What Is Pepsi Thinking?

It was just announced today that Pepsi plans to offer their once-popular Diet Pepsi without aspartame. You'd think I would be happy with this news. I was when I first read the headline, but then I read the article.

Apparently, Pepsi thinks people will accept sucralose as an effective substitute for the aspartame. People are smarter than this, Pepsi. It's been known for years that sucralose is not a natural sugar substitute and screws up digestion. I'm too young to remember much about this, but i's probably similar to when Coca-Cola introduced aspartame as an alternative to saccharine, which they used in their Tab product, I believe.  The difference is, Coca-Cola made a new product with Diet Coke containing aspartame and probably kept Tab, containing saccharine, on the market for a while. Pepsi is taking a huge gamble changing the formula for their soda without offering a different product.

But why sucralose? Did you know sucralose is made by adding chlorine to sugar? Doesn't sound very natural, now does it? It messes with your digestion. Many people suffer bloating, constipation, diarrhea and other unpleasant side effects. Too much can have a laxative effect.

I gave up aspartame over two years ago, but that doesn't mean I turned to sucralose. I moved onto stevia, a natural product made from a leaf. I think soda companies need to start focusing on products other than soda. Younger generations want healthier options, not soda. How about focusing on new products like coconut water, or a health drink made with turmeric (a drink that's gotten very popular). No matter what ingredient they add to the soda, it's still soda. It doesn't have a reputation of being healthy.

This new Diet Pepsi could have the same problem as the New Coke, a drink that came out when I was a young kid. Coca-Cola changed the formula and it was disastrous. It turned into a big joke. I think Pepsi should keep their Diet Pepsi the way it is and focus on different drinks the younger generation might like. This way, those fans of Diet Pepsi will still buy their product and they won't be angering their remaining customers that are happy with the product the way it is. I mean if you're not going to really go natural, why even bother?