What is in Diet Soda??????

Did you ever wonder what is really in a diet soda?  

I use to enjoy the occasional diet soda, usually with popcorn while watching a movie at my favorite movie theatre. After all, how can you go to the cinema and not eat popcorn, the smell beckons you to the snack bar the minute you enter the building. And I don’t know about you but with the number of previews they show these days, my popcorn is about gone by the time the feature starts, so why bother? Because soda, popcorn and a movie is part of the theater experience, at least is is for me. 

Fresh Brewed Ice Tea

Well I have a confession to make, where I would occasionally enjoy a diet soda a couple of months ago I realized I was drinking a diet soda every day. Oh there were days when I would take the time to brew a pitcher of ice tea, which I absolutely love and have since I was a wee lass. But most days I found myself pulling a diet soda out of the refrigerator, filling a glass with ice and pouring not just an eight ounce bottle but a 12 ounce bottle into the glass. I guess I was just getting lazy, after all it only takes a few minutes to brew a pitcher of decaf tea, Ugh, for someone who is passionate about providing healthy meals for our children, family and friends I am not sure how this happened.

As the price of everything including diet soda continued to increase, I would stock up on the liquid gold whenever it was on special. However, several months ago I was wondering why I wasn’t feeling really great and gaining weight. 

My daily diet usually consists of protein, fruit and vegetables, and I hadn’t been on a junk food binge. I do love pasta, chips and the occasional steak or hamburger, but I hadn’t made any significant changes to what I was eating, so what was making me feel so bad?

After returning from a vacation to Ireland, where I did not drink one soda for eight days, I realized I felt so much better. But still it did not really register why I felt better.  

As the price of my favorite diet soda went from $3 per six pack to almost $5, I informed my husband Doug that I would no longer support the continued price increases for diet soda and that I thought that maybe we should not be drinking diet soda on a daily basis. Just maybe the soda was not agreeing with me, you think???  

At about the same time my good friend Patti and I had lunch and she was telling me that she had read “The Perfect 10 Diet: 10 Key Hormones that hold the Secret to Losing Weight” by Dr Michael Aziz. According to Dr Aziz diet soda is one of the worse possible beverages that we could consume. Patti said she use to drink several diet sodas’ a day and quit cold turkey, as a bonus to changing her diet Patti lost over 15 pounds.  

I am not a doctor, scientist or nutritionist , but I do know I feel 100% better since I am no longer drinking diet soda, I have shed a couple of pounds and I am saving on average $35 to $40 dollars a month. How’s that for my very own un-scientific study, my body knows what it requires and what it does not like.  

It makes me crazy thinking about all the chemicals that are in a soda, diet soda and all the flavored drinks that fill up the shelf at our local market. Rather scary I would say. 

So if you are a soda addict think about making some changes, one step at a time.  

Just cook something! Cheers~ Kary