Opinion
Farewell my toxic love, it’s been (artificially) sweet
Kerri Sackville
Columnist and authorI have decided to cut a toxic friend out of my life. I love them dearly, but I can’t keep ignoring how bad they are for me. And now that I’ve bid them farewell, I crave their crisp, carbonated sweetness every single day.
Oh, Coke Zero, how desperately I miss you.
Aspartame is used in everything from Diet Coke to toothpaste.Credit: Reuters
Last week, the World Health Organisation named aspartame – one of the key ingredients of Coke Zero and Diet Coke – as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. I had heard rumblings of this before, but I had drowned them out with the snap of a ring-pull and the satisfying hiss of gas leaving a can. Sure, I’d think, aspartame is a chemical, but everything is a chemical. Water is a chemical! We all have our vices, and mine is relatively minor, and it is just so fantastically refreshing.
Still, the WHO findings are hard to ignore. So is the French study of 2022 that concluded that consuming large amounts of artificial sweeteners increases the risk of some cancers and of stroke, and the Italian study of 2020 that linked the consumption of aspartame to cancers in mice.
Of course, a single can of soft drink is unlikely to cause cancer in a mouse, let alone a human. But if I consider all the Coke Zero and Diet Coke I’ve consumed in my lifetime, I’d have enough carcinogens to knock out a family of rodents, and possibly a couple of small dogs.
I began drinking Diet Coke back in the ’80s, when anything “sugar-free” was practically health food. Yes, it was saccharine-y, but it was infinitely preferable to the other diet cola on the market, the hideously bitter Tab. In 2005, when Coke Zero came along, I embraced it immediately. Unlike Diet Coke, Coke Zero tasted almost exactly like original Coke, but without the furriness of sugar on my teeth.
I had enjoyed Diet Coke. I passionately loved Coke Zero.
I’ve bought a Coke Zero every time I’ve stepped into a supermarket. I’ve taken a Coke Zero into every cinema I’ve visited. I’ve ordered mini cans of Coke Zero on every plane journey. I craved a Coke Zero immediately after giving birth, and gulped grateful cans of it above my newborn baby’s head.
When you’re a Coke Zero aficionado, you notice tiny differences in the iterations. The tiny cans hold the most consistent fizz. The Coke in the big bottles feels softer on the tongue. The Coke from the soda fountains is flatter and syrupy. Diet Coke, acceptable at a pinch, has a sharper, more synthetic taste.
As for Pepsi Max? Absolutely no way in hell.
I know people who drink litres of Coke Zero or Diet Coke, and many of them still believe that they are making a healthy choice. Some of them will read the WHO findings on aspartame and care not one iota and I truly understand. Things that are bad for you can feel really good and they can taste like effervescent cola-flavoured rainbows.
And making healthy choices can be tedious and challenging. To quote Mark Twain, “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.” If this was hard for Twain in the 19th century, it’s even harder in the age of caffeine-infused, artificially flavoured soft drinks.
I was relaxed about nutrition for a very long time. But now, in middle age, I feel a sudden and pressing need to maximise my longevity.
Coke Zero may or may not contain carcinogens, but it certainly isn’t helping me to live a long life. Dieticians and doctors recommend that we avoid ultra-processed foods, and Coke Zero is about as ultra-processed as you can get. Yes, it’s delicious and tingles gloriously on my tongue, but Coke Zero is as close to actual food as a computer chip is to a puppy. And if there is any chance at all that aspartame can cause cancer, I must summon my resolve and reluctantly wrench myself away.
Even toxic friends can give us beautiful memories. Coke Zero, I shall miss you forever.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.