Diet Pepsi Commercial (1978)

@Ghostinthemachine I’m pretty sure it was saccharine.

@bijouxbroussard do they still use it?

@Ghostinthemachine I looked it up; they use aspartame (Equal) and sucralose (Splenda). Saccharine is rarely used now, it’s why Tab isn’t readily available anymore.

@bijouxbroussard I wonder why 😧

@Ghostinthemachine Studies conducted in the 1970s showed a possible association between consumption of saccharine and bladder cancer. Further studies did not confirm a cancer link in humans, but by then most users had abandoned it. A similar finding resulted in a previous artificial sweetener, cyclamates, being banned in the early 1970s.

@Ghostinthemachine Saccharine is pretty bad for you longterm.

@windinhishair @bijouxbroussard I would believe anything artificial is not good to put into your body.
Stevia is a natural no calorie sweetener I don’t mind

@Ghostinthemachine I grew stevia a few years ago to try it out. It was a very interesting experiment, and the leaves were indeed very sweet!

@Ghostinthemachine I use stevia or monkfruit, another natural sweetener.

@windinhishair Was it an easy plant to grow, and how did you use it?

@Ghostinthemachine It was easy to grow. It grows as a perennial shrub in the deep south, but here in the north I grew it as an annual, like a mint. My intention was to dry the leaves and pulverize them into a powder for use as a sweetener, but work got in the way and I did not. I may grow it again sometime.

@windinhishair That’s very clever. I should try it. Though we may not have a garden this year

@Ghostinthemachine I think you would enjoy it. It doesn't take much space. You could probably do it as a container garden by taking a bag of potting soil, putting a couple of holes in it, and planting stevia plants in the holes. Keep it watered, and you can harvest the stevia as you wish. It would also grow in a pot pretty well too.

@windinhishair Thank you for the advice and optimism