Diet Pepsi Cola Review

Diet Pepsi Cola has been around in various version since the early 1960s, and my family and I have consumed many glass bottles, cans, boss bottles, waxed paper fountain cups, and 2-liter plastic bottles.  We’ve drunk it through its various sweeteners including cyclamates, saccharin, and aspartame (NutraSweet).  With each new sweetener came a better cola taste, with less aftertaste, and longer-lasting sweetness.  At first, the diet version tasted very much different than regular Pepsi, especially during the saccharin years.  But with the advent of Nutrasweet in the early 1980s, Pepsi capitalized on that innovation, and significantly improved the flavor of their Diet Pepsi product.  Aspartame (NutraSweet) is still the sweetener of choice today in this beverage.

While this product’s flavor indeed resembles the original Pepsi, it is nonetheless, easily recognized as different.  As I drink through a can, it’s sweetness gradually decreases as my palate becomes accustomed to the NutraSweet.  Also, aspartame loses its sweet taste over time, so that if you allow Diet Pepsi to age for too long past the best-if-used-by-date, you’ll likely find much of the sweet flavor has disappeared.  But until the relatively recent release of the Pepsi Max product, Diet Pepsi was my favorite cola drink, sweetness fatigue and all.

 

Benefits, Pros, Advantages, and Features

  • If I must avoid the sleepies, I find Diet Pepsi does a decent job of keeping me awake.  Diet Pepsi has 36 milligrams of caffeine per 12-ounce serving.
  • An obvious benefit of Diet Pepsi is that it has no calories; in fact, no carbohydrates at all.  Indeed, you will not get fat drinking this diet soda.
  • It’s sugar-free and very low sodium, at just 25 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.  You will not get cavities or gain weight just by consuming this diet drink.
  • The 36 milligrams of caffeine almost never induces the jitters or racing heart in me, but indeed keeps me very much awake.
  • I experienced no sour aftertaste with Diet Pepsi Cola.
  • Diet Pepsi gives you that teeny extra boost when you need it but without any sugar, and that is quite sweet!
  • After opened, Diet Pepsi keeps fizzing for twenty to thirty minutes; long enough to finish a can before it goes flat.
  • Diet Pepsi has been shown to be an effective competitor to Diet Coke, a relative newcomer to the diet cola industry (early 1980s).  I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke.
  • The best-if-used-by date on the bottom of the can is six months out.  So you can store this pop for a little while without any loss of sweetness.

 

Disadvantages, Cons, Problems, and Concerns

  • This cola contains caffeine, which at times, I wish to avoid.  So I’m glad they manufacture a caffeine-free version.
  • Many products that derive their sweetness from aspartame like this one, can begin losing that sweetness if left in the wine cellar too long past this date.  I’ve indeed experienced this with Diet Pepsi.  So while I often keep beverages way past this, I’d not recommend doing so with any NutraSweet-based diet soda.
  • Sweetness fatigue sets in after just several consecutive sips of Diet Pepsi, though I’ve never observed much of an aftertaste with this product.

 

Our Product Rating

My taste buds adore this zero calorie Pepsi product.  But the caffeine, though moderate, instigates caution in my heart.  While I’d recommend this to healthy individuals, I’d also caution older people with prehypertension or full-blown high blood pressure to consume this product cautiously.  I’d therefore rate this product at 88 of 100.

 

Where To Buy Diet Pepsi Cola

Look for the white-labeled cans, plastic bottles, and cartons of Diet Pepsi at your favorite grocery stores big or baby such as Hometown Market, Weis, Giant Eagle, and Kroger.  I bought mine at Walmart.  Since this product has been marketed for several decades, and greatly popular besides, it’s also available at most any small grocery store and gas station as well.

 

References

 

Revision History

  • : Moved this post to the   Tom’s Diet Quest   blog, added whitespace, adjusted ad placement, revised content, and rearranged category and tag assignments.
  • 2012-04-22: Originally published.