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Saturday 25 October 2014

Diet Drinks

The first sugar-free diet soft drink was introduced in the US in 1952. It was a ginger ale sold by Kirsch and was called the "No-Cal Beverage".

In 1959 the American soft drink company Royal Crown developed Diet-Rite Cola, the first diet cola in America, as a diabetic product.

Diet 7 Up was originally introduced in 1963 as Like, it was discontinued in 1969 due to the US government ban of cyclamate sweetener. After reformulation, it was reintroduced as “Diet 7-Up”, then “Sugar Free 7 Up”, then finally in 1979 back to simply “Diet 7 Up”.

In 1964 Patio was created. It was the first Diet Pepsi cola and the first diet soft drink to be distributed nationally throughout the US.

Also in 1964 Royal Crown began selling Diet-Rite Cola and also RC Cola in all-aluminium cans. They were the first soft drink to be sold in such a way.

Coca-Cola introduced in 1982 their own low calorie version called Diet Coke, the first new brand since it was created by John Pemberton to use the Coca-Cole trademark.

Diet Coke uses aspartame, a synthetic sweetener made from two building blocks of protein, to reduce the sugar content whilst still retaining the sweet flavor of the drink. Aspartame works by fooling the drinker’s taste buds into thinking they are enjoying real sugar. It has very little caloric value and is about 150-200 times as sweet as sucrose. Consequently only very small quantities are required to produce a sweet taste.

James M. Schlatter discovered aspartame in 1965 whilst conducting research for the G.D. Searle company. G. D. Searle had to wait for 17 years until approval was given by the American Food and Drug Administration for its use as an additive.


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