Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — PepsiCo says it's dropping aspartame from Diet Pepsi in response to customer feedback and replacing it with sucralose, another artificial sweetener commonly known as Splenda. The decision to swap sweeteners comes as Americans keep turning away from popular diet sodas. Competitor Coca-Cola said this week that sales volume for Diet Coke, which also uses aspartame, fell 5 percent in North America in the first three months of the year. Executives at Coke and Pepsi blame the declines on perceptions that aspartame isn't safe. That's even though the Food and Drug Administration says aspartame, best known by...

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/090726-the-push-to-expand-bottle-bills.html

Norwegian homosexuals are set to launch their own soda brand, Homo light, at an upcoming gastronomic festival, in the hope that it will help promote tolerance, one of the authors of the project said today. "The goal is not for us to make money but to make us more visible and accepted," Oeystein Mauritzen said. Pear-flavoured and pink, Homo Light will go on sale as a one-time offer at a stand at a gastronomic festival in the southwestern town of Stavanger between July 27 and 30. Along with the soda, which will be sold in half-litre bottles for 20 kroner...