Sunday, September 12, 2010

Volume 5, Number 24: To St. Louis and Back

I spent a few days in St. Louis last week and finally got one item on my "bucket list" checked off--going up to the top of the Gateway Arch, the tallest monument in the United States. I will be posting pictures to my Facebook page soon.

My reviews on diet sodas I've been drinking lately:
  • Pepsi One: Thumbs down. I didn't like the aftertaste (which is disappointing because I thought sucralose would have a better aftertaste than aspartame). I like two other Pepsi diet products better (Diet Pepsi Lime and Diet Pepsi Max; I haven't tried Diet Pepsi Cherry yet).
  • Coca-Cola Vanilla Zero: Thumbs up, and a contender (along with Coke Cherry Zero) for the Diet Soda Federation's Inter-cola-nental Championship.
  • Coca-Cola Zero: Thumbs down. I didn't like it as much as the Cherry or Vanilla Zero (I guess I need the extra flavoring that the Cherry or Vanilla Zero's have to mask the aftertaste).
  • Fresca: Thumbs up. As expected, the aftertaste from the aspartame/ace-K blend is better than when it only used aspartame. But I still have wax nostalgic for the "Disco Fresca" with the saccharin in it.
  • Diet Rite Black Cherry: Thumbs down. It goes down easily enough and it doesn't have much of an aftertaste, but it doesn't offer much in the way of flavor.
  • Diet A&W Cream Soda: Thumbs up, despite the fact that it uses aspartame--rather than the aspartame/ace-K blend used in Diet A&W Root Beer--as its artificial sweetener. Why? The flavor of this cream soda seems to overpower the aftertaste of the aspartame. (In fact, back in the days when I drank regular soda on a regular basis, I preferred Faygo Cream Soda over A&W Cream Soda because I thought the flavor of the latter was too strong, but where the diet versions are concerned, having a strong flavor works in A&W's favor.)
Moral of the story: Maybe I need to rethink my strategy for trying out diet sodas. The sweetener matters, to be sure, but so is the flavor of the soda (I prefer that it be strong enough to drown out any aftertaste the artificial sweetener may have).

Diet sodas I'll give a try soon include Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper, Diet Squirt and Sam's Cola Zero Calorie.

Here's an update on my weight and diet: I've gone down to as low as 183 lb. (8 pounds down from my "record" 191 at the end of July). I'm at 185 right now but I attribute that to eating a lot of restaurant food between September 3 and September 9. There are still no crackers, chips, cookies, ice cream in my house, and since August 31, there are no Pop-Tarts in the house, either. I did buy a box of 6 SuperPretzels, but only because I wanted to have those one more time before I said goodbye to them (they're gone now--I had one a day over 6 days). The only "regular" soft drink in my house right now is a carton of Minute Maid Fruit Punch (which I bought thinking it was fruit juice--only to find, to my shock, that it actually has high fructose corn syrup in it, and so much of it, in fact, that it has more carbs than regular Coca-Cola).

And finally, an update on that Tigers road jersey entry in the Uni Watch Design-A-Jersey Contest (as featured in my last two blog entries): I came in 13th with 150 votes. I appreciate each and every vote I got from you--thank you.

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