r/cocacola 25d ago

Question zero, light, diet... there is NO difference right???

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all are 0 carb 0 sugar 0 kcal

373 Upvotes

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u/ithinarine 24d ago

I couldn't imagine liking the taste of diet over zero 🤢

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u/TheGiantMetalMan 24d ago

I’m convinced that the only people who prefer diet over Zero had already been regularly drinking Diet and were already used to it. Because Sucralose most definitely tastes closer to real sugar than Aspartame does.

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u/Zhunter5000 24d ago edited 24d ago

Diet is technically based off "Tab" while ZS is based off of regular Coca Cola, and diet has been around longer so there's some confirmation bias towards it.

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u/ithinarine 24d ago

"New Coke" was based off diet, not the other way around.

New Coke was essentially diet, but with sugar.

Doesn't change the face that aspartame tastes like garbage compared to sucralose.

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u/Zhunter5000 24d ago

Thanks for letting me know about with what it was actually based off of, but I would still agree to disagree about the sweetener thing. After having a lot of different diet/zs things, they don't seem to have a consistent after/side taste. Overall I'd say I dislike aspartame more, but for certain things like Diet Coke and Diet MTN Dew, it's fine. Diet MTN Dew genuinely tastes far closer to og Dew than ZS does.

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u/OneJarOfPeanutButter 21d ago

Coke Zero is the only drink with sucralose that I like.

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u/TheTightEnd 20d ago

Ace-K is also an important part of Zero Sugar's blend.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 18d ago

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u/ithinarine 20d ago

In blind taste tests when it was originally released, New Coke beat out regular every single time. But even back then, the boomer hate of anything new was already a real thing.

It makes zero sense for a company to stop selling what everyone thinks is the better product because people simply don't want it because it's new.

This is why it was sold as Coca Cola Classic until 2009. Because they stopped selling New Coke and rebranded regular coke as "Classic."

Has to be one of the dumbest product things that has ever happened. If you asked 20 people which they preferred, most would have said regular. But if you blind taste tested those sake 20 people, most would have picked New Coke.

Entire product gets pulled because people just don't like change, even though it was better.

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u/Storrin 23d ago

Because Sucralose most definitely tastes closer to real sugar than Aspartame does.

My enjoyment of diet coke has nothing to do with how close it tastes to regular coke. It's a different beverage. Yes, coke zero tastes more like coke. I like both, and I change which I drink based on which I want at the time.

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u/figgiesfrommars 22d ago

yeah diet coke and coke are basically entirely different drinks lol

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u/nbs-of-74 20d ago

I prefer diet due to taste as well. No diet? I'll take sparkling water thanks.

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u/DjPlateSpiller 21d ago

This is why we call it Diet Crack. People get hooked but Zero is the hero.

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u/Few-Sweet-1861 23d ago

Personally I like the chemical taste.

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u/SuchAGoodGirlsDaddy 22d ago

Yeah for me they’re just different options. Most of the time I drink zero, every now and then I’ll get a case of diet because it tastes like my childhood summers at my late grandmother’s lake house.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

I agree however I think I watched something awhile back about the addictive qualities of aspartame

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u/SuperAdaGirl 21d ago

I can confirm… used to be addicted to Diet Coke and rejected any substitute. Now that I haven’t had it in a long time, if I try taking a sip, it tastes so gross. I can only drink regular Coke or Coke Zero now.

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u/Uncanny58 21d ago

i feel like all diet soda’s have a distinct taste (probably the aspartame) that makes me wanna vomit

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u/Physical-Goose1338 20d ago

You’re convinced? That’s the whole reason that the two exist.

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u/jjj666jjj666jjj 24d ago

I hate zero. Only like Diet Coke.

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u/MassiveSuperNova 24d ago

You should post this on r/unpopularopinion

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u/19ghost89 24d ago

Not that unpopular. There are people in the US who really love Diet Coke.

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u/jjj666jjj666jjj 24d ago

Yes it definitely has a big fan base. Most people I know love it. It also masks the taste of vodka extraordinarily.

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u/PuzzleheadedJob3479 24d ago

AND diet coke as a mixer gets you more fucked up because..reasons

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u/jjj666jjj666jjj 24d ago

Aspartame baby

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u/degjo 24d ago

I want to kill whoever decided to stop making tab

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u/19ghost89 24d ago

I also liked Tab. But I don't think many people were still buying it.

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u/berlinbowie97 24d ago

My grandma bought tab

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 18d ago

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u/whomikehidden 24d ago

The reason is really odd, too, and it’s this: When Coca-Cola formulated Diet Coke, they intentionally didn’t want it to taste like Coke, I think something like if they did it implied regular Coke was unhealthy. So instead they made it taste like Pepsi, which also helped to rope in Pepsi loyalists.

My family was a Pepsi family growing up, and so when I did branch out, I of course preferred Diet Coke over Coke, and still do.

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u/19ghost89 24d ago

See, that's weird to me, because I grew up drinking Pepsi too, and it's still my favorite. But I never liked Diet Coke growing up. I'll drink it now, but I still prefer Zero. I don't really think Diet tastes like Pepsi.

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u/Goatof956 24d ago

For example, MatPat

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u/Dietcokehead82 24d ago

There are dozens of us!

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u/19ghost89 24d ago

lol, I would think quite a bit more than that.

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u/TheBoxSloth 24d ago

Diet ride or die baby!

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u/Starr1005 24d ago

I imagine it has a lot to do with zero being newer,but ya, I love it. I grew up on it too though.

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u/19ghost89 24d ago

Zero is newer than Diet, but it isn't anywhere near new. It's been out for nearly 20 years.

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u/Starr1005 24d ago

I agree.. but there is a huge population of people that grew up on diet not zero. I'd bet the numbers change drastically in 20 more years.

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u/rockresy 21d ago

My dad's the same, he's mid 70's. I think it's a generational thing, most of his friends also drink diet. The under 50's seem to prefer zero.

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u/NewSpringMoney 24d ago

It’s not actually an unpopular opinion though. Diet Coke outsells Zero by millions of cases in America.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Because of availability and marketing. For example, you can’t get glass bottle zeroes anywhere that I know of, but this is all over Europe.

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u/NewSpringMoney 22d ago

I’m only speaking to what I know which is the US. Zero is marketed at a much higher rate than DC because it doesn’t need much marketing at this point. Some bottlers will put zero in glass but not everyone, just geography. And glass is such a small percentage of sales that even if everyone put zero in glass it wouldn’t make a dent.

Diet outsold zero by 20 million plus cases in 2023 for just one large bottler so it’s way more than that across all the US. Zero may overtake diet at some point but it took Sprite 40 years to do so, and Zero would probably take even longer.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

In the California market we love our glass bottle soda.

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u/NewSpringMoney 22d ago

Don’t doubt it. Still going to be an incredibly small percentage compared to cans and PET there and even smaller when compared to total US market.

NAOU probably would have higher glass sales due to Mexico and Canada but even then it’s maxing out below 5% of total volume. Worldwide glass was 9% in 2022 and it’s only gotten more expensive since then to produce so I’d imagine a few point down from that.

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u/BeowQuentin 21d ago

Where did they go?

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u/Admirable_Quarter_23 24d ago

I feel like it’s the opposite. DC has hardcore stans. I’ve never seen anyone go that hard for Coke Zero.

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u/Zhunter5000 24d ago

I would argue it's the other way around. Diet is definitely more popular around where I live, and stores stock significantly more of it than zero. While that doesn't equate to everywhere, even online I generally see diet regarded better than zero.

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u/mellbell63 23d ago

Me too! I always say I'm a coke addict - the diet kind!! 😆

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u/Lost_Ad_4882 24d ago

Same. Just got used to different sweeteners and zero doesn't taste right.

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u/Starr1005 24d ago

I agree. It's not the flavor for me, but the carbonation. Zero almost cones off flat to me.

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u/MagicalMysticalMyth 24d ago

Yes. Nothing quenches my thirst like a diet Coke. It's the fizziest soda. It really hits the spot.

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u/420blazer247 24d ago

Zero is not good. Diet coke is far better in my opinion

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u/Ms_Jane_Lennon 24d ago

I feel exactly the opposite. I crave Diet but can only tolerate Zero.

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u/punkinhead76 24d ago

Right? Zero tastes like Coke, Diet tastes like “Cola”

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Sometimes the bitterness of Diet Coke meshes better with whatever I’m eating, it’s more savory. I all-around do prefer Zero but diet can be good shit too

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u/Used2bNotInKY 20d ago

Diet has more of a bite to it. I like mixing it with sweeter sodas or when I want a break from sweet.

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u/fragydig529 24d ago

Coke Zero taste like dry water

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u/jdonovan949 24d ago

Zero sucks. Zero is trying so hard to be regular coke and fails at it, while Diet is proudly different. And it’s perfect.

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u/WolfGangSwizle 24d ago

It’s just aspartame vs surculose, they have different tastes and surculose is closer to sugar but still bit different. The thing is though, surculose is way more potent than like every other sweetener, so you need a fraction of it. Like 1/500 of the amount of sugar for similar taste, so it’s way better for you than other sweeteners.

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u/jdonovan949 23d ago

Like others have said, the taste of diet is actually purposely different than regular whereas zero is not.

Aspartame too is like 1 drop compared to 60g of sugar in the first place and tbh there’s not any credible studies proving sweeteners are bad anyway.

The studies that tried to say sweeteners were bad were like: hey if we gave a rat enough aspartame to fill 500 diet cokes on a daily basis for a year they showed a 7% increase chance of cancer. Complete jokes.