diet coke plus

coca-cola's new diet coke plus is vanishing from the shelves of my local food lion + harris teeter. does this mean the new product, which the coke company started testing five months ago, is officially a flop?

i bought the new diet coke a few months ago because, as a new product in need of promotion, it was a dollar cheaper per six pack than the plain diet coke.

like a lot of people, i pooh-poohed the claims for its healthiness--enriched with 15% of some recommended vitamins + minerals.

yeah, right.

i'm still dubious about that. + probably promising people needed nutrients is not a winning marketing strategy for any soft drink.

but the new artificial sweeteners in plus make it taste better than the old diet coke.

it tastes sweeter because it contains both aspartame + another sweetener called acesulfame potassium (instead of the aspartame + saccharine in regular diet coke).

yum.

it's closer to the taste of coke classic, which a few of you may remember used to be just coke, until another product fiasco (new coke) made it necessary for coca-cola to make a clear distinction.

+ like victoria beckham, who says she drinks it because she doesn't like the taste of water, i'm pretty much addicted to diet coke, along with elton john + bill clinton--breakfast, lunch, dinner, + in between.

it's not that i can get all that worked up in defending the product.

pepsi has a better civil-rights record.

then there's that nasty 2005 report that coke, even with its 100% hrc rating, supports paramilitary ops to kill union organizers in colombia. if true, this is an issue we can't settle with just a taste test.

besides, none of it, coke or pepsi, diet or otherwise, plus or no plus, is really very good for you. diet soda is even counter-indicated for weight loss.

what surprises me is that the critics of diet coke plus have focused mainly on its marketing. forget human rights, health, + taste. they don't like the way it looks. some critics even slam the rainbow-colored "plus" logo--shouldn't gays take to the streets over this?

life will go on for me if diet coke plus disappears from the face of the earth.

now, maybe, i'll be reminded how much regular diet coke tastes like shit + then i'll switch to spring water + fruit juice.

yeah, right.