But Aspartame tastes like ass to me. It leaves that nasty chemical aftertaste in your mouth. I have no idea how people can't taste the difference between sugar and aspartame.
You're just unlucky. The taste issue is determined by genetics [1], although the grossest taste is often the result of sweeteners combined with aspartame, like Ace K.
Sweetener mixes are made so that most people will not taste a gross aftertaste. Some people will experience a bitter aspartame taste, and others will experience a very chemical aftertaste for other sweeteners, but the majority of the market doesn't.
It's just how much you are used to it/individual preferences. Same thing as with any other taste, e.g. spicy food.
To me, sugar drinks feel displeasing. Aspartame doesn't taste like sugar, but it's sweet and that's fine. Most of the taste is the sour one from CO2, citric acid and phosphoric acid anyway.
Same here. It's not even the difference in sweetness, it's just the disgusting aftertaste that lingers forever. I've never gotten how people can drink Coke Zero voluntarily. Too bad they only sell caffeine-free Coke Zero and not the caffeine-free regular where I live, so I gave it another chance not long ago, but noped out after the first sip. It's undrinkable.
Though I prefer actual sugar, some low-sugar drinks use stevia, which doesn't have the same drinking-chemical-runoff taste of aspartame.
Yeah this is really starting to cause problems as things like this sugar tax push companies into adding sweetener to their "normal" versions. I now can't simply buy a Coke and know it will taste like Coke - I need to inspect the packaging and check if it will taste disgusting or not.
It's fine that they exist but presenting them as being full sugar when they aren't is false advertising.
I've never seen a soft drink sweetened with Xylitol. Is this a store brand thing? Most soft drinks I encounter seem to be sweetened by a combination of aspartame and acesulfame K.
Xylitol seems to be common in candy (especially chewing gum) and deserts, but I don't think that's relevant to a soda tax.
Perhaps you know of a commercial soft drink sweetened with xylitol that I don't?
Your article makes no claims either way as to whether non-sugar sweeteners are more or less healthy than sugar.
I believe the general consensus is that they are healthier (but like vapes and cigarettes if you can avoid both from the start or use the harm reduction one to taper off entirely you're winning) so why are you trying to suggest otherwise without evidence?
This is about soft drinks (that's all the levy applies to). In 99% of cases the substitute is aspartame. I don't think it's ever xylitol, is it? That's normally used to substitute for small amounts of sugar, not the huge quantities found in soft drinks. The digestive effects of that much xylitol would be unpleasant.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy