You could add “The pernicious rise of …” to the start of this title and be somewhere close to how I feel about this stuff. What has prompted this particular rant though happened on Sunday at the local superstore. I was looking for some fruit squash (cordial) to mix with fizzy water; it’s one of my preferred sorts of soft drink.
Now, at this point, I’ll come clean and say that I hate Aspartame. I don’t like the taste, which I feel stands out like a sore thumb, and I still don’t trust the stuff after the ‘issues’ surrounding it and mental function a number of years back. But that’s fine, if you are a person who doesn’t mind the stuff and want to drink diet drinks I can understand completely. But I don’t. I buy ‘high juice’ squash to put in my water since it has a much higher concentration of real fruit and a markedly lower concentration of artificial crap, including Aspartame.So, imagine my surprise to find that only TWO varieties of high juice lacked the dreaded phrase ‘no added sugar’ on the label! This phrase in the UK is synonymous with ‘contains Aspartame.’ There was no choice, no ‘added sugar’ version next door on the shelf.
WHY?
Why take a product which is selling itself on having a high proportion of fruit juice (and therefore natural fruit sugars) and then debase it with this vile rubbish? Why? If you want a low sugar cordial then fructose rich high juice is probably not the thing for you. And if it is, then don’t assume that everyone will want this.
So, now the hunt is on. Who’s still producing ‘high juice’ that is worthy of the moniker?