I grew up on aspartame. Ever since I can remember, I was drinking several cans of diet coke every day, even as a young child. It is all my parents drank too. I never really learned to drink much else. When I got into high school and college, I added a variety of more sugary drinks such as mountain dew and dr. pepper. While they did not have aspartame, I don't think it was ever good for me to drink only soda for all my liquid intake. Since then, I started drinking diet caffeine free dr. pepper. I thought it was better for me, because it had no calories or caffeine. I was wrong. Although caffeine is bad for me, since I have tourette's syndrome, and going off it did me a world of good, I think the aspartame really affected me. I read somewhere that it can actually spike your blood sugar more than real sugar. I have insulin resistance, so this is not good. So, lately I have been drinking Dr. thunder (which is a knock off brand of dr. pepper), but it is not diet. I am also drinking less of it, and adding juice and water. I feel a lot better than when I drank all that aspartame. I don't know what it is, exactly. Just feel better. No more aspartame for me. That stuff is worse than sugar itself.

Oh, one drink I found at walmart a couple weeks ago was called Honest Aid. It contains organic pomegranate and blueberry juice, and also organic sugar cane. It tasted great. Half the sugar content of other drinks like it. I will be getting that drink more often. Every ingredient had the word organic in front of it.