’s not found to be unsafe.
Aspartame gives me headaches. Like “I can’t interact with people” headaches. I’ve tried it a few times and it’s always directly afterwards.
That said Stevia gives me a reaction like I had 5x the same amount of sugar, so I just have to remember if I’m adding it to something don’t use much or I’ll be hyper and then crash terribly. But at least I don’t get headaches.
Sugar gives me no problems if I have it in moderation. I generally drink water, but if I have a soda, I have one and I’m done. It’s a treat, not a way of life. Drink water people, it’s actually good for you.
It is all really terrible for you in the long run. There are phycological impacts of sweetness.
Also drinking anything heavily flavored is problematic for your kidneys and heart. A little coffee or tea isn’t a problem but if you start drinking Soda as a water replacement it will come back to bite you.
I do agree that terms “artificial”, “chemicals”, “non GMO” and “organic” are BS. Ultimately it is more phycological than anything.
“its all bad in the long run” doesnt mean that one isnt significantly worse. If youre smoking, why not just do meth instead? Both will kill you.
I dont use sweeteners because of the aftertaste but I wont deny that sugar is much worse for my health. I dont consume enough to make it an actual problem though.
Diabetes?
Unless it’s mixed with erythritol
The ingredients only say stevia leaf extract, nothing about erythritol.
Stevia can only be added in the manufacturing process by a cyclone valve which is actually quite noisy.
“Death to plastic”
“Here drink from this plastic-lined can” (https://www.plasticstoday.com/business/liquid-death-may-murder-your-thirst-but-it-won-t-kill-plastic-no-matter-what-the-ads-say)
Not only that, but unless you can guarantee that a significant portion users will recycle those aluminum cans, they are significantly more energy intensive to manufacture compared to single use plastic bottles.
Do most people not recycle cans?
Here in Cleveland, we used to just put all trash, no recycling, on the lawn. Then in 2008 or so, they put out a recycling innitive. Each resident had to pay $10 per family (so duplexs would buy 2 per house), and they’d get a blue bin. You put the recycling in the blue bin, and a seperate truck picks that up.
Sounds great right?
Welll…in 2020 or so they found out the 1st truck would take your black bin regular trash, and the 2nd truck would take your blue bin recyclables, and then BOTH trucks would drop off in the same pile, in the same landfill with zero recycling done.
Since that was discovered I see a massive 90%+ dropoff in blue bins. Not only have people lost faith in buying blue bins at all, but most people now use their blue bins as 2nd regular non-recycling trash can.
and then BOTH trucks would drop off in the same pile, in the same landfill with zero recycling done.
That’s not true, especially for cans. It’s more effective to sort trash at a central location than to have consumers do it beforehand. Aluminum recycling alone turns a significant profit. Glass is also profitable by itself.
Waste management companies should be paying you for your cans; if they are charging you for recycling, you should consider taking your cans to a scrap yard rather than leaving them in your trash.
I think you’re misunderstanding.
I’m not stating how recycling SHOULD work. I’m stating how the city of Cleveland DID (or rather did NOT) operate it’s own recycling innitive.
They sold you a blue bin for $10. And then for 12 years, unknown to the public, they picked up the recycleables, and didn’t recycle them.
It was a cash grab to get millions of dollars from residents, to perform a service that was never properly performed.
My city started doing a similar thing. Their contracted recycling plants started rejecting the truck loads because they were seeing less than 40% recyclable content in the trucks. Lots of people overestimate how much of their trash is recyclable, and over-utilize the recycling bin.
Apparently the recycling plants will accept as low as 50% recyclable content in the load, anything under that for a prolonged period, they start rejecting the loads.
So for a year our city was just taking the recycling bin loads to the landfill. Years ago most cities could just sell it directly to China, ship it over on enormous garbage boats, but even China has stopped accepting our nonsense.
Our city had to do a big re-education campaign, and send out new stickers for the bin lids, to get residents to put only recyclable things in the recycle bins.
Bro. Citation needed.
It’s true, I have no idea what actually happens to my recycling after it’s picked up, but I guess I can hope…
It’s easier if you don’t hope. Less inevitable disappointment that way.
Where I live, every time you buy a plastic bottle, aluminum can or glass bottle, you pay extra 10 cents that you get back when you take them to the recycling (that every store is mandated to have, IIRC).
And do you do that?
I’m lazy enough and a frequent enough soft drink & beer consumer that by the time I take it in, it’s at least 10€, but can be 20€ or more. I have also gotten over 100€ but that was cheating, it was from previous year’s summer solstice celebrations. And like the commenter above you, it’s the same price for me, 10 cents a bottle or can. Mostly because we apparently live in the same country.
Yes? Because every time we bring back a bag of bottles, we get about 10€. Would you rather throw out the 10€?
I also return mine but most people around me don’t seem to. You can often find them littering the streets or walkways or even out in the woods unfortunately.
Here in California we have high deposits and I never see cans left unattended for long. $0.05 is nothing in this economy.
Don’t know about other places with a deposit system, but in Finland 98% of aluminium cans are recycled. Seems to work pretty well
According to the actual Aluminum Association, only 43% of aluminum cans shipped within the United States are recycled.
The overwhelming majority of people recycle nothing.
As well, the overwhelming majority of recycling collection companies recycle nothing.
Eh, it entirely depends on the market. If your near mills or ports, a lot of stuff goes to a MRF (materials recover facility).
I have visited one and its pretty labor imtensive and gross. I am guessing most employees are undocumented because I can’t imagine others doing the job for the pay. They basically spend all day picking stuff off a constant feed of garbage. It should be all recyclables, but in a lot of streams there is more trash than recyclables.
If a MRF is near a waste to energy plant, they can get like close to 99% landfill avoidance rates. If not, your essentially making people slave over seperating your recyclables that you could have done (at least before the entire country went single stream)
I almost included “including those supposedly doing the recycling” but I didn’t.
I had to teach my parents how to recycle.
The unsweetened tea fight is a losing battle. The only way to get it is to make it yourself.
This isn’t unsweetened tea either. It’s probably very sweet considering how high in the order agave syrup is
What about tejava (spelling?)
Why would anyone want to buy unsweetened tea? Its literally less work making your own than carrying the cans from the store. And costs like 1/100
When I’m out and about and looking for a drink on a hot day I’d love if regular unsweet tea was widely available. I hate buying bottled water but I also hate sweet drinks.
Just bring tea concentrate. There are several different versions of them from paste to powder to just a tea bag and then you just need water.
Cold brew is even a thing. Tea is like the easiest thing you can make especially if you want it unsweetened.
My problem is I always want lemonade and life has apparently run out of free lemons raining from the sky for me to use and I’m not bringing simple syrup anymore.
i have no issue with stevia other than it tastes fucking awful. just a terrible aftertaste that makes me never want to consume it ever, in any configuration.
Stevia is FOUL.
And it isn’t exactly good for you
Why?
It is still sugar and it has a impact. It us also common in soda and over heavily flavored drinks that are hard on your kidneys and heart.
Makes your body think it got sugar but it didn’t
Further studies are required to conclude a direct correlation of artificial sweeteners with decreased insulin sensitivity.
Before this picture I thought Liquid Death was literally water in a can.
Had no idea they added stuff.
Yeah the slogan goes “Don’t be scared. It’s just water.” So same here, I thought it was just water lol.
They have a few different products including plain water
Flavored Liquid Death tastes like absolute ass to begin with. It’s like unsweetened/lightly sweetened drinks targeted at Monster drinkers
