I received an unexpected surprise yesterday (and not the good kind), when I checked in on Jimmy Moore's low-carb blog to read his latest posting and saw that yet again, he seemed to be campaigning to just get rid of any diet drink sweetened with aspartame. That wasn't the surprising part, I have read many posts by people who want Splenda used as a sweetener. My problem with this generality is that what they also seem to want is not just for Splenda to be added to create a new choice of drink, but for all aspartame-sweetened drinks to be eliminated.

There is a debate about low-calorie/low-carb sweeteners that I don't particularly feel like getting in the middle of. I have nothing against Splenda; I have nothing against saccharine; I have nothing against aspartame. My particular interest is in taste. I like the way Diet Coke — as it is now, sweetened with aspartame — tastes. I don't drink it because it has aspartame in it. I drink it because I LIKE IT as a beverage. So the Coke company produced a Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda, and they sell it separately. To me, that is the perfect answer. The folks who want Splenda can drink that. The folks who want aspartame can drink the original. The folks — like me — who want a specific taste, can drink whichever version they prefer. My beef comes from people being so determined to get Splenda into drinks that they think the beverage industry should just take all aspartame away, thus changing my choices. I don't tell those people what they should drink. But they seem determined to tell me what I should drink. This pisses me off.

So after reading Jimmy's latest blog post about a new Pepsi energy drink, in which he said said "Will they ever realize we don't like aspartame?!" I posted a comment pointing out that some of us avid low-carbers don't feel this way. Again, it's not so much that I LIKE aspartame, I LIKE Diet Coke, and I don't want it to be changed because the anti-aspartame crowd thinks all aspartame is bad and should be removed. Well, my comment generated a pretty heated reply from Jimmy which really floored me. In retrospect, I was overreacting to his comment, feeling like he wanted to dictate what I could drink by changing all beverages to what he thought they should contain. Meanwhile, I think he way overreacted in his retort, implying that I'm an aspartame-lover, which isn't the case at all. I just like Diet Coke the way it is. Anyway, my initial reaction was to be hurt by his pretty knee-jerk response, and I immediately removed the link to his blog from my recommended links list down in the lower left-hand corner of this blog page. I'm sort of countering that by writing about his blog here and including links to it. That's because Constance is now making me feel a twinge of guilt — normally I enjoy reading his posts and agree with him. I just think that in his zeal to advocate Splenda, he maybe misunderstood my point. So I'm trying to make myself feel a little better by writing here in an effort to explain what I really meant a little better.

I don't tell the Splenda folks what to eat or drink by saying that Splenda should be removed from everything; so I don't think they have any business telling me what I can eat or drink by campaigning to get rid of all aspartame. I just want to continue to be able to enjoy a beverage I really like. That's all.