I now have a new reaction image to drop along my unsuspecting group chat. Thanks.

Holy shit, a David Dees (nuts) parody that looks just like the original

I do now!

How else should it be pronounced?

Yeah and I sing it out like "love reign o'er me" by the who

Huh. Stevia is one I cannot stand. And Monk fruit. Wish I couldn't taste those, they wreck anything they touch.

Have you tried monkfruit yet? It's the closest thing I have found to real sweetness that doesn't taste like total aids. You just have to use very little of it as it's super strong

Stevia is the worst, IMO. It's got a strange mouth feel.

You know how eating tortilla chips will cut up your mouth a little? They irritate the tongue and throat, making them feel a little gritty? Anything with stevia gives me that "tortilla chip mouth" sensation, even when I haven't been eating tortilla chips.

Every other artificial sweetener tastes like cancer. Stevia tastes like sand.

Agreed. Sometimes I'll accidentally take a sip of Coke Zero and it takes me a second longer to tell it's not my drink. So it's way better than most, but still terrible.

Erythritol tastes just like sugar, slightly less sweet

I have to admit, a lot of R&D goes into designing a good sugarfree alternative to sugary drinks. Case in point, especially for my fellow Germans: Spezi Zero (obviously Paulaner) tastes really good, but Almdudler Zero tastes pretty bad compared to normal Almdudler.

sugar is pretty fucking bad anyway. sweeteners are a trap.

I think it's a taste that I just forced myself to acquire lol

I almost never have sugary drinks now

Stevia is terrible for your gut microbiome, it should not be legal.

Oh my god. How did I not know this? I’m pretty sure this is what ruined my December.

In the US the current ingredients list for Coke Zero is:

CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, ASPARTAME, POTASSIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM CITRATE, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, CAFFEINE, STEVIA EXTRACT.

whereas for Diet Coke it's:

CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, ASPARTAME, PHOSPHORIC ACID, POTASSIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID, CAFFEINE.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the case. I think diet coke is aspartame sweetened.

Source: diet coke tastes like shit, coke zero is actually kind of okay.

thats probably because they put literal acid in it (phosphoric acid)

I got the bad end of that stick, I much prefer sugar (my parents and siblings are obese and I have to fight it)

Don't feel stupid - you're in the majority.

Here in the UK they've reformulated almost all soda to include Aspartame or Acuflame K.

The vast majority don't give a fuck, as they taste the same as before.

It's only people like me who, through a hilarious quirk of genetics, actually taste some sweetners as bitter and unpleasant, that are effected.

For a small (but significant when you scale it up) percentage of the population, these drinks have been entirely ruined and rendered basically undrinkable.

Even my 'national drink' Irn-Bru has been wrecked.

It's kinda funny as most people I meet don't taste it at all and probably think I'm being weird about it or that I'm making some sort of moral stance against sweetners. But it's genuinely not that. It's just that all the soda I liked has been replaced with weird tasting garbage.

For me diet sodas taste fine for like 2 seconds and then they turn disgusting

You mean the alpha version had.