I have just realized that I can no longer tell the difference in regular and diet pop anymore!! As I am "celebrating" my 10 years with diabetes, I hardly ever drink regular anymore (except during lows). One of my worse fears.... A diet fountain drink is really filled with regular pop and all its glorious fast acting carbohydrates. I wouldn't be able to tell until my sugar is flying high with no known cause. Do restaurants know how important that simple mindless task is?! Probably not. They could ruin my whole day by switching that carb-free, carbonated goodness with that drink that I think of as the Enemy. Just some of the things that go through my head while eating out...
I always try to watch them filling the cup to make sure it is the unleaded brand!
I've gotten used to diet now too I used to drink regular all the time but now I actually think it's too sweet! So definitely like diet now. I get freaked out too sometimes about being able to tell if its diet or regular..two ways to figure it out is the smell of it and by the carbination/bubbles and fizz...regular pop has more of it diet has practically no fizz on top..and I think restaurants/fast food places do know that it's important because of diabetics and all but sometimes mistakes do happen... we're only human... maybe it was rush hour and they were getting screamed at by their managers to hurry go faster... I used to work at mcdonalds so.. I always tried to do my best and not make those kind of mistakes but like I said..its hard when your getting yelled at to go faster ... enough ranting for me. lol
Fearing that "diet soda" is not diet soda is valid. I wondered many times when I'd eat out what they put in the "food" I ate because my blood sugar would rise. Then I read in Diabetes Health that it is a common problem. Solution: Get Diastix. Dip one in the diet soda to make sure it's diet. You won't have to wait long to find out. It will either by sky-high or not. It's saved me many times!
Yes Diastix do work.. It was mentioned that testape is IDEAL but no longer avalible.. you dont want to dip it in the glass your drinking but use a straw or something to drop a bit onto the strip..
You could theoretically put a drop on a test strip and use your meter. but your reports would be screwy.
Don't worry. After another couple of years the diet soda will taste "normal" and the sugary stuff will taste "funny". Really.
And like the others point out, there's diastix and testape until then.
yeah, I hate the regular stuff now. But there are some drinks that are fairly similar to the "real" thing (diet dr pepper and coke zero) I remember when I only drank coke zero for a month after it came out... I couldn't tell the difference!
all else fails, some meters will actually work if you dip them in soda. if its regular soda, it will give readings 400+, diet soda will usually give a low bg error. (and then theres the diet mtn dew from taco bell which reads around 140.. idk what to make of that lol)
Diet pop is not good. I say this after a visit to the ER a couple years ago thinking the worst for my heart, but turned out to be simply Gerd. Caused by.... you guessed it. Too much diet pop over the 40 years of being a type 1. Drink it, but few and far between.
Theres always the "healthier" option but like everything else, you can try to become accustomed to picking up the habit of moving to things like flavored selzer water and such, but even I like soda/pop still.. you do adapt to not being able to taste diet vs regular, EXCEPT when using some low/0 carb sweetners.. Cant stand the taste of Saccarine. and some mixed results with stevia based drinks. May not pick up on the initial sip, as with stevia based sodas... but the aftertaste lingers.. Cant stand saccarine. but theres believed to be a link to PTK/Prop tasters and tasting saccarine as bitter.
Think the old adage, everything in moderation could apply here. but in the grand scheme of things, diet soda is not a terrible vice IMHO though some might argue and disagree. Got to pick your battles carefully. Tend to think if a bit of soda can be a sub for something sugary, its def the better option, even if some dont consider it the "best" option
I stopped drinking diet drinks for the most part after an unrelated surgery a few years ago when I couldn't have anything by mouth for days so I got detoxed from caffiene. I drink lots more water now and add the artifically sweetened drink packets. I'm sure the packets aren't great for you either but I've lost the taste for caffeinated drinks now.
When I drink the occasional one, the carbonation actually feels like it's burning my throat and I no longer enjoy them like I used to.
If I'm out, I choose unsweetened iced tea. It's really easy to tell if tea is sweetened or not. :)
You can use a glucometer test strip, with some it has to be a drop of the soda on the strip in the meter; I did it once when I ran out of Diastix; and the reading will tell you whether it's diet or not. As TimmyMac said, the reading will go sky high or a low bg error, so there's no doubt what you're drinking. As for not dipping Diastix in the glass, I've done it all the time with no problems. I'm sure it would work with a straw, too; just not as convenient.
One other note somewhat off the subject and opinionated: Diet Dr. Pepper is the best, especially if you can get it cherry flavored.
I've tried to ween myself out sooo many times, but I can't seem to find anything to replace the cola flavor that I crave so much. I'm addicted to diet pepsi and pre-diabetes I could drink a 2L bottle of Coke in a "study session".
I have no problem differentiating now, as Tim says, now normal tastes way too sweet (like sugar cubes in your mouth).
I had that mistake happen to me long time ago at McD's, and I do understand the rushing and the human mistakes so I nicely told the guy that he made a mistake and if he could switch it for diet, and he looked at me up and down and said "you don't need to lose any weight, you look perfectly fine" and I couldn't help but get mad and told him "dude, i'm diabetic and you almost killed me" (poor guy)
I've seen a couple of studies where diet soda increases risk of stroke. I've been a big-time drinker of the stuff since becoming diabetic over 25 years ago and I can still taste the difference between diet and regular. (I used to like regular and hate diet but now its the other way around.) Anyways, since seeing those studies I'm now slowly weaning my way back to regular. I figure I have the medicine to handle the extra sugar and I know how to use it. So the fear of stroke outways the couple extra units of insulin I take to handle the regular soda. Now if I could just get used to that awful taste...
Thanks everyone for the feed back! I wasn't aware that you could use your meter for testing pop! I love it! We went on a weekend getaway this weekend and I used this little trick every time we ate out. Thankfully, I was given the correct beverage.
That is as bad as ordering coffee with sweetener and getting to the bottom of the cup and finding un-melted sugar crystals. When you point it out to the clerk you get a shrug and a "would you like another"?!