lemon and lime with no artificial sweeteners (Sprite)

Member Name: mjc121

Product:	Sprite
Date:	08/08/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: no artificial sweeteners

Disadvantages: high is sugar

As I have intolerance to aspartame I have to be careful which soft drinks I buy. Whilst this means I have to avoid all 'diet' and 'X Zero' drinks etc it also means most lemonades (which contain both sugar and sweeteners) are also off limits. The reason why sweeteners are used is because it is cheaper than sugar as the chemical sweetener is supposed to be several thousand times sweeter so you need so much less of it.


Fortunately for me sprite does not contain these chemical nasties and so a few 500ml bottles are regularly in my fridge. Another advantage of this is that it contains no artificial colours, flavours or caffeine either which is always good.

Sprite is a lemon and lime flavour sparkling soft drink so it is a bit similar to 7up however; I find sprite is perhaps slightly heavier on the lime (good for me as I prefer lime to lemon). This is good as although the drink is quite sweet the acidity does cut through this well and there is no chemical laden after taste. It also does not lose its fizz quickly and it is to me very refreshing especially if it is served straight from the fridge in a pint glass with lots of ice. One of the drawbacks is that sometimes after drinking it I feel like I have a coating of sugar all over my teeth especially if I drink it too quickly. For this I find it is best drunk whilst I am eating something.

Sprite also makes quite a good mixer with vodka but I wouldn't advise it with dark spirits such as whiskey and dark rum as the lime flavour would not go well with the complicated flavours of a good whiskey. I haven't tried it yet with white rum but I always think white rum goes best with coke.

Sprite is available in the regular sizes of the 330 ml can, 500 ml bottle as well as the larger sized bottles the most common probably being the 2 L bottle. I normally buy the 500 ml bottle as a can is a bit too much in one sitting and they can't be resealed where the bottle can be. The price of these will vary depending on where you buy it. Most shops will sell them for around the 80p mark but in some places such as sports centres they can go up to £1.20 or more.

Like all soft drinks it should be drunk in moderation as it is high in sugar. A serving is classed as 250 ml so this means a can is more than a serving.

Nutritional info per 250ml serving:

Energy - 109 Kcal
Sugars - 26.4g
Fat - 0g
Salt - 0.1g

The down side is that despite the fact it contains no artificial colours, flavourings or sweeteners it does still contain E211 better known as Sodium Benzoate. This has been linked to hyperactivity in children but it is an ongoing study.

There is also the low calorie version of this but due to my aforementioned problem with sweeteners I haven't tried this.

Summary: a refreshing change