Diet drinks, first popular in the 1960s, were introduced by Royal Crown Cola as a diet soda alternative. Diet Rite, a no-calorie drink, was launched in 1958 as an option for diabetics and other consumers who needed to lose weight. The brand’s owners replaced the commonly used aspartame with a blend of acesulfame K and sucralose, which Diet Rite claims makes its drink more effective.
After over six decades of ingredient formulations, flavor introductions, and marketing evolutions, Diet Rite soda is now produced by beverage giant Keurig Dr Pepper, rather than the smaller RC Cola. The diet soda segment, which includes diet and zero-calorie branded drinks, has ballooned since it first hit the mainstream in the 1960s. Diet Rite was first introduced in 1933 and is still available today, but there is no word on whether or not it still contains the same ingredients as it did back then.
RC Cola has been around for over 100 years and is still going strong. Diet Rite, an American brand of no-calorie soft drinks, has progressed from a small startup to an industry pioneer, changing formulations and owners with the times. Today, Diet Rite is available in cola, white grape, tangerine, black cherry, cherry cola, and red raspberry flavors.
Diet Rite has continued its tradition of excellence by offering a cola with zero calories, carbs, caffeine, and sodium. However, the Dr Pepper Company in Plano, TX claims that Diet Rite has not been discontinued and should be available.
📹 Diet Rite: The Forgotten King of Diet Sodas
Step back in time with our latest video as we uncover the fascinating history of Diet Rite! From its groundbreaking introduction in …
Does Diet Rite cola still exist?
Diet Rite, an American brand of no-calorie soft drinks, was initially distributed by RC Cola and introduced in 1955. It was initially marketed as a dietetic product but was later marketed as a healthful beverage in 1962. The original formula was sweetened with cyclamate and saccharin. After cyclamate was banned in 1969, NutraSweet brand aspartame was added, and saccharin was replaced with caffeine in 1987. In the 1990s, fruit-flavored varieties were introduced.
In 2000, the line was reformulated with sucralose and potassium from Splenda and Sunnet, becoming the first major diet soda in the United States to use neither. In 2005, “Pure Zero” was added, and a cherry cola flavor was introduced in 2006.
Is Diet Rite good for you?
The consumption of diet soda, which contains artificial sweeteners and other chemicals, is generally safe for most people and has no credible evidence of carcinogenic risk. Some varieties are fortified with vitamins and minerals. Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to consider diet soda a health beverage or a solution for weight loss.
Is Diet Coke still being made?
Diet Coke, a popular beverage brand since 1982, has been relaunched with a new visual identity, a contemporary design, a new marketing campaign, and a range of innovative flavors. The brand’s objective is to preserve its fundamental identity while simultaneously modernizing it in a manner that will resonate with a new generation of consumers, thereby ensuring its sustained popularity.
When did they stop making RC Cola?
The United States government prohibited the utilization of the artificial sweetener cyclamate, which ultimately resulted in the resolution of the issue.
Is Diet Rite safe to drink?
The consumption of a moderate amount of diet soda on a daily basis is considered safe due to the use of artificial sweeteners and other chemical additives. There is currently no credible evidence to suggest that these ingredients cause cancer.
Why is it so hard to find Diet Coke right now?
The company is responding to challenges in the supply chain, which have arisen due to an increase in demand for home products and shortages of aluminum and certain ingredients. The company is working in close collaboration with customers and suppliers to guarantee the uninterrupted availability of its products. Furthermore, it is developing strategies to address potential supply chain challenges as they arise.
What company owns Diet Rite cola?
Diet Rite, an American brand of non-caloric soft drinks, was initially distributed by RC Cola and first introduced in 1955. The brand is currently owned and distributed by Keurig Dr Pepper. For further information on food, please refer to the following article.
Why is there no Diet Coke in Europe?
The American Diet Coke and European Coke Light have the same ingredients, except for the addition of sodium benzoate. Although not banned in Europe, the European Commission limits its use in food and drink. The recipe for all Coke types is secret, but sweetness levels are altered based on local preferences. Coke is manufactured in different factories worldwide, and variations in water used may affect flavor. However, detecting water differences through artificial sweeteners and flavorings is considered genius and could lead to sommelier training.
Why is diet soda disappearing from stores?
The history of diet soda dates back to 1942 when consumers began to worry about the health consequences of drinking soda. The first diet soda, No-Cal, was created in 1952 for people with diabetes and cardiovascular problems. It promised the delicious taste of regular soda without the sugar and calories, using cyclamate, an artificial sweetener discovered in a University of Illinois chemistry lab. Today, the “diet” label is disappearing from soda shelves as millennials and Gen Z turn away from dieting culture in favor of healthier alternatives. The decline in diet soda is a result of a shift in consumer preferences and the need for healthier alternatives.
Is Diet Rite the diet version of RC Cola?
RC Cola, a leading beverage company, introduced several innovations in the 1930s, including the first low-calorie diet cola, caffeine-free diet cola, and diet cherry cola. It also introduced the all-aluminum beverage can and Royal Crown Draft cola, a premium cola made with pure sugar cane. The brand was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes plc in 2000 and is now owned by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages. The name “RC” was chosen by its consumers, who affectionately abbreviated it to “RC” as the soft drink became more successful.
How old is Diet Rite cola?
In 1958, the Royal Crown Co. introduced Diet Rite, the inaugural diet soft drink on the market. It offered health-conscious consumers a cola beverage that was both low in calories and free of sodium and caffeine. It is regrettable to note that the item in question is currently unavailable for purchase.
📹 The Cult Of Diet Coke
Ahh… the diet drink phase… Tab, Diet Rite, even Coca Cola got into the craze! Come join us as we trace the origins of diet soda, …
I was a Coke drinker until my A1C got a little high. I switched to Diet Coke and after I got healthy again, I couldn’t handle the sweetness of regular coke anymore. 😂 If you’re friends with your local convenience store manager, they can talk to the Coke guy if the mix is a little weird and he can adjust it. Another big thing with the flavor is the dispenser tips getting cleaned regularly. As far as the aspartame, on the rare occasions I make myself give up soda, with regular coke I was a little tired, but with Diet Coke I felt like I had a flu for 4-5 days. Weight loss 😂😂😂😂 I have been at a healthy weight drinking both. I have been at an unhealthy weight drinking both. The only thing that affects my weight is how much I move my body.😂
Okay, things I’ve experienced firsthand. 1: I cannot stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, natural (stevia, etc.) included. And there should be a posted warning on everything that uses them. 2: My girl in my 20s was addicted to Tab. We went on a “vacation” to SoCal soon after they stopped selling it in NorCal. Conveniently she was able to fill (FILL!) her trunk with flats of Tab while we were there. I think there were a couple of 12ers in the back seat as well. 3: My buddy at work used to run the vending machines. The soda vend had two hoppers for Diet Coke. When I asked about it he said “Most of the office staff drink it and they get very angry when it runs out. It seems to be a thing with Diet Coke fans.”.
I was a Diet Coke addict for years. I would drink 8-10 cans a day. It was bad. I quit about 8.5 years ago and I cannot go anywhere near it now. My husband still drinks it but not as much as I ever did. I feel much better not drinking it. I had bladder control issues from it plus the caffeine made my sleep horrible. It was terrible. People dont realize how bad it is. I tasted it a while ago and it’s horrible. It’s like pure chemical tasting. Ugh.
When I first heard System of a Down, I saw their article for “Sugar.” In the article, there was a brief image of a cherry pie, and it said, “Aspartame kills “. It stuck with me, and eventually, I learned that stuff was in Diet Coke. I stayed away from that stuff since, and eventually, cut down on soda altogether. If I do drink a soda nowadays, I’ll have a Mexican coke.
30 years in the restaurant business here. Basically, I watch people “consume” for a full-time living. When people order a regular coke, they only have one, and sometimes they don’t even finish the whole thing. When people order a DIET coke, they get a second EVERY SINGLE TIME, and often a 3rd or 4th. I don’t know if it’s because the fake sugar tells your body to crave real sugar, or maybe the person who has a consumption issue themselves which led them to believe drinking “diet” stuff would somehow make them lose weight but either way, it’s just a fact of perusal people consume for sooo many years that eventually it can’t be ignored. The only way a “diet” anything is going to work is if you eat/drink it in the same portion size of the regular stuff. If you buy sugar free ice cream and eat the entire container in one sitting, the person eating a normal scoop of “regular” rocky road is going to have a better physique than you from now until the end of time.
Some years ago, I dated a man from metro Minneapolis who was a Diet Coke addict. He would drink Diet Coke for breakfast, right before bed, throughout the day, etc. Always consumed from the same stainless steel car cup (filled with ice) and always from countless cans that he opened per day. He claimed that Diet Coke from a can was ‘fizzier’ than from a 2 litre bottle. He also claimed that as a recovering alcoholic, drinking Diet Coke was ‘healthy’ and ‘better than booze’ and ‘nothing to worry about’. However, when actually keeping track of how much Diet Coke he drank, we discovered that he was consuming between three to four LITRES per day and every day. No, he didn’t feel that was excessive. Yes, our relationship didn’t last more than a month or so (no regrets dumping him!).
I was hooked on it at 9 years old. It took me 28 years to kick the habit and the aspartame addiction I had. It hurts the liver and now all sweeteners hurt my stomach. I now only drink mexican coke as a treat and get it rarely. I now drink sparkling water (with no artificial sweetners) and reg water as my main drinks. My a1c has drastically went down and my blood pressure went way down too.
I love Coke Zero. I have a sensitivity to real sugar and the various Zero products bring unhealthy max joy to my life. Sprite Zero is my favorite since it’s caffeine free and, well, Sprite. Of course, water is best and unless Im feeling depressed, sodas are out. But hey, once it’s been cloudy for six weeks straight, Coke Zero and Sprite Zero it is! 😂❤🎉
A few nitpicks: Diet Coke was developed before Nutrasweet was approved. It had to work as a saccharin sweetened drink first, and to get this to work, Coke just kept tweaking a diet cola-ish formula until they found something that tasted pretty good with the least amount of complaints that people had about diet sodas of that era. The fact that it didn’t taste anything like Coke Proper was not a concern, it was not the goal. Aspartame had been around for over a decade though and they had to been considering how well this drink would work with it whenever it finally got green-lit by the FDA. And don’t forget the whole (sugary) New Coke fiasco. That new formula? An offshoot of Diet Coke experimentation, just with fructose.
I am a devoted and loyal member of the Diet Coke Cult. To me DC is superior in taste to Coke Zero, I don’t generally like Coke Zero, it’s too sweet. I’ll drink it if that’s what someone has, but deep down I am always longing for the silver can. I think I’ll be drinking a can of Diet Coke on my deathbed.
I’ve been a total slave to Diet Coke my whole life, and I really can’t pinpoint why. I’ve loved it since I was a child. I always got one every time my family went out to eat (I was the only one who would ever order it too). I think my taste buds just respond really well to artificial sweeteners, because I also LOVE Splenda.
The problem is in overseas markets Diet Coke is becoming harder to find, especially Asia! And contrary to popular belief many of us don’t drink it with the intention to lose weight, but rather we can’t have sugar or for me the taste of Diet Coke is bold, crisp, and refreshing without the sugar crash and syrupy stomach feel of Regular Coke! Don’t get me wrong, I love them both at the right time and place!
I never liked sugar drinks, so, I started drinking Coke Light because it was the only one available at the time. When Coke Zero came out, it was better. Unfortunately, when they changed the formula to the current Coke Zero Calories, the taste changed for the worse. I went back to Coke Light and sticking with it.
TAB was awesome as hell, shoulda never gotten rid of it >:| I’m not a huge Diet Coke fan in the least, but Diet Cherry Coke is somehow absolutely incredible, same with Diet Cherry Pepsi! Along with Diet Cherry Dr Pepper, all three brands nailed it out of the gate. (sadly, Dr Pepper feared they made it TOO good and destroyed it, and Coca-Cola’s offering is often MIA)
The reason aspartame seems to “not help in weight loss” is because it doesn’t change people’s bad habits of consuming too much sugar. Often people will think that since they cut the sugar out from a regular pop, that justifies them to consume more candy or other un healthy foods. Also the study about cancer was not realistic and showed humans would need to basically consume over a bathtub size worth of aspartame every day to see negative effects. So yeah… I think diet and zero are the way to go.
I have never come across a “Diet” or “Sugar-Free” soda that didn’t taste noticeably worse than the original. As a result I have never understood the cult around Diet Coke. It just tastes like a weaker coke with the added “joy” of a nasty aftertaste. It’s not actually better for you, it’s sometimes WORSE overall and you get a crappy aftertaste to boot? seems like a winner.
Nah I’m a Diet Pepsi/pepsi zero man myself. I prefer a sweeter tasting cola and Pepsi has always been my go to since highschool. The only times I’m drinking Diet Coke products is when I’m forced to by the place I’m at who doesn’t have Pepsi. You come to my house and I usually have an entire crisper drawer in my fridge dedicated to Diet Pepsi and mtn dew zero. My friends think it’s awesome. They’ll just come over to my house to watch some tv or play games and I’m like “what do you guys wanna drink?” And they see the full drawer of ice cold Pepsi products and are just like “this place is so chill. Gimme a mtn dew zero” 🤣
None. Artificial sweeteners burn. Chemical burn, not spicy burn. I don’t enjoy having my mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, intestines, kidneys, & bladder “burn” for anywhere from a few hours to a day-&-a-half. I can always taste when someplace has screwed up, & hooked in a diet drink into one of the non-diet drinks. Not happy is an understatement, when that happens (since my sense of taste is now gone for most of a week — the burning is short lived, the fact all taste is gone is infuriating). Fast food places are the biggest offenders. Especially with those all-in-one dispensers for Coke~Cola products (the ones with the touch screens, & a single dispensing nozzle). As to the “Silver Bullet” — when is white cans with red lettering “silver” anyth…oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were color blind. My apologies.
Mcdonalds Manager here. Our diet coke is NOT any different than other fountain drinks. Our regular coke IS different but NOT DIET. We have a special tank of coke syrup that works on a different system than the rest that makes the mixture better but that is NOT true for any other drink at the fountain. Not diet coke. Not sprite. None of them. Just coke
I actually like the taste of Coke Zero over regular Coke or Pepsi. I actually like BOTH Coke Zero & Pepsi Zero. But Coke zero comes first in my list of fave sodas. Also, in my opinion…Coke Zero tastes so much better than all the diets and other zero’s. I tend to go for any of the Zero versions instead of Diets, though. They tend to have better flavor. Because ZERO versions of sodas have the closest taste to its original. I feel Coke Zero is better than regular Coke. The regulars are just tooooo sweet. There’s no need for all that sugar in the 1st place. In my opinion.
No, no, Tik Tok is gen Z, as a Millennial in my 30s now I’m not against it, and it’s nice to keep up with the kids, I like longer articles above 2 minutes, myself. I think the rest of the world can keep being weird to us well into our adult years, just leave the kids alone. They are ours now, and in 10 years I will blame the world’s problems on those young punks, doing stuff that no one knows about yet, and acting like children when they do. I hope I get mad at them for levitating too close to my yard, and I can dream it too, a REAL yard of my own… The punk kids lit the whole thing on fire, but it was a good dream for like a moment.
I rarely drink diet sodas. But if l did, l would go with Diet Pepsi. I don’t like regular Coke, never have. I do like Cherry Coke over Cherry Pepsi. I don’t taste like Coke flavor, maybe the cherry drowns out the Coke flavor, l don’t know. I like Cherry Pepsi but Cherry Coke has more cherry flavor. This is the only time that any Coke product topped my preference over a Pepsi product. I’m just not a Coke fanatic. Sorry Coke.
Just drink water, you ding-dongs!§! Water is the best thirst quencher. Wean your taste buds from the sugary (and salty) cravings. It’s take a while to recaliber your taste buds to normal food, but it’s worth it. I mean, what could be more senseless than paying a lot of money for a food product completely devoid of nutrition? The water is all you need, the rest is money down the toilet.
I was drinking about 9 or 10 Diet Cokes per day. I then read a piece by Abby Ellin, a NY Times contributor who described her own psychological dependency on them, and the immediate good effects she experienced from getting off of Aspartame by quitting the DC habit. I was inspired and did the same. For the first three days of cold turkey, I slept almost all day, but then I experienced more energy — and my hearing improved! My ear tubes had been clogged as an effect of too much aspartame. I felt so much better. Today, I limit myself to just a few Diet Cokes per week. I drink non-Aspartame G Zeros, and other beverages with no aspartame. It’s been a great move. Thank you, Abby!
You completely missed the age of cyclamates, an artificial sweetener used in the 1960s that could not be distinguished from sugar, but the sugar industry did a study on it and discovered if rats drank the equivalent of 150 cans of soda a day, they’d get cancer. Then they were banned forever. I remember cyclamates. Diet products tasted SO much better. These articles are just so sketchy and inaccurate.