Diet Coke and Artificial Sweetners

So.... for those of you who don't know me, I am in love with Diet Coke. I am not just saying that's the soda I prefer, it's just about the only soda I will drink. I'll occasionally dabble around, but I always come back. I am the person who immediately judges a restaurant that carries Pepsi products. I am also not satisfied with Coke Zero. If I wanted a soda that tasted like real Coke, I'd drink real Coke. Just ask my ex about my melt down at Break n Bread when there was only Coke Zero... you would have thought the world was ending by the way I was talking. Hmmm, I wonder if my relationship with Diet Coke had anything to do... um, let's not go there!

But then as all bad relationships go, I became addicted to the evil love that is Diet Coke. I mean really... why should I like - no love - this weird fake sweet brown chemical liquid? There is absolutely nothing natural about it. Wouldn't evolution teach us that murky brown water probably isn't a good idea to drink? And let's not even consider the environmental impact that my addiction has had on the planet (though... one saving grace, I am mostly a canned soda kind of girl).

This blog is all about eating in a more natural way, and most of the time I am washing this delicious food down with this horrible unnatural drink. I've even tried the Crystal Lite road, and there is just something about those drinks that turn me off.

I have tried many times to give up Diet Coke, and usually I can only agree to some severe moderation. However, this has got to stop. It's not just Diet Coke, but it's also all the other artificial sweeteners in my life - it's the diet foods I sometimes eat and all the fake sweeteners I put in drinks and food.

It's just not good! So... I am going to try to give it up for good. Maybe not cold turkey, but a slow phasing out if you will. I am hoping that just in the way that I can no longer enjoy snack cakes (they taste like plastic), that I'll eventually take a swig of Diet Coke and my taste buds will scream to spit out the sweet toxic bliss.

Have any of you fought the artificial sweetener battle? Did you come out on top or have you slipped back into it's sweet seduction?