Diet Pop Is Not Pop

Or soda, for all you folks down south.  I'm not sure what it is; cancer would be my first guess, but it's certainly not pop.

Recently at a friend's house I spotted a case of Pepsi ZERO who's box proudly read, "One Calorie, Zero Carbs, Zero Sugar."

No carbs?  No sugar?  So why does this taste so sweet?  What makes up this beverage claiming to be a Pepsi?  But most importantly: what the hell is this?

Pop is made with loads of sugar, syrup, and yeast.  It's a high calorie, high sugar drink.  Pop was not made for every day consumption, in the words of Cookie Monster, "it's a sometimes food."  If you need to have a pop every day, well, then you have a problem.  And if you're on a diet, pop is probably the last thing you need. 

I could go into the cases that document migraines, among other ailments, caused by that fake sugar they use in diet pop.  I could remind you that people who drink diet pop are more likely to eat more sugary foods later in the day than non-diet drinkers, craving the sugar they didn't get from their drink, completely undermining the low-calness of it all.  Or I could just point out that you probably can't pronounce the majority of the things on that list of ingredients on your diet pop.  Does that not say something? 

For all you Diet drinkers out there I want to say something very important:

DON'T DRINK THAT, THAT'S NOT POP! 

I have no idea what it is, but it sure as hell isn't pop.