In Defence of Diet Coke
Hello, my name is Bella and I love Diet Coke. I have drunk Diet Coke daily for the past decade. I love Diet Coke so much that it was featured in my wedding vows. My marriage has since ended; my love for Diet Coke lives on. During college exams, this habit was five cans a day. For the past couple of years, I have pared it back to one can a day (two on rare occasions). It has to be a can, and it has to be Diet Coke. Not coke zero, not regular, only Diet Coke will do. In lockdown, this singular can is a moment of bubbly joy in my bland, monotonous day.
I have received what I consider to be an outrageous amount of feedback regarding my love for Diet Coke. I have been judged by aunts who were on their second bottle of wine for ordering a Diet Coke at a family dinner. Berlin hippies have lectured me about the evils of Big Coke (I didn’t have the heart to tell them their ecstasy tablets aren’t exactly fair trade). I have been told by a family member that my habit is worse than smoking (spoiler: it’s not).
Look, I have nothing to back this up with but shaming someone for drinking Diet Coke has big misogyny (and Virgo) energy.
I think the reason I am so defensive about it is because I fit the stereotype of a Diet Coke drinker; I am fat and I will order a large pizza with, you guessed it, Diet Coke. No, I’m not stupid, I’m not trying to save the calories, I just like it.
Why is there such judgement for the Diet Cokers of the world? Perhaps it’s the idea that aspartame (the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke) causes cancer. Now I don’t have a fancy chemistry degree — oh wait, I do (sorry that came out more jerky than I meant it) but this study came from a bunch of rats and has been looked into a lot and no link has been found. But it’s hard to unring a bell. It’s worth noting that both Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute have said sweeteners do not cause cancer.
But you know what has been linked to cancer? Alcohol! But you’d want to be drinking a hell of a lot more than 1 can of beer a day before anyone bats an eye. “Diet Coke can get the rust off a car!!!” you cry. Yeah, the latest research shows that humans and cars are different. And lemon juice can remove rust too so…
When you google Diet Coke it’s like entering a haunted house of diabetes, cancer, MS, and weight-gain risk. At the end of these articles, they nearly all say “while it hasn’t conclusively shown that Diet Coke is linked to X, it doesn’t bode well.”. There was also a lot of headlines: Is orange juice REALLY as bad for you as Diet Coke? Notice, it’s not phrased as: is Diet Coke really as healthy as OJ? This came about when the Australian government tried to categorise foods and drinks into a star rating. The sugar in OJ yielded it a 3.5 star rating, the nothing in Diet Coke also yields it a 3.5 star rating. I mean, obviously, this is a fool’s errand. Comparing Diet Coke and orange juice is like comparing apples and well, Diet Coke..
When Trump left the White House there was a hullabaloo about the supposed Diet Coke button he had installed in the Oval Office, which Biden promptly removed. Well, a few corrections; he didn’t install it, it was a general usher call button, and Biden hasn’t gotten rid of it. Besides, probably the least harmful thing that man did in the oval office was drinking a Diet Coke. However, Trump’s Diet Coke habit seems to ratify what we know about him; he’s a dumb slob.
There’s an idea that only brainwashed idiots would drink Diet Coke and we, the intellecutuals, know that it’s worse for you than drinking fresh lava. But what if I told you that you’ve been click baited into 100s of articles about the sins of Diet Coke and you’ve been fooled by an Italian rat study that has been long debunked.
Look, I’m not going to be obtuse, I know drinking water is the best thing for you. My one can of Diet Coke a day does not disrupt a regular intake of water. I just don’t see people coming for those who drink a lot of coffee the same way.
So why all the hate? Is it because Diet Coke is traditionally consumed by and marketed towards women? So much so, Coke created Coke Zero so men wouldn’t have to be seen with a product that is so associated with women. Maybe. I imagine that has something to do with it. There’s a reason why Diet Coke, according to the headlines, is making us fat, dumb, cancerous, and radioactive (probably) whereas Halo Top, an ice cream with oodles of artificial sweeteners is “bio hacking”.
TL:DR — don’t comment on my Diet Coke.
